The unification of the type of magazines in airsoft team - what can go wrong?
Most of the airsoft teams sooner or later decide to do a unification of their gear: camouflage, morale patches, radios, hats, and of course - magazines. Today we'll talk about the last. Almost every existing military unit in the world uses the same type of magazines during their operations. It works perfectly fine in the military world, so why not in the airsoft? We are playing soldiers, right?
What are the pros and cons of the ASG magazines unification and what are the most common problems of that procedure? Let's begin!
The assets og airsoft magazines unification
The unification of magazines clearly increases the organization of the team and makes their actions more effective. You have probably seen at least one movie with the epic magazine throw scene, where one of the soldiers is out of his ammunition. Well, if he would get an AK magazine instead of the AR, this wouldn't be that glorious. This also applies to the airsoft. If the whole team is using the same magazine type one will never completely run out of the ammunition, because there will always be someone with the spare magazine. It is highly preferred to shoot at the enemy during a skirmish than to load the magazines with a speedloader in the fetal position with bb's flying around. Remember - the firefight winner is the one, who has the fire advantage and this requires a lot of ammo.
There is also a second scenario - a failure of one or more magazines. It's airsoft and a lot of problems can occur, like the loss of magazine, sand in the magazine, overall feeding failure etc. If we don't have many magazines or only one (sic! Is anyone still using the stock hi-cap?), then the game can end very quickly. And not all games happen a few kilometers from home Fortunately, if your buddies use the same type of airsoft magazines they will save you from the mire. If you need more information how to prepare yourself for airsoft game check this post.
What can go wrong?
Of course, the ideology of magazines unification is a flawless one. However, as it has been said before - it's airsoft.
The most problematic thing is the compatibility issue, which applies to almost every existing airsoft guns - a very few of them can take ALL magazines without any feeding issues, dropping of etc., especially in the AR world (where some magazines just won't fit inside or latch properly) and AK world (where most of the magazines must be filled on the sides for the exact replica). Summing it up with mixed producents of guns in one team makes the proper magazines' unification incredibly hard. If you can deal with it, there is another problem...
Not everyone in the team is using the same bb's factory and weight and this causes to even more problems. Who wants to adjust their hop-up system for every single loaned magazine? Especially, when the weight gap is high, like 0,25 g vs 0,36 g.
The same magazines for airoft replicas - summary
The standardization of airsoft magazines in the team sounds great, at least at the start. It increases their combat potential and makes the cooperation easier. However, it often turns out very quickly as a disaster and looks only good on the paper or photos, where each man has the same magazine type. The incompatibilities and differences in guns that should take the same type of magazines destroy the Utopia. On the other hand, the pros of the unification are really high and worth to fight for. Just look for the most compatible magazine models and try to keep the guns shooting similar to each other.
Author:
Paweł "Fishbonee" Napieralski
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