Pistol Strategy

Hey guys,
I've been running airsoft with you for a good long while. Unfortunately because of senior year I wasn't able to play very much during this last year. Now that I'm graduated and still around I want to be a regular again. I'll be running a couple of different setups that have proven effective for me in the past, but I wanted to change it up and try to learn to run pistols vs aegs. I have a TM MK23 that I will be running and hopefully a GBB as well (I'll be asking for suggestions in the GBB forum).

At the moment my only idea was that I would be happy to get one kill per game and just sneak around and ambush people with the really quiet MK23 and use the other GBB for when SHTF and I really need to get out quick to a place where I can hide again.

Do you guys have any suggestions for ways that I might be more effective with the pistol? It will be challenging for sure, but that is the only way I'm going to get better.

Well, Bud you are already very quiet and sneaky. I've had really hard times finding you when you have had your sniper rifle. When I have been able to find you its because I've seen your head or have figured out where bb's are coming from. So I think you are good in that aspect. I might try to make the pistols themselves more effective with a tightbore and an upgraded hopup. I've done a little research and the effect of a tightbore seems to be more prevalent with pistols. Maybe a longer inner barrel and a suppressor would help with accuracy/ slightly increased fps. I was going to put a tightbore in my hi capa but when I opened it I found it had a 6.01 already in it.The hopup really isn't as important with your TM guns but with other brands it might be, with my WE hi capa the hop up kinda sucks. I'm a firm believer in upgraded hopups after my experience with flat hoping the DMR.

You have way more experience than I do and I'm sure you have already know/thought of everything I mentioned but I figured I would say it anyway.

The times I have found pistol primaries to be the most effective is when you are partnered with an rifleman. If you were to examine the pistol sucess stories over the years you will find a vast majority of them come due to rifleman distraction of target. While you don't have to be directly partnered with someone to be sucessful, I find that if you are in good comunication with a rifleman that can cover you, that you will find sucess more often. I would buddy up with someone and practice using radios/comms to your advantage to get the cover you need to move.

The goal, in my opinion of a pistol only player would be the aggresive, fast moveing, player who's goal it is to get the close angles that rifleman are not able to get to as easily. You bounce from cover position to position in an attempt to keep them guessing, and ultimately to get an angle that was not available from distance. This is difficult to do with limited ammo and limited range by yourself. However, if you have a rifleman that can "keep heads down" you can use those brief windows of oppertunity to move where needed.

If you take the perspective of a "sniper" pistol you taking on the same role of a sniper, except without the advantage of range(sniper), or magazine capacity(DMR). While there are definate times where stealth and slow and methodical advancement is beneficial, it is no more beneficial to a pistol player than a rifleman or sniper. I would keep a pistol on your like the MK23 for when steath is to your advantage, but I personally wouldn't make this your preferred pistol style. To me as a pistolman you still are trying to get into medium - short range (in this case slowly and quietly).

If you want to improve skills that perhaps will trancend airsoft into real life, I think a quick, tactical, "shooting on the fly" style would actually be the most helpful. If you are faced with a situation where you need to use your real steal pistol, it probably won't be in the woods where you sneak around and try and find someone. You will probably be in an urban setting where you are either, running for you life, or try to traverse the surrounding obstacles to keep yourself alive and get an angle of attack on the target. If training for this scenario is your goal, I would approach airsoft the same way.

If your goal is simply a challange, taking on a sniper(long range), or assult(long-medium) style role with limited range and capacity would for sure be difficult and would provide a definate challange.

As far as a pistol, I would get something that is very accurate (but not nessisarily extended range). I wouldn't bother with trying to get more than 150ft range. I would focus on how easy/confortable it is to shoot. How quickly can you put a bb on target while running, or if the pistol was by your side. How quickly can you move with it, change mags, how durable is it for sliding/diving behind a cover piece etc...

Good stuff so far guys. Thanks

Epinkard- I haven't really looked into pistol mechanics very much so knowing that tightbores help pistols is great. I haven't seen too much improvement with bore size barrels for my aegs as long as the barrel is quality built, but if tightbores really help pistols then I will definitely look into one.

CaptKirby- so you think that my goal should be to learn to move fast from cover to cover and draw and fire the pistol quickly and accurately (not have the pistol in hand during most movement). These would both be good for training for real world engagements and good for airsoft pistol strategy?

So it sounds like two schools of thought here.

Epinkard says basically get the pistol as accurate and long ranged as possible and use it like I would an underpowered primary (sneaking and firing from cover, can be lone wolf). So Five-seveN

CaptKirby says basically that the strategy should be about quick movement from cover to cover and snap shooting from the hip (team is most useful here). So P226

Keep them coming guys. This is good stuff!

I think you would have the pistol in your hand during a lot of movement. But I think there are times where you might want to slide/dive/sprint etc... There are times you would want your hands to brace your dive or jump or slide etc... and might want to holster it for protection of the pistol and the freeing of your hands. So I would want the ability to quickly hoster it and pull it out of the holser.

Depending on the situation your either gonna be moving as fast as you can with your pistol trained on the bunker/cover your enemy is behind or you will simple be trying to get to the next piece of cover as fast as possible relying on your rifleman to keep heads down for you. Even if you are sprinting and your pistol is in your hand (but not trained on a target) you would want to try and get decent at pulling up gun to shoot at perhaps a second enemy you didn't see before and need to keep their head down during movement.

Pistol only also provides a good class for using a riot shield. You can quickly move with a riot shield because your not carrying a heavier weapon one handed. Riot shields provide a very "enticing" target to shoot at, and you can actually pull fire for your teammates to move.

I think being able to quick draw a pistol, quickly aim a pistol, aim on the move, move from cover to cover quickly are all things that could come in handy in real life if. I also think this style of combat is the "niche" of a pistol player.

Other styles of pistol play, in my opinion is simply trying to "test" yourself by limiting your effectiveness and seeing if you can overcome. With the exception of close engagements there are few times a pistol would be more effective than either a sniper or assult rifle.

There are times that I limit myself on purpose to increase the challange. So, I can see the draw. I just don't see the overall effectiveness and efficiency for that style in a pistol class.

Yeah, running just pistol is not as effective as running pretty much anything else. Heck, for our field, running anything but a DMR is doing yourself a disservice if you want to be the most effective, but I would like to improve myself not my game.  If I wanted to get lots of kills and improve my game I would soup up a DMR and put a box mag on it or carry lots of high caps. That's not to say that with a DMR and box mag it is just super easy, it still takes skill and tactics to get kills, but it's just the most effective way to get kills without getting killed in woodland games. But if I improve my pistoling then I will also have improved my hip shooting with other guns, my cover to cover movement, and my reaction times for all other types of guns.

A riot shield is a pretty good idea.  I would enjoy being able to be a helpful team player and that might do it.  A riot shield would allow me to use the pistol for more than just run and gun style of play which would make the pistol more fun.  And if I'm playing more team oriented then maybe my teammates would help me keep their heads down if I need to move fast with the pistol.

Down side to riot shield that would take some getting use too, is mag swapping. Streamlining the process of changing pistol mags with a riot shield in your hand could be an interesting challange(that or quickly setting it down, swap mags and pick back up). But fumbling around, dropping the shield, etc... is a great way to turn a fun thing like a riot shield into a death trap.

Also, I wasn't trying to push you away from using a pistol or playing around with different play styles with a pistol. Just trying to flesh out how I would view the "goal" of using the pistol in each style. Am I playing to improve real world skills use ___ style, am I trying to limit my self to increase the challange use ____ class, am I trying to focus on teamwork an tactics use ____ style etc....

I actually agree with both trains of thought. Even if you had the pistol very accurate and long pistol range, its still a pistol. Its very quick and mobile and can be used while running and it would be great if your carrying something in the other hand. Since they are pistols it wouldn't be too far fetched or difficult to carry both and be able to switch tactics on the fly if need be. I'm just a huge fan of range and accuracy.

The Riot shield thing is kinda funny I was considering seeing if the club wanted to build 3-4 shields to use at ops like op genesis or at our field. I found you can build a shield for about $17 each.

The version II riot shield from Evike could actually work well with a pistol I think. If you swapped the pistol to your left hand, you could easily reload with your right hand, then swap the pistol back to your primary hand. It might take longer to reload, but it would still be streamlined.

Yeah with the shield captured with the strap I could still grip the pistol and hold up the shield at the same time.  Good thinking.

Maybe instead of getting a Five-seveN and upgrading it I should just go on evike and get the WE F226 and a riot shield.

Before you jump and buy a WE F226, there is a guy selling his WE 226 for cheap. Let me check the details and get back to you.

I'm still not sure yet. I can borrow Evan's shield to see if this whole thing works first, and I can buy a Five-seveN and sell my extra P90 to pay for the shield. I have heard a really mixed bag about the F226. It sounds like the best thing since the Marui version then it sounds like total crap. It's hard to tell with all the WE-Tech haters out there.