Gentle reader,
If you've been following my blog, thank you! If you've stumbled across it, welcome! Regardless, thanks for stopping here and taking a look.
As a kid, I played Army. In fact, I'd signed up for JROTC in high school, but my dad talked me out of it. This was in the thick of the Viet Nam war. It was just as well as I was skinny and could not gain weight. As it turned out, when I did sign up for the US Air Force, they found I had a heart murmur.
It has since gone away and once middle age approached, the weight gain, wasn't a problem either. Sigh. Well, 6'3" and 185# is right on. But to quote Paul Simon, "Why am I all soft in the middle?"
But I digress, we played Army with a Daisy cowboy style rifle and a wooden/metal trainer rifle that looked the part but didn't make a sound, which the Daisy did. Here is a link about the various toy and trainer rifles I collected then sold a few years back:
The Robb Collections: The Toy & Trainer Rifles collection
Here is a link showing my ISSC MK22 FN SCAR lookalike rifle which is chambered in 22LR:
The Robb Collections: ISSC MK22 rifle fully "tacticool"
So, now you have the back story. I had not heard of AIRSOFT or AIR SOFT until a few years ago, but am into it now. I started with a simple "spring" Viet Nam era M16 rifle. It works like a pinball machine. You pull the cocking lever, a pall pops up into the chamber, you pull the trigger and the spring-loaded rod you cocked releases and shoots the ball out. Pretty slow, but it works. For more on Air soft, Google it.
Then I bought one, and eventually four gas blow back air soft pistols. They use various pressurized gasses to shoot the balls out and they cycle the slide like a real pistol. See:
The Robb Collections: More on the Airsoft pistols
I sold all of them although one buyer never paid so I kept it. My nephew was shooting it as fast as his little fingers could, magazine after magazine until it finally stopped working. Since then I've bought a copy of a Glock 17 and have six or seven magazines for it.
Now, my wife is into real guns, so eventually she was able to get me into it. My interest has decreased as I don't like going to the range. If we lived out in the country somewhere that I could safely shoot in our back yard (like I can and do with air soft) I'm sure I'd still be into it. ANYWAY.
As to the subject of this blog, I finally bought a used air soft version of the FN SCAR L or Mark 16 rifle which some of the US Special Forces use and my nephew Matt has one. See:
The Robb Collections: 22 caliber guns
Now you have seen what a real, black FN SCAR looks like and what my ISSC MK22 looked like before I got it out of it's New York/California mode. Below is what the D-boys SCAR looked like when I got it:
Note the required orange tip that lets people, especially police, know it is not a real weapon, but the commonly used "pellet gun". Although pellet guns use metal ammo and can kill, air soft uses hard plastic balls which in the right circumstances might kill, but how?
The tip, which is a flash suppressor designed to reduce the flash seen by the person shooting so they can see down range and/or not be blinded if in low or no light. That tip was broken, and even though it threads on and off, they had pegged it in place. Didn't even slow me down.
I'd bought a locally made fake silencer for my G17. It goes on in place of the flash suppressor or "hider" and uses 14mm CCW threads. Well, the G17's barrel retracts when shot, so I couldn't use it. In fact, I hoped it was just over 6mm inside to act as a barrel extension, but it is bigger than that. Looks cool, but does nothing. So, to my delight, it screwed right on to the SCAR air soft. Note how short the barrel is? It came new with a longer barrel and this short one. On the real military version, they use the short barreled models for "clearing" rooms in structures. Easy to move around and a bad guy, if he tried to grab the barrel, has little to hold on to. So, without further ado, here are pictures of my 22 rifle set up like a sniper might use and my air soft rifle set up for close combat.
I am buying a new metal safety orange tip for the air soft so that I don't have the neighbors calling the police on my. This gun is called: AEG. Air soft Electric Gun. It uses a "gear box" which moves the balls and cocks and fires a piston which shoots it. This model shoots just under 400 feet per second and averages 15 rounds per second. That magazine holds 300 rounds. I always wondered why they sell bags which hold thousands of balls. Now I know. Full auto is FUN!
They also make these that are gas blow back. In that case the bolt cycles as well. Technically, one could ignite the gas as it leaves the barrel behind the round, but I think that is a BAD IDEA.
Below are many pictures that show comparisons of the two rifles. One lethal and legal, one just for fun, but I wouldn't want to feel a hard 6mm ball traveling 250 mph hitting me. People, a LOT of people, full grown people, really get fully into air soft. It's cleaner than paint ball and no one gets more than welts if they get hit in an unpadded area. I recently came across a video of 2000 people in an air soft battle! Google it. It looks so fun!
One thing you might be thinking or wondering, "Aren't air soft toys? All plastic?" Yes in that they are not real guns they are toys. All plastic? The cheap ones, yes. This one has all metal where the real one does and polymer where the real one does. In fact, I just weighed them. As they are ABOVE, the air soft weighs 9 pounds, 13 ounces, the ISSC, 9 pounds 10 ounces. That's with the all metal bipod attached.
Note, aside from the serial number, the air soft has no decorations. Fabrique Nationale Herstal has authorized some air soft companies to replicate and decorate them, D-boys isn't one of them.
ISSC's sights are quite different from FN's. Both sets are fully metal. The air soft's are both adjustable.
The air soft has what is called "selectable fire". See the three positions above? No civilian legal, military style rifle is select fire. Semi-automatic which means one trigger pull, one bullet.
Again, ISSC's site doesn't match FN's.
ISSC added details and decorations to further remove itself from legal action from FNH.
Both are ambidextrous and allow for moving the cocking lever to the opposite side. ISSC made for six location choices. Also note the side rails are longer on the ISSC. I put rubber rail covers on it.
ISSC has added a small rail under the gas block which is ideal for bipod placement.
All I've done so far with the SCAR clone is shoot up the snow in the back yard. We have a metal roof and discovered what those little things are along the bottom of most metal roofs: Snow stops.
The recent heavy snow came crashing off the roof front and rear, testing out dog's nerves and the integrity of our deck. So, I was shooting out the back door.
Since then, I bought some blaze orange tape and marked the fake silencer so that anyone seeing it will know that it is NOT a real firearm. I went ahead and marked the old toy Daisy air rifle and vintage M16 with the same tape so that no one will think any of the grandsons have anything but a toy in their hands. Safety first and always!
Thanks for looking!
Scott
The Robb Collections: The Toy & Trainer Rifles collection
Here is a link showing my ISSC MK22 FN SCAR lookalike rifle which is chambered in 22LR:
The Robb Collections: ISSC MK22 rifle fully "tacticool"
So, now you have the back story. I had not heard of AIRSOFT or AIR SOFT until a few years ago, but am into it now. I started with a simple "spring" Viet Nam era M16 rifle. It works like a pinball machine. You pull the cocking lever, a pall pops up into the chamber, you pull the trigger and the spring-loaded rod you cocked releases and shoots the ball out. Pretty slow, but it works. For more on Air soft, Google it.
Then I bought one, and eventually four gas blow back air soft pistols. They use various pressurized gasses to shoot the balls out and they cycle the slide like a real pistol. See:
The Robb Collections: More on the Airsoft pistols
I sold all of them although one buyer never paid so I kept it. My nephew was shooting it as fast as his little fingers could, magazine after magazine until it finally stopped working. Since then I've bought a copy of a Glock 17 and have six or seven magazines for it.
Now, my wife is into real guns, so eventually she was able to get me into it. My interest has decreased as I don't like going to the range. If we lived out in the country somewhere that I could safely shoot in our back yard (like I can and do with air soft) I'm sure I'd still be into it. ANYWAY.
As to the subject of this blog, I finally bought a used air soft version of the FN SCAR L or Mark 16 rifle which some of the US Special Forces use and my nephew Matt has one. See:
The Robb Collections: 22 caliber guns
Now you have seen what a real, black FN SCAR looks like and what my ISSC MK22 looked like before I got it out of it's New York/California mode. Below is what the D-boys SCAR looked like when I got it:
The tip, which is a flash suppressor designed to reduce the flash seen by the person shooting so they can see down range and/or not be blinded if in low or no light. That tip was broken, and even though it threads on and off, they had pegged it in place. Didn't even slow me down.
I'd bought a locally made fake silencer for my G17. It goes on in place of the flash suppressor or "hider" and uses 14mm CCW threads. Well, the G17's barrel retracts when shot, so I couldn't use it. In fact, I hoped it was just over 6mm inside to act as a barrel extension, but it is bigger than that. Looks cool, but does nothing. So, to my delight, it screwed right on to the SCAR air soft. Note how short the barrel is? It came new with a longer barrel and this short one. On the real military version, they use the short barreled models for "clearing" rooms in structures. Easy to move around and a bad guy, if he tried to grab the barrel, has little to hold on to. So, without further ado, here are pictures of my 22 rifle set up like a sniper might use and my air soft rifle set up for close combat.
They also make these that are gas blow back. In that case the bolt cycles as well. Technically, one could ignite the gas as it leaves the barrel behind the round, but I think that is a BAD IDEA.
Below are many pictures that show comparisons of the two rifles. One lethal and legal, one just for fun, but I wouldn't want to feel a hard 6mm ball traveling 250 mph hitting me. People, a LOT of people, full grown people, really get fully into air soft. It's cleaner than paint ball and no one gets more than welts if they get hit in an unpadded area. I recently came across a video of 2000 people in an air soft battle! Google it. It looks so fun!
The recent heavy snow came crashing off the roof front and rear, testing out dog's nerves and the integrity of our deck. So, I was shooting out the back door.
Since then, I bought some blaze orange tape and marked the fake silencer so that anyone seeing it will know that it is NOT a real firearm. I went ahead and marked the old toy Daisy air rifle and vintage M16 with the same tape so that no one will think any of the grandsons have anything but a toy in their hands. Safety first and always!
Thanks for looking!
Scott
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