I've released the full guide on the forum now as you can see. The new guide is also out now
Accuracy
Aiming your gun effectively at your opponent is one of the most important things in airsoft, besides if you can't hit anybody what can you do? Your accuracy is affected by a large number of things; your hop up, wind strength/direction and your posture are just a few.
Hop Up
The hop up on your gun is rarely perfect out of the box which means you will have to addjust it for optomized results. To do this you will first need to see where the BB's are going, so set up a target such as a pot at a reasonably long distance and fire a series of rounds at it. You want the BBs to travel in a straight line not dipping down or spiraling upwards as shown in the diagram below:
The hop up varies on different guns so its hard to give a definate guide to how to adjust them, however its quite self explanatory, just turn the lever up or down to increase or decrease spin on the BBs. Your gun should come with an instruction manual showing you how to use your hop up. If you need any help a marshal at your local site will probably help you.
Choice of BB
The grade of BB you use will greatly influence your range and accuracy. The lighter the BB the higher the velocity, however light BBs are heavily affected by the wind and loose accuracy over distance, whilst heavier BBs are far more accurate. The most common grade of BBs are 0.20 g and you should never use a lower weight than this as they are for lower range guns and are prone to breaking your's. Heavier grade BBs can achieve greater accuracy than 0.20 g BB's but are more expensive. Remeber that your site may also have rules that you must use biodegradeable BBs for enviormetal reasons. If your playing in a night game you may also whish to use tracers (glow in the dark BBs) so that you can see where your BBs are hitting, but bear in mind this will give away your position more easily. You could try mixing a small amount of tracers with your normal BBs to get a general idea of what you are hitting without giving away your position as easily.
Sights & Scopes
The iron sights that come on your gun are usualy enough to aim with, however you can puchase a huge variety of different scopes and sights to enhance your aiming. In airsoft your rarely have the opportunity to take the time to line up your shot perfectly and take out the target and many sights can help you to aim more quickly than with an ironsight, which is more basic and harder to aim with when rushed. Aiming with any type of sight may not be for you, as many people prefer to use their BBs as tracers and aim that way, however its woth giving it a try.
You might consider purchasing a red dot or holographic sight which are great for aiming quickly or lining up a shot. They don't have a zoom on them so are good for CQB as well as long range combat. They provide you with, as the name suggests, a red dot or similar reticle to aim with. To maximise their accuracy you should take the time to line them up with where your BBs are hitting. To do this set up a target at a reasonable distance, look down your sight and fire at it. Work out where the BBs are going in comparison to the reticle and adjust it according to that. A good way tro start is by adjusting the reticle to your existing ironsights and working your way from that. Remember that you will probably not get the reticle spot on the BBs but as long as its close it won't matter; think of the reticle as a guide rather than an exact measuremet of what you are going to hit. It is also much better to line up your sights on a mild day with little wind as it will take your BBs off course and make it harder for you to get a good result.
A holographic sight
Another option you have is to get an optical scope which will allow you to aim at longer distances. These scopes are magnified for longer range combat and are most commonly used on snipers, but can be great on other guns as well. Although it takes longer to line up a shot they are better at long range and will often prove to be more accurate. It really depends on your playing style, whether an optical scope is for you; if you like to be in the front line constantly attacking your opponents up close its probably not for you, but if you have the time to take the shot at slightly longer range it might be a good option. You must also consider your guns range, there is no point puting a magnified scope on a gun that barely fires ten metres.
You can also use the magnification on the scope like mini binoculars when looking for hostiles further ahead, or for observing an objective. If you want to use your holo sight or red dot then you could use a magnifier - an optical scope with no crossheirs designed to magnify an existing scope. Like red dosts and Holo sights, it is important to line up you sight, you can do this in the same way.
The way you aim with whatever sight you use is the most important factor determining whether you will hit or not; you can have a £1000 infrared scope but if you can't aim for your life you will miss. There is not a right or wrong way to aim, its what works for you, but there are things you can do to improve. You should always aim with both eyes, using your stronger eye to aim. Your eyes are desighned to work together, and when one is closed it will hinder the other. This may be hard to get used to if you only use one eye but it will help on the long term. You could try putting an eye patch over the eye you are not using at first to help. Another important thing to remember is your breathing. When I went to fire real steel sniper rifles I was taught to always control my breathing to steady the rifle as I fired.
Firing Position
How you choose to hold your gun and your posture during firing is another huge dictator of your accuracy. Its obviously a very bad idea to hip fire your gun unless your making the next Rambo movie or you would like to be Terminator. You should keep the stock of the weapon firmly in your shoulder and lean into the gun and move the gun where your eyes go. Many newer players lean back away from the gun. Remember your gun is your new best friend! Don't keep your gun up and ready to aim for long periods of time or your arms will get tired and your accuracy will suffer, so take short breaks. A sling might help with this and is also useful if you have a secondary weapon.
Your stance whilst firing is important too. Standing whilst firing gives you the least acccuracy, leaves you open but gives you the greatest mobility. Crouching down gives you more cover and accuracy and you can still get up quite quickly and run if need be. Going prone/lying down gives you the most accuracy as you can use your whole body to support your gun as you take the shot and gives you more cover, but leaves you practically imobile which is definately bad news if a grenade comes your way. Getting the mix between all three is the key and is usualy a matter of instinct and what you think is best at the time. If your in a good postition with plenty of cover going prone might be the best option, whilst if your assualting a hostile bunker standing up and keeping on the move might be better. It all depends on the situation.
There are many different ways to hold a sidearm as well, such as the stacked thumb position (my personal favourite). I also like to to hold my pistol angled to the left as I am right handed which I find makes it easier to clear corners. However you hold your pistol is about what you find is most comfortable for you.
The stacked thumb position is simply holding the pistol in your stronger hand with your weaker hand cupped over for more stability. The thumb of your stronger hand should be slightly higher than the thumb of your weaker hand, however your weaker hand's thumb should be on top of it. There are a few variations of this position, so you should experiment to see what you think is best.
Another popular method is to use the weaker hand to grip the bottom of the magwell with the thumb pointing in the direction the pistol is pointing. This helps to speed up reloads as you can drop the mag straight into your hand.
Fire Rate
Controlling the rate at which you fire is one of the keys to successfully hitting your target. Whilst firing a continous spread of automatic fire at an opponent will certianly keep their heads down, you will loose accuracy meaning it will take longer to hit him/her and waste a lot of ammo in the proccess. In my opinion there are two much better alternatives: semi automatic and three round bursts.
Firing on semi means you will fire one shot each time you pull the trigger, this is the best way to conserve ammo and is very affective when you have the time to line up the shot for maximum accuracy. Firing one shot at a time is also less likely to give your position away, and if you miss you can quickly fire another shot. What semi lacks is the ability to pin down multiple targets in quick succession, which is where three round bursts come in...
To acheive a three round burst squeeze the trigger for a short amount of time on fully automatic, alternitvely some guns come with a three round burst mode. Only firing a small amount of BBs will improve your accuracy and conserve ammo, whilst three round burst can pin down hostiles as well as fully automatic can, but with a better chance of hitting.
Believe it or not, how you pull the trigger will also affect accuracy. Simply slapping the trigger will jerk the gun slightly and affect accuracy at longer ranges whilst softly sqeezing it will have less effect.
For the diagrams and pictures you'll have to visit the website for the time being until I upload them. Any advice is much appreciated
