Being a sniper is boring. It’s difficult. It’s so expensive to get into. It’s not like YouTube. You won’t get many kills. You’d be better off starting with an M4.

The Internet is full of shit these days, unfortunately, and any player asking on social media for tips to get started as an Airsoft sniper is immediately met with a barrage of negative comments. And 90% of these comments are from people who aren’t true snipers, or they bought a bolt action and tried and failed with it. And most of those who fail are players who either have completely the wrong perception of sniping in Airsoft, believe YouTube, or just listen to all this bad advice and give up. So I wouldn’t listen to those voices.

Although we see plenty of players on the field now with ghillie suits and bolt actions, we don’t actually see many snipers.

I’m not going to dress it up as anything it isn’t, but I do think it’s worth explaining the reality of the role in Airsoft for anyone who is looking to try it out.

It’s boring…

It’s far from boring. But I’ll start by pointing out that it’s a different style of play that doesn’t suit everyone. In fact it probably only suits about 10% of players. If you like simple, fast, loud shooty shooty stuff with your mates, then sniping isn’t for you. It isn’t simple sitting taking pot shots at people expecting your rifle to be some kind of long range artillery piece that keeps you out of harm’s way (see What should my airsoft sniper rifle be capable of?). Sniping is more like hunting, needing a lot of stealth discipline and a good knowledge of camouflage to quietly stalk players around the site and pick them off without being seen – that perceived extra range is very rarely used. You need to be able to operate in almost total silence on your own, which mentally is a lot more challenging as you stay on high alert and have to make decisions yourself without making any mistakes. It’s also very physically demanding – we don’t just lie there all game and fall asleep. While two teams are stuck in a firefight, you have to be able to burst through very difficult terrain, outmanoeuvre the enemy to hit them from places they would never expect. I often see older players suggest that they might take up sniping because they can’t move well enough for CQB, and yet I look at it the other way and realise there’s going to be a time when I won’t physically be able to run as a sniper so I’ll go and join all the other ranks just slinging plastic for the hell of it. Then there’s the thrill of remaining unseen as enemy players file past you at less than a few metres distance because (you hope and pray) your camouflage game is spot on.

Compared to sitting behind a wooden pallet, popping up every now and then to spray a few bb’s, sniping is very far from boring. Maybe players confuse it with being quiet, which is obviously a necessity.

It’s difficult…

I don’t get the assumption that sniping is something you work up to once you’ve had a few games of Airsoft. It’s not a difficulty level, it’s just a different style. And no amount of CQB practice will ever prepare you for it. In the same way I, as a sniper, struggle with CQB despite years of practice because it’s not my natural playstyle. It’s not difficult, it’s just different.

Sniping is a set of skills the same as anything else and it just depends which one you want to learn. I look online and there are loads of courses on building entry, admittedly there aren’t many decent guides on sniping (stipsniper.com has the most…) because not many others are written, but it’s not like sniping requires something akin to War and Peace and 10 years of study. As above, mentally and physically challenging but not particularly more than any other role. It is distinctly different in that an amount of prep is required in between game days, whereas other roles tend to just pick up kit and turn up. A sniper will carefully prepare their camouflage and equipment in between to ensure optimum effectiveness – you can’t just pick up some camo off the shelf and a new gun and expect to turn up and be any good. I think it puts a lot of players off that you can’t just “plug and play” with sniping in the same way you can throw your wallet at solutions elsewhere in Airsoft. I can go and buy a support gunner loadout and LMG and reasonably turn up to site next week and as long as I learn to hold the trigger, be reasonably useful with it.

It might be difficult if you don’t like getting dirty, laying in puddles if you have to, or as I did once, laying in the hollow of a fallen tree in a spiders nest to avoid detection. If you prefer being indoors in your trendy DNC bomber jacket and purple smokes, you can stop reading now.

It’s so expensive to get into…

Is what I think when I look at the shiny new assault rifles with mosfets, electronic triggers, expensive gearboxes, real steel PEQ boxes, genuine HK externals and thermal scopes. Then there’s batteries, mags, a designer rig and a helmet with NVG’s because that’s the fashion now.

By comparison, a sniper can get equipped for the price of some tactical torches. The art of sniping isn’t in the equipment but the skill of the user. If you’re not particularly good at being a sneaky ninja, there’s no way to buy your way out of it. You simply need to get better at playing hide and seek. The two perceived “expensive bits” are the bolt action rifle and the ghillie. As I mentioned earlier, the bolt action in fact doesn’t need to be some expensive artillery piece able to ping the lid off a beer bottle at 120m, because quite simply we don’t detect targets at those ranges (see Range – why it really doesn’t matter. These links btw are very good reading before you take the plunge into sniping). What it does need to be is quiet (see Silent VSR Guide) and be camouflaged, and in that respect it’s probably better being some cheap plastic rifle that you don’t mind throwing around. Plastic flexes and survives a bit better than the pot metal used in Airsoft guns, and it’s lighter which makes it easier to carry and manoeuvre around all day. Big bulky tacticool sniper rifles are great on your wall but a basic hunting style rifle is better in the field.

In terms of upgrades, you’ve probably read that a stock rifle is absolutely no good and you’ll need to spend a fortune on parts before it’s any use, or you have to drop around £500 on a “good out of the box” gun.

Right, back to reality. 90% of your targets are at no greater range than an AEG because in the woods, you just won’t detect them until they’re a bit closer. You do not need more fps – I hit 100m on 450fps (measured) but that’s limited to the range. Adding fps is going to cause you issues and send you on a spiral of stronger, more reinforced parts. You want nice parts? Go ahead, but it’s not going to change your capability. A good bucking, perhaps an upgraded hop arm like the Stalker Panthera or Maple Leaf CNC (I know some of you are fussy with where you buy from so just whatever from wherever), which will ensure the hop is applied solidly and evenly for better consistency. Clean your barrel and you’re good to go sniping. It doesn’t need a TDC, weighted piston, new spring, trigger, or Vortex scope etc right away, you can upgrade later if you so wish. A decent hunting scope set up correctly will do, I’m very happy with my Nikko Stirling 4×32. It doesn’t need adjustable zoom at these ranges and remember a smaller diameter is better because those 50mm scopes really do give you away – always think stealth. Learn how to set it up correctly – there’s a superb video by Silly Ghillie here on scopes that’s well worth a watch.

Honestly, some of the best rifles I’ve shot are very budget builds; Action Army stock T10, Swiss Arms (was only around £60) with a bucking change, Steyr SSG 69 P2 with a bucking change, and a beautiful stock A&K M24. None of which were even builds really, let alone expensive ones, but they shot nice and flat and consistently. By contrast, some of the worst weapons I’ve ever handled were a fully upgraded SRS that kept shitting itself, and a Tac-41 that was also apparently fully kitted out. Keep it simple and you’ll be absolutely fine, and the whole gun can be picked up for less than the price of an LMG magazine.

Additionally, these “perfect out of the box” rifles actually have more upgrade parts available to fix issues with them than the cheaper ones, which begs the question if they were so perfect out of the box, why are there any upgrades at all? Or are we just falling for hype and advertising?

The other perceived cost is the ghillie. The only one I’d ever recommend buying off the shelf is the SCG but much better is just to go army surplus and pick up some BDU’s that fit your environment, and add a bit of 3D camouflage to it. I wrote recently that all these store bought and factory produced leaf suits really arent ideal for Airsoft, and I stand by that despite a bit of anticipated resistance. A simple shirt and trousers, or jacket depending on your local climate, is a lot better suited for camouflage and for playing in. Paying the extra few hundred on a plastic cover doesn’t hide you any better – and this is where you need to invest a little bit of time and effort into understanding camouflage and how/why it works. Highly recommended is this guide from Le Covert Sartorialist which although lengthy compared to an average 8 minute headshot compilation, is the best introduction to camouflage I’ve come across. Essential viewing before you even start with a ghillie.

(L) Dan Toone and (R) Joseph Keller showing BDU’s with a small amount of work. Both of these guys really understand camo, without spending £100+ on a ready made setup.

In terms of materials, a bit of dyed cotton, coconut rope and raffia plus Haloscreen will do all you need on a suit. I’m yet to find anything better tbh, all these camo nets and leaf strips tend to ruin your work. A good selection of spray paints is essential too, in drab and miserable colours. Yes, the Haloscreen is a £40 investment but it works wonders, and if you’re going down that route then don’t just go and buy the cheapest green mesh you can just to stick it on – it doesn’t work. And understand that it’s not just a case of using a dark green, a medium green and a luminous green – the genius is in using cold greens and warm greens for different environments and vegetation. Greens are the most challenging bit to get right and recently during the British winter I saw a ghillie just covered in a bright green mesh that wasn’t present in the environment (not posting photos because I’m not going to highlight the guy), and it just highlighted his suit everywhere we went. If you don’t want to buy Haloscreen, honestly don’t try and swap it out for anything less, just run brown materials rather than make a hash of your suit.

It’s not like YouTube…

No, video editors are there to make a nice dramatic eye catching video. It’s also not like Call of Duty or Fortnite. Thank God. Airsoft sniping is very different to what many expect. It’s actually not all about headshots either, “headshot” is nice little buzz word that stirs debate, which brings engagement whether it’s good or bad, and YouTube algorithms seem to like it. If you’re hitting headshots then it’s really not an issue because we do them in CQB all the time, but you improve your chances every time by aiming centre mass, so play sensibly and don’t be a dick.

Also, to debunk a couple of myths ;

• PLAYERS HATE INVISIBLE GHILLIE SNIPERS : Actually no, they don’t. There’s no hate. In all my time playing (which is longer than most), I’ve never been spoken to by a marshal or had any player come up to me after a game complaining about anything. Moreover, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sniper banned or removed from a site that I’ve been at. It’s either another YouTube buzzword, or there are some guys out there that are such absolute dickheads that people do hate them and they do get themselves into trouble. But you’d have to be doing a lot wrong to go that far. Or a simple Internet troll.
• AIRSOFT SNIPER DESTROYS… : No, we’re not weapons of mass destruction. Seen those videos of 100 kills on noob players? They’re at sites where noob players get 100+ kills too. All-action skirmishes, nothing special. What’s more important is your death count – keep it as low as possible.

You won’t get many kills…

Sometimes you will. You might get that kind of skirmish where you can sit in one spot, turn your cameras on and just ping people in respawn. But that’s not very exciting, is it?

The reward is being able to completely out-think your opponent. To leave them wondering who hit them, and where from. To be able to ghost through the site without trace, surviving on your skills and instincts. To be undetectable, appearing only at the start of the game and at the end with everyone wondering where you were inbetween. This is the role of the sniper. A problem for the enemy to deal with, not just sitting shooting fish in a barrel. Snipers add a different dimension to games if done correctly, otherwise you just become another plastic slinger and if kills are your aim, you should probably go and get some kind of HPA M4 with a drum mag and just spray towards the enemy.

You’d be better off starting with an M4…

Probably the worst advice of all. It might be given thinking that if you don’t like being a sniper you can keep the same gun and just be a regular player. I see sense in that. But who is to say this player, who has decided that they’re more a sniper than a CQB player, is even going to enjoying playing with an M4? It’s two different paths.

• You have semi and full auto available – part of playing sniper is that knowledge, almost fear, that you only have one bb loaded and you need to make sure it counts. Having even semi auto capability means that you’re not bothered about making mistakes because you can shoot your way out of it, so you build bad disciplines, and then you have a bad time as a sniper.
• It’s noisy
• It doesn’t have the same range
• It doesn’t have the same precision
• You can’t get flat to the floor to hide because the mag and pistol grip stick out. Honestly, go prone and try it. If you can’t hide you’ll struggle.

It’s like wanting to become a gardener and someone handing you a set of bicycle tools. Yeah you can probably dig a hole with a multi tool all the same, but it’s just not as effective. The constant cycle of players who want to try sniping but sell up after one game day means that actually there are lot of unwanted, unloved guns available second hand if you wanted to save yourself some money and if you chose the wrong path, you can feed it back onto the second hand market for someone else to have a go.

“Or just get a DMR”

The Designated Marksman Rifle is seen by many as an almost-sniper weapon and I knew a player many many years ago who described it as “the best of both worlds”. It’s an appealing option despite the cost of these big, clunky platforms but the reality is that conversely it is also the worst of both worlds. Using my local site rules as kind of general Uk example;

• Bolt actions 500fps max
• DMR 420 fps max
• AEG/HPA/Gas automatic 350fps max

Although having an extra 70fps compared to an M4 for example, it’s still 80fps short of a maxed out bolt action so lacks the all out range, stealth and precision (I know you can make it gas/HPA), whereas its size makes it less manouvreable compared to the M4 and being saddled with the same 20-30m MED of a bolt action means it has a much narrower effective range than the other two. In closer quarters, it cannot engage and also lacks the ability to switch to full auto. Personally, as much as I’d love a Mk11 Mod 0, in practical gaming terms it’s better to go either sniper or CQB and get the full benefits of each platform rather than suffering the limitations of both in some kind of middle ground solution. They do look cool though.

I’d also go as far as to say that every Airsofter should start by being a sniper so they can learn patience, good shooting disciplines, tactics, camouflage, use of cover etc rather than just turning up to site with a brand new Krytac M4, Hawaiian shirt, empty head and an itchy trigger finger but I know that appeals to some so I’ll let them get on with it.

If sniping suits your style of play though, and as much as I can answer most questions I can’t help with that one, then don’t let others discourage you and tell you it’s not for beginners. As I recall, even Novritsch has a video saying sniping isn’t for beginners but that’s all because it isn’t explained properly. Sniping is way more interesting than CQB to the right people and if that’s what you want to do then go for it. You’ve been determined enough to get to the end of the article so that’s a good start, if you need any help or any questions answered by someone who isn’t your local site marshal Dave that tried sniping this one time but it rained and he gave up by lunchtime but now he’s fully qualified to have an opinion on it, feel free to drop me a PM and I’ll talk you through it.

“Don’t start as a sniper” – worst advice ever.