1990s Airsoft History
Airsoft is a game that first gained its popularity in Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. However, when the gas-power gun gave way to cheaper-to-make plastic AEG's in Japan in the early to mid 1990s. The United States then began to see and adopt this game for itself in or about 1995.
In 1993, a non-rounded pellet was produced for the briefly lived Asahi M40 and M700 high-class airsoft rifles. This pellet was best known as the Asahi “Blade Bullet”, which is very difficult to locate and are awfully expensive. One of the main reasons for its short life was the incompatibility with the hop up feature.
In 1995 the first Airsoft players were paintball players who had switched to Airsoft because the weapons are so much more realistic than those which are used in the game of paintball. Even today, the majority of Airsoft competition still takes place on the paintball fields.
Growth of Automatic Electric Gun
As aforementioned, the creation of the Automatic Electric Gun (AEG) was a great moment for Airsoft. In fact, it was partially responsible for Airsoft's "boom" during the late 1990s. Basically, an AEG is powered by a battery that is similar to those that are found inside of hobby R/C cars. This battery operates a motor that turns gears inside of the gun to compress and release a piston, which in turn creates the blast of air that is necessary for propelling a 6mm BB through the gun's barrel. As such, it was a great improvement to these guns. These guns also provide Airsoft players a realistic Rate-Of-Fire (ROF), which ranges from 600 to 900 Rounds-Per-Minute (RPM). All of this mimics the capabilities of real steel firearms.
Increase in Fields and Games
A lot of the events that took place in the 1990s are still continuing on today. For instance, the number of fields that are dedicated to the Airsoft game is still slowly increasing. Furthermore, the AEG is still going strong today and is now making a powerful standard for all of the new Airsoft guns that are being created now.
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