This article was written by me and originally appeared in Safezone Magazine.

Practical Pistol – Another avenue for Airsoft

For many people, airsoft is all about charging around in the woods or a CQB venue shooting at other people with their AEG, in a safe ‘wargaming’ environment, much akin to paintball, so beloved of corporate team building days.

However, there is an ever-growing group of airsofters who never go near an AEG or sniper rifle. For these people, the appeal of airsoft is in the realistic operation of gas blowback pistols and they use these guns for Practical Pistol shooting.

Background

Practical Shooting began in the post WW2 years in the United States. People began to develop courses and competitions where ‘man-sized’ targets were engaged, in more active ways than traditional bullseye shooting, against the clock.

The popularity of this sport spread, but with the introduction of the UK handgun ban, it became restricted to airguns (usually CO2 repeaters) and marginalised here. Most ‘real steel’ shooters did not choose to learn the different techniques required for CO2 and withdrew from the sport or only shot overseas, but CO2 & air cartridge shooters persevered and the sport continued to develop.

As better gbb pistols became available, the interest in airsoft increased (spurred mainly by returning real steel shooters) and, now, more and more newcomers are becoming interested in shooting Practical Pistol with airsoft.

There are two classes in the airsoft form of Practical Pistol.

• Standard is restricted to guns with ‘steel’ sights (so no scopes or red dots) and limited modifications intended to improve reliability only. Modifications such as extended slides, high flow valves, hi capacity magazines and mag wells, are banned.
• Open allows for the ‘Race Guns’ with their add-ons and large red dot scopes on metal slide mounts and high capacity magazines.

Targets are divided up into A, B and C areas, worth 5, 4 and 3 (a miss or hit in an ‘out of bounds’ area costs -5) and if, in the heat of the moment, you forget a target you get an extra penalty for "failure to engage", plus the penalty for missing.

Starting with the gun holstered, the shooter must engage the target with a minimum of two shots per target as quickly as possible. On some stages, the shooter will have to run from the start position to a series of shooting stations to engage further targets, reloading on the way.

Speed is as (some would say more) important than accuracy.

With "Comstock" scoring you can fire extra shots to make up for misses, but the score on each stage is divided by the time, with the highest score being best.

With "Virginia" scoring you are restricted to a certain number of shots with penalties awarded for shooting more, but your score is still divided by your time. There is a third scoring method using a fixed time period, normally using turning targets. Here it does not matter how fast or slow you shoot, as long as you get the required number of shots on the target.

This is more difficult than it sounds as the times are usually very short. Imagine trying to draw, transfer the gun to your weak hand & shoot 2 aimed shots in 2 seconds at 15 meters!

Safety, of course, is paramount. Although airsoft guns are unlikely to cause injury, they are treated as if lethal firearms and there are severe penalties for putting down any gun which is not emptied (even to the point of getting those stubborn BBs out of the hop-up rubber!), holstering an unsafed pistol or covering anything other than the target area with the muzzle. This is useful as it instils good discipline in all and enables those shooting real steel overseas to continue to think safety at all times.

Getting Started

The good news is you will not need lots of expensive equipment to get started in airsoft practical pistol shooting.

Most skirmishers or back garden plinkers probably have most of what they will need. A GBB pistol, two spare mags, some quality BBs (probably .25g or heavier) and some gas are probably already available to most skirmishers, but to that they will need to add a decent belt holster that covers the trigger, (thigh holsters are not permitted in Practical Pistol) and a couple of belt mounted magazine holsters.

Whilst many of the Open class shooters have modified Western Arms SV Infinity or Para Ordnance P14-45 pistols, topped with real steel red dot sights, the Standard class is open to things like Glocks and Berettas and these are just as competitive as anything else in this class.

Revolvers are not popular in airsoft Practical Pistol, probably due to their relatively low power and/or slow reloading. Only the 6 round Marushins or cheaper KWCs can be reloaded with speedloaders and neither has very impressive fps performance, whilst the powerful Tanaka versions are fiddly to reload, even without competitive pressure.

As engagement ranges are generally short, a common modification is to remove the hop-up from pistols, which reduces the range, but increases consistency between shots; vital for Practical Shooting. This also explains why a number of Western Arm’s specialist target pistols (such as the Para Ordnance Ultimate Comp and Beretta M92FS Competition) are not fitted with hop-up.

A Typical Competition

A competition is made up of a number of stages, typically 10-20.

Each stage is designed to challenge the speed, accuracy and ingenuity of the shooter. Having been to a couple of events (and shooting one simple set of stages at Bisley’s Phoenix event in 2004), I can vouch for the ingenuity that goes into these stage designs.

As an example, one stage I watched involved the shooter drawing and engaging two targets low to his left and right. He then moved forward to a knee-high board, which he had to engage two targets, in a prone position, from. He then got up and moved forward to a window, through which he had to engage two more targets.

Another stage required the shooter to start from a seated position (in a mocked up car), and pick up the gun from the dashboard to engage the first target. He then climbed from the car and engaged another series of targets across 100 yards or so of open ground.

Other stages require the shooter to determine how & in what order to shoot the stage. One stage that I have seen had two shooting areas with several paths connecting them, the most direct path to the second area was the furthest from the targets, so you had to decide if you would be faster to run the longer path to be closer to the targets (faster & more accurate shooting but further to run), or to take the more direct route & have to stop & take deliberate aim at longer ranges.

Tricky enough, you might think, but most targets are obscured by penalty targets (-10 for hitting these) or obstacles. Sometimes these were other targets painted black and sometimes they were simply parts of the target painted black, to indicate an obstruction (hard cover). Either way, a shot on black was a miss and two shots had to be on target, each time.

Stages may feature as few as 2 targets and as many as 16 two-shot targets or 32 single shot targets, with the longer stages requiring a reload somewhere along the way, either compulsory or effectively imposed by the number of shots taken. Here the open guns, with their 40 and 50 round magazines, have an advantage without compulsory magazine changes. Sometimes even the shorter stages will need magazine changes as shooting rapidly uses more gas than normal & you can find yourself running out of gas & the gun slowing down before the magazine is empty of BBs.

Having a go!

Even if you don’t have the equipment already, there are clubs who run Practical Pistol events or club nights, where you can learn the basics with loan equipment.

If you already have the equipment, but fancy improving your pistol skills or trying something a bit more varied than simple bullseye shooting, you will be equally welcome.

I found everyone I spoke to in the Practical Shooting world to be friendly, approachable and more than happy to provide advice, guidance and even loan their own equipment.

If you are interested, contact the UK Practical Shooting Association (http://www.ukpsa.co.uk/), who will be able to put you in touch with your local approved club, or visit the practical pistol UK online bulletin board (http://www.practicalpistoluk.com), who have a more up to date list of clubs & venues as a lot of new clubs are not yet large enough to joint the UKPSA.

Whether you are a skirmisher looking to improve your pistol shooting skills or a collector or plinker looking to try something a bit more challenging, Practical Pistol shooting with airsoft pistols is well worth giving a try.

ADDENDUM: The video below shows some competitors at an airsoft Practical Pistol match in Hong Kong in 2007.

It's a little static and repetitive, but some of the shooters are impressively quick.