Airsoft Brands Compared: From Specna Arms to VFC

There is no official ranking of airsoft brands. What follows is our own sorting, by what a brand's typical gun is made of, what is inside it and how alike one example is to the next. Treat it as a map.

Two warnings before you use it. Most brands sell at more than one level: Specna Arms, for one, divides its own range into a polymer Core line and an Edge line above it. And a level says nothing about power, because your site caps that for every gun alike.

Entry level means a real skirmish gun at the lowest sensible price: usually an electric rifle (an AEG, driven by a battery and a motor) with a polymer or light alloy body and simple parts inside. Specna Arms is the name most beginners meet first. CYMA is known for affordable AK-style rifles, and Double Bell and Delta Armory fill the same shelf.

Lancer Tactical, a budget name you also see in British shops, belongs here too. What these brands share: the gun works, common magazines fit, and when something wears out a standard part replaces it.

Mid-range guns add a metal body, better parts inside and often an electronic trigger. G&G from Taiwan is the classic step up, though its Combat Machine line competes at entry level as well. Specna Arms sits here with its Edge and Edge 2.0 lines, and ARES and ASG, the Danish firm behind the CZ Scorpion Evo replica, are in the same class.

At the top you pay for consistency and finish. For AK-style rifles that means LCT and E&L, which build theirs in steel; for bolt-action sniper rifles, Novritsch and Silverback. Three names come up for everything else.

Gas guns are a trade of their own. In a gas blowback gun (GBB) the gas fires the BB and moves the slide or bolt as well, and a few makers do that better than the rest. Tokyo Marui pistols are the reference; WE and KJ Works offer metal pistols for less, and VFC leads in gas rifles. Umarex holds the licences behind many of the pistols with real markings.

HPA guns, fed with compressed air from a tank through a hose, have their specialists too, such as Mancraft. That is a second step, not a first purchase.

Three names you hear at any British site are less known on the continent, and none of them is first of all a gun maker.

We publish no resale percentages, because we have no figures that would hold up. What we can say is what makes a used gun easy to sell: a brand buyers recognise, parts and magazines that are easy to find, and a gun left close to standard.

That favours Tokyo Marui, VFC, Krytac and G&G among the used electric rifles, and Tokyo Marui again among the used gas guns. An entry-level gun costs less to begin with, so there is less to lose. Browse all used airsoft guns to see which names come up.