History of Airsoft in Michigan

[Gimpalong]

Hey guys,

I was perusing Arnie's Airsoft when I noticed a thread about the history of airsoft in the UK. Mostly players were reminiscing about the first shops and playing fields.

When did you first start playing airsoft and at what field? Which Michigan airsoft stores did you shop at?

I'll start:

I started playing regular, non-backyard airsoft in 2006. One of my buddies had discovered Weapons of Mass Instruction (WMI) in Lowell. We went out to the store, had a peek and fondled a whole bunch of the Classic Army and G&G replicas they had on their wall. I played my first game at WMI's field ("The Lowell Field," "Simon's Place," SABR's home field) during the summer of 2006. The first "Op" that I went to was "Codename: Tequila Sunrise" in Kalamazoo in an old, rundown bar. The police showed up and we had to relocate to a nearby warehouse full of science and tech. equipment. The next major event I went to was OP: Verano in Bangor along with the likes of Mosin, Livonia, Timm, Relish (Relarz). Didn't know any of those guys back then...

Around that time (2006), Classic Army seemed to be the most popular brand with some Maruis, ICS and G&G guns thrown in for good measure.

Joined MiA in the fall of 2006 as "Gigueand," but since that was unpronounceable, I became "Gimpalong" somewhere in the 2009-2010 time-period.


Share your thoughts on the mist shrouded past of airsoft in Michigan!

[Gunny87]

I bought my first airsoft gun in 1998 which was a UHC Beretta M92F from Harry's Army Surplus in Dearborn Michigan. This was when I was a pre-teen and got into the hobby from a friend. Back then most stores that sold airsoft guns only sold spring powered guns since the first AEGs were just coming out from Tokyo Marui. In fact I still have an airsoft catalog that only has spring powered guns and "classic" gas powered airsoft guns.

Then I bought a few more spring powered airsoft guns from a retailer in the Gibralter Trade Center in Taylor Michigan during the early 2000s. I still remember the name of the booth owner. Gary Banac. I owned a Super 9, as well as a clone SPAS-12, and even a springer G3A3, L85A1 as well as a bunch of springer pistols like a P99 and the infamous Tomb Raider H&K USP Match. Two of them actually....


I moved from Dearborn Heights out to Canton in 2001 and ended up recruiting a bunch of friends that I made in high school and we used to play "backyard" style airsoft, but on private property which was farmland out in Plymouth on North Territorial Road, just west of M-14. We used to get like 20 people to play. I used to organize them, not surprisingly... That was from 2001 to about 2004. I didn't even know MIA was around back then.

I didn't get my first AEG until 2003 which I picked up online. It was a Cybergun DPMS Panther ARMS AR-15 which I later learned was actually manufactured by JG before they started marketing their own airsoft guns. I used to be the only one of my friends who owned an "AEG" until one of the rich kids that I played with ordered a Tokyo Marui M4A1 from Redwolf airsoft.

Then in 2004 I stopped playing airsoft because everyone I knew was getting out of the hobby and graduating high school and going to college so then I played paintball for two years. I also bagged at a grocery store and decided to pour all my money into my fast and furious 2001 Cavalier instead of airsoft guns.

I quit playing airsoft and paintball entirely for my first few years of college and then learned of MIA in 2008. In fact I still remember the moment I learned of MIA. I was bored one night and decided after not having played airsoft for about four years to see if airsoft guns were still around. I was pleasantly surprised to see how airsoft had progressed from a quick search on the internet. Then I searched "Michigan Airsoft" just to see what would turn up and that's how I came to find MIA. My first MIA event was a Hellfish ran Farmington CQB! And I've been hanging around MIA ever since then!

[Coldwave]

Started playing backyard games with a spring pistol around 2005, still have my Cybergun sig p226!! Fast forward to 2008 when I bought my first AEG, a JG M16, I started playing a couple rec games at SFOD, joined MIA in 2009. Around 2010-11 I joined immortal and from the attended Fueling fire 2 or 3? The Bangor milsim which was my first op. From there I bought and traded more guns than I can remember and finally ended up with nice stuff. Here I am today!

[M.S.-ARC]

I've been playing since 05. My first exposure to airsoft was in 05 when my housemate showed me this plastic gearbox gun that he had. From then on, it was all downhill from there. I looked back at what I've had since and I had owned at least 79 different guns at one point. I'm afraid to count the gear and accessories I've had in the past. It's kind of insane.

My first "real" gun was a well R8 (G3 clone). I only say real because it had a metal gearbox and before that I had plastic gearbox guns and springers.

My first "real" game was at a field that team caedes used which ended up being a place that they didn't have any permission to use at the time. I believe that was mosins first game as well because I remember meeting him there. I joined a team with Oakey and Psychosis called "FUBAR" although I didn't get a chance to really go to a lot of events with the team so I was really more on the team only on paper. In 08 I got picked up by the Hellfish and been with those guys since.

As far as the history of airsoft in Michigan, here's some history on a few of the fields we have that some of you may not know about.

No limits: The first games there were started by a guy named s-system and skypilot in 06 or 07. Not sure how they found it but I was at the first official game there and there were maybe 20-30 people there. Some things happened and s-sytem disappeared so skypilot and I started hosting games. After I joined the Hellfish, we started hosting on games there as a team. After about a year or two, SK took over and that's where we are at today.

Farmington CQB: The first games there were started by myself, skypilot, & opdoc. Eventually the Hellfish started hosting games there as well. We did that for about a year or so and afterwards Hunter was capable enough to run the games on his own.

The community has had a lot of ups and downs. We've lost a lot of really active and cool players due to real life. People had to move or people just got busy. Overall though the community is still in good shape. There always seems to be a lot of new faces coming in and out and every now and then we get a few good ones that stick around and make an impact. We are still way short on fields and places to play but there's always the hope that someone will get their act together and come up with something that will solve that problem. Since 06 we've had some amazing games that teams from our community have put on, and we've had two huge games put on by lion claws and there's talk of other organizations that want in.

I'd say that we are one of the largest active airsoft communities out there and I've really learned a lot and had a lot of fun in the process.

[Deuce]

Ah, lets see if I can remember my introduction into airsoft. I started back in 2006 with a few friends on some private property doing some backyard games. I remember the first time seeing a airsoft gun was at a buddy's house and it was some CYMA ak then he later picked up a SRC M4 and those were the guns we used for a while. The first gun I actually picked up was one of those combo shotgun/pistol packages that I got as a gift from my uncle.

From there, my buddy dropped the sport and I bought my first AEG from Evike in a mystery box. I got a matrix sr-16 that was really cool, because I actually had a full metal gun with a rail AND metal gearbox. Then I realized I wanted another gun so with my luck, I picked up another mystery box and got a JG G36. My matrix with it's crappy wiring blew a fuse and completely stopped functioning. For my benefit my JG G36 was a complete monster for being stock (don't hate).

Now skip a bunch of crap and cut to recent times.

Now I'm into the sport as much as I can be. I attend almost every game that I can fit into my college schedule and created a really good Navy SEAL impression. I try to do indoor games whenever I can and if there is a good rec or milsim game being held, you bet I'm trying to fit it into my schedule. Meeting the community and the great people here just makes the time here better. I can honestly thank a lot of the reasons why I'm still in the sport is thanks to the people here.

[Gunslinger]

Got into Airsoft in 2003, I started out because a friend wanted to get into shooting but not spending a bunch of money.

Then it progressed to wondering if there was a safe way to go back to the old days of cowboys and indians and shoot your friends but do it kinda more like "army" or what have you.

So I got my first replica a Walter P99 springer off Ebay and then my first real airsoft purchase from Youngs. It was a Gbb, M93R Omega (company) and it was on from there. I then started playing on a friends property. Meet a few guys who went out to 21st century airsoft out in by Holland and got to meet the guys who eventually I became teammates with ( A.C.O.) and started helping host ops etc.

Of course there was situations between that I got to check out and people I got to meet along the way. and now here I am.

[Viper]

We (Nighthawks) started in 2004 with springer pistols. I had a Sig SP2022 that I spray painted green because why the F not. We played a few years till about '06 with these at one members farm out in Saline and in a subdivision park of another member. (not exactly the best idea looking back, but it was a rural subdivision...ha)

A few members in '06 drove out to Empire in Kalamazoo to go and fondle some Classic Army's and wound up coming back with an M16, an M249 and a G36K. From there I bought an AK-47 tactical from ShortyUSA, just to complete the worst mag sharing combo ever... Then as with most it was downhill from there. Started playing at the original MOA field in Mattawan with the RAGE boys. The one OP that sticks out in my mind was Winter's Fury. Damn it was cold that day. (Kinda like this past weekend at Wounded Wing) Good old days...

Thousands of dollars, Thousands of miles traveled, Hundreds of hours spent, and now we're here.

[pyzik]

I'm "new" to airsoft but I'll tell ya my first experience with it.

As a JR back highschool (2002) a friend and I picked up some cheap spring P99s to shoot each other with. They broke easily and we just got more. Ended up shooting his tooth out (oops!) and then went back to paintball. 

12 years later, I'm looking to get into it for real.

[Один (Odin)]

Have been playing airsoft for close to 6 years. When I first started it was mostly in backyard games using springer pistols mostly. After about a year or so I decided to buy my first rifle, I bought a XM8 spring (in all honesty I can't remember the brand) and ran that for about six months before i bought my very first AEG, a Colt On Duty Kit I used that M4 for about two years before it finally just pooped out on me. So I bought a AGM M16 and had that for awhile but once again it crapped out along with my cybergun FAMAS . After I had bought the AGM is when i was first drawn out to Monroe Airsoft Group and then from there how i got drawn to my very first game at No Limits. By this time i was running my current replica a Lancer Tactical MK18 CQR Mod 0. Now I'm not as active as I used to be because of school but now that my loadout is figured out I'm getting back into more active play

[Guts and Glory]

I do not have a definitive point of time for when I first encountered airsoft, just that it was before high school when my father gave me two kwc spring pistols and one of those sticky targets one Christmas. I got into airsoft primarily in high school with some associates, the standard backyard/private property kind of scenario. I went from spring pistols and the typical spring shotgun (which I still have) to a TM Famas F1, and the addiction has only gone downhill from there (I have a RealSword SVD and 3 dboys Kalashnikov variants taking up half of my bed right now). Over time the others locally had dropped airsoft, and I began to get involved with the MIA community.

My first event was Flash Fire III in Bangor, and I still remember it vividly. Through the years since then I have tried to get to games whenever they were locally (I attended many of Canto's rec games in Charlotte) or not immensely far (such as SFOD). I returned to Hole in the Wall in Bangor only sparingly, and it still commends my respect for its challenge. I have been from Bangor to Troy in terms of range, though I am reluctant to go out to either extreme these days sadly.


At times I feel like a collector more than a player, though I still enjoy getting out to getting to a field above all else. I also find myself a bit aloof of the Michigan Community's bigger picture structure wise, but I am extremely grateful for all the players I have met over the years, and to the game hosts like Canto and Pagan, who have helped keep my spirit for the game aspects of airsoft alive and well. I hope MIA stays for a long time.

[Mosin]

Figured I'd make one after reading everyone else in here. I got started back in 2003 playing with actual bb guns and shooting glasses in/around my house (We used those pump ones and kept it on one pump, maybe 300 fps?) I originally posted up here a while ago about some stupid story I did and got banned from MiA -- Fast forward two years I buy a JG M16 (Vietnam style) and took it to a field in Sterling Heights run by a team known as "Team Tehn". Signed up for the game and after about two months of every weekend out there I joined their team and picked up a UTG M324 and played as the team Sniper. About a month after being on the team I seen Team RAGE come out and got into a few engagements with them on field, after a lot of flirtatious back and forth on joining the team I dropped an application and went to Paw Paw with them for one of OPDOC's first games hosted out there.

At the event I decided to join with Team RAGE, which was in 2006, and stayed around for a while. We (Team RAGE) removed three of the less active/non honorable players and kept trucking forward as a three man death squad and ended up grabbing Tex and OPDOC on the team, as well as Livonia not too long after that. Once we were all together we functioned more as three teams of Sniper/Spotter and attended almost every event in 2007/08. I ended up leaving for Military Service in August of 2008 and only played about one game a year if that back in Michigan, but still managed to keep collections up as far as gear/weapons. Now that I'm out I've been actively pursuing hosting games and doing role play work on field, and we (RAGE) are actively attempting to bring back great MilSim to Michigan.

Damn... I've been "technically" playing for almost over a decade..

[Canto]

I'm right up there with Mosin and all of the other old forum hands. I joined Michigan Airsoft when I was 18 years old and a senior in high school (2004). Holy shit, nearly a decade... Wow...

My first event was Operation: Red Out held in March of 2006 at Futureball Paintball in Whitmore Lake, Michigan. I was a medic for the green team and I played using a UTG MP5 A5 and a black chest rig. Those were the good old days... Back then there was El Phantasmo, Hado, Munin, Snip, etc...

I agree with the previous statement that the community has had it's ups and downs over the years, but I feel it's in great shape. Every event there are new faces and groups in attendance. =)