I don't know about you but I love taking a person who has never even touched a gun and converting them into a safe and enthusiastic shooter. There are a few issues you come up against though.
1. I am always worried that the new shooter will act in an unsafe matter from lack of listening or just that sort of that blank confused look some of them get the fist time they shoot.
2. New shooters are often intimidated by the firearm and getting them to shoot with good fundamentals is often about getting beyond their fear of the gun rather then getting them to understand what to do.
3. New shooters often don't believe the coach who says you are jerking the trigger, pulling to down and left, etc.
4. Unless you are lucky with a huge back yard out in the sticks, shooting requires a trip to the range.
Airsoft solves a lot of these things. Safety wise there is still enough danger of injury to make your safety warnings matter but no one is going to die (WEAR EYE PROTECTION). The weapons have all the functions, features and dimensions of their real counter parts for training and since you can shoot them at targets at reasonable defensive distances they give instant feed back to the shooter as to how well they are doing. When a shooter jerks instead fo squeezes it is evident and when they pull you can actually see the bb respond in flight. Most shooters will not be intimidated by them (no recoil, no muzzle blast, no fear of death) so they focus on taking in your instructions. You get to view them with a weapon, reenforce safety and know your student before you go to a rim or center fire weapon. Last you can shoot in a garage or back yard with a sheet hung from a ceiling or pvc frame as a back stop (if a backstop is even needed).
Even law enforcement groups, professional shooters and many hunters are adopting airsoft as a tools for training and off season shooting. Yet to me they are a great tool for new shooters and coaches of the same, what do ya'll think?
