Gas Blow Back vs Automatic Electric Airsoft Guns – Update Part 1

There have been quite a few changes in the battle between GBBRs and AEGs since the original article was published. In fact, the field has little resemblance to the way things were just over a year ago. That’s sort of the nature of Airsoft. New people are discovering it every day bringing with them different ideas and expectations on what they can get from it. However, at the end of every day the binding element of Airsoft is the gun, and whether you’re a vet or a noob you have to decide what you want. Perhaps I can help with your decision.

We’re going to take a look at the 4 categories in the original GBB vs. AE article and examine how things have changed since then. There’s more specific and detailed information on the subject now, so in keeping with the HubPages mission to create short and informative articles each of the four points will be dealt with separately. Here it goes – What you like:

When asked what sort of gun I should get, I always give the same answer; you should buy what you like. For some it’s a function issue, for others the price, and some don’t care about any of that as long as it looks cool. These seem reasonable making a lot of sense, but what if the question was more like, “Can you help me figure out what I’d like?” Now we’re getting somewhere.

While writing the original article I was taking a marketing research class and decided to use the GBBR vs. AEG subject to find out which one was more popular. The course was learning how to ask a question without your audience realizing what the real question was. This is done by asking about the attributes of the gun instead of just asking which gun is preferred. Questions like:

- Realistic gun function is important to me.

- Keeping my costs down for weapons and accessories is very important to me.

- Not having to change magazines is important to me.

Respondents were asked to rate the statements if they agreed or not on a scale. You’ve probably been a marketing victim at some point in your life suffering the same fate. The results can be very telling.

Most respondents, 85% of them, indicated the attributes of the GBBR were in line with their preferences. In fact in some cases, those taking the survey often indicated the attribute that was important to them was actually cited as a reason for being opposed to GBBRs in our previous conversations. This is by no means an indication of what everyone wants for Christmas. It doesn’t prove GBBRs are the way of the future. It simply shows that sometimes you look at things from a bias, and when you peel that back you can see things differently. There was one item important to everyone, price. That is probably the biggest item in this update.

GBBRs are coming on strong these days. We are starting to see a huge increase in what’s available to us, and more importantly is the number of companies starting to manufacture them. Anyone know what that translates into? Competition is the answer which just also happens to be bringing the price down at the same time. Right now, most GBBRs can be had for almost the same price as a good AEG (good AEGs are expensive). This might just give you the notion to buy a cheap AEG and save some money for a GBBR.

Coming up: Part 2 Function update