Airsoft is evolving, and so too are airsoft players. Looking around on social media, the humble spring sniper rifle seems to be disappearing from many snipers’ loadouts. But why? Has technology advanced so far that it’s now redundant, the range advantage that was once all-conquering now gone as the rest of the field catches up? Has speedsoft changed the way we play airsoft for good?

I’m sifting through a sea of “try not to laugh” sniper videos on YouTube, which is pretty easy because they’re not funny. And in many of them, ghillie snipers in the last couple of years are using assault rifles, pistols, SMG’s, miniguns, drones and pretty much anything but a bolt action sniper rifle. I understand a few of them have sponsors who need a bit of tongue action, but I’m starting to see it at skirmish as well. There was a surge a few years ago of bolt action popularity but it’s dying down rapidly. Even Novritsch, perhaps the most well known of us, seems to have turned his attention to churning out assault rifles and pistols.

The bolt action rifle used to be a very useful weapon on the airsoft field because it was able to deliver silent, accurate shots at nearly double the range of anything else. The sniper was a dangerous opponent. However, other weapons now are improving on their range and accuracy, with much higher rates of fire and unfortunately more joules. I’ve found myself matched for range by suspicious M4’s at my local and there’s not really a lot I can do about it. So have we reached a point where the bolt action just isn’t competitive enough? Perhaps, if you play the game to win. Maybe it’s looked upon as slow, ponderous and unwieldy. No longer the best option. And since the development of the VSR all those years ago, the industry hasn’t been able to improve on it or offer any noticeable advancements, whereas the assault rifles of today are far different to what we had 20 years ago. It’s a dinosaur in many eyes, no longer championed by the influencers that seem to control much of the community’s thoughts, and don’t trend like they used to.

I posed this question to some teammates;

If you were going to participate in a four-man team tournament, at an unknown site, with unknown objectives, would you take a sniper rifle?

The answer was no, and fairly quickly. The bolt action fulfils a very specific role on the field. It isn’t any good in close-quarters situations due to the minimum engagement distance, and the fact that you can’t exactly be quick on the trigger. It isn’t going to effectively dispatch multiple targets, it won’t have the weight of fire to aggressively defend a position, and it isn’t going to suppress an enemy squad. It isn’t the best platform for either attacking or defending which accounts for the bulk of most games. The obvious answer to the question was to take an assault rifle – the jack-of-all-trades workhorse of the airsoft world, although we debated several alternatives. It’s a tournament situation as well, and you’d want to try and win which means being able to deal with everything that is thrown at you, and herein lies part of the problem.

Once upon a time, we played purely for the experience. Nobody really kept score, and win or lose, you had a great time. It’s perhaps the paintball community that has embraced airsoft that brings with it a more competition-focused mindset, hence the introduction of speedsoft. Which is fine, separated into its own arena. But making skirmish and milsim a “must-win” environment means that everyone is looking for any advantage possible. The best of all loadouts. The fastest firing gun. Ways to cheat chrono for extra range. Bending rules and labelling anyone who points it out as a “snowflake” to cover dickhead behaviour. Camping spawns. Pretending you’re dead when you’re not. Non hit taking. Toxic cheaters. Arguments. It reads almost like a game day with Kicking Mustang.

This in turn drives everyone else to seek out more advantages so as not to get left behind. Night vision was once a ridiculous luxury but now equips a good portion of the field. Every gun needs to be some marvel of engineering and anything “stock” is frowned upon. And there are ghillie suits everywhere.

The ghillie snipers with assault rifles though are perhaps not snipers; they certainly don’t play like one. It’s probably more correct that it’s an AEG player with a ghillie on. Trying to mesh both sides of the game into one, offering more firepower but playing about as stealthily as a brick in a washing machine. Lower profile rigs, higher speed clothing. Padded slings…

And yet for all the advantages we try to give ourselves, the standard of play at site seems lower. Doing the rounds at the moment on a few Milsim pages is the phrase “it’s a skill issue“, and for a lot of players now it definitely is. There isn’t the patience and attention span to want to learn how to play. There’s little reflection along the lines of “I made a wrong decision there” or “that wasn’t the right route to take”. Instead, thoughts immediately turn to “I need a better motor”, “I need a higher rate of fire” or “I need a better plate carrier”. The chase is on to create some kind of super-player by buying better kit, not by practice.

With all these advances then, is there a place for the bolt-action equipped sniper? The role now is still as valid as it ever was, if it is a skilled player doing it. It was never going to assault positions or defend flags, and it never will. What changed in terms of the capability of the sniper to be effective, was a drop in the proficiency of those playing it. Having an invisible shooter able to provide a threat to an area, deliver intel and reconnaissance to a team, and pick off lone players to hinder enemy progress is still an asset to a team. A good sniper is a force multiplier, worth several other players, and that also hasn’t changed.

I had a conversation once with an MTW user who had ditched their single-shot springer in favour of something with a full auto switch. When I asked why, he said it was for quicker follow up shots than he could deliver on his VSR. Yet the solution should be to have the patience to practice hitting first time, so that a follow up shot isn’t needed. And if you miss the opportunity first time, a quick follow up shot is going to make it easier for the enemy players to work out where you are. It’s quiet, but it encourages a different style of play – one that is more driven towards kills than a stealthy defence. An effective weapon in its own right, but neither a straight replacement for a bolt action nor an upgrade. Yes, the MTW is becoming a stand-out performer among the rest of the field and has many advantages that its owners will enjoy telling you about. There are some superbly engineered weapons out there for airsoft players these days but the weapon does not make a good player.

Truth is, there just isn’t a platform that does the job as well for a sniper. And that’s not me being nostalgic about it, nor is it to role play. The spring bolt action is simple, requires no batteries or gas and delivers the same lethal performance in all conditions regardless of where and when you turn up. And they remain so much more precise, able to deliver consistently on the crosshairs first time in the right hands. Often I’ve turned up to events with an M4 and regretted not bringing a bolt action instead. An efficient weapon delivering at the front end of a formidable opponent. As a community, we just need to work on the back end a bit more.

#vsrforever