On more than a few occasions they arrive on the field and leave without glory or sorrow. Most people have wanted one at some point, many have tried them, but few have mastered them. They are grenade launchers: a replica as powerful as it is useless, as feared as it is underused, as fun as it is frustrating. Below we offer you nine plus one “small truths” about forty-millimeter grenades in the wonderful world of airsoft.
1. Always carry it with you and get used to its presence.
Just as with pistol replicas or knives, the first steps with a grenade launcher are full of forgetfulness and hands on heads when we remember, too late, that we could have used it to get out of a tight situation. If we want to go far in the world of forty millimeters, it is essential to always carry the grenade launcher, get used to its weight, and carry it always in the same way. Surely in the first games it will not be fired during play, but a time will come when your mind internalizes its presence and you will resort to it as automatically as you resort to the pistol.
2. Do not want to use it on the first day and at the first moment.
That is what new things are like: we want to use them as soon as possible… and of course, haste and airsoft do not get along well. The grenade launcher is a replica designed for very specific uses: room clearing, eliminations behind cover, neutralizing enemies in groups or with shields… and not on every occasion do the conditions arise to use a 40 mm grenade. Assume that there will be days when you will leave with loaded grenades without having had the chance to fire a single shot.
3. Use grenades as if they were given to you for free and already loaded.
Loading grenades is tedious, and on top of that our reserve of this type of projectile is usually not very extensive, so we tend to fire them only when the elimination is guaranteed. Forget that and use grenades without stinginess… but with common sense. Do not wait for five to gather if you can eliminate three, and do not worry about firing a grenade at a ceiling for fear of not being able to see how the surprised opponent falls eliminated in a sea of BBs. Wanting to make “video” eliminations 99.999% of the time is impossible.
4. In most cases you will use grenades as if they were a pistol.
Let’s admit it: eliminating someone with a big bang is much more fun than doing it with a small bang. Although there are more rational uses such as clearing a room or covering teammates, it will not be rare to use a 40 mm grenade to eliminate a single player whom you could calmly eliminate with a pistol.
5. You will be left wanting more.
Although forty-millimeter grenades can give us many moments of happiness, they will also give us moments of anger. O-rings that break, BBs that barely fly a meter due to poor loading, or valves that silently leak are daily bread in the grenadier world. Accept as a common situation having an opponent in the sights of the AEG and just when you are switching to the grenade, he turns around and eliminates you. Accept it: Murphy and 40 mm grenades are great friends.
6. Always load grenades with the same ammunition and gas.
Unlike any other replica, 40 mm grenades are desperately boring to load, and that is why the trial-and-error “technique” with different types of gas and BBs is not entirely advisable. Using leftover BBs to save a few cents or mixing gas types to squeeze out that bit of gas left in the can is a mistake. As a general rule, a combination of 0.12 BBs and green gas offers perfectly acceptable firing performance.
7. Try to carry all grenades the same.
Each grenade works differently depending on the brand, the gas, and the BBs we use, so if we want to have full control of our explosive “airsenal” it is advisable not to have to memorize, at least at the beginning, whether we have grenades with five-meter range that spread a lot and others with ten that spread less.
8. They are short-range replicas, very short range.
Although this value can vary depending on BB weight, ambient temperature, gas load, and type, what is normal for a grenade is that it barely exceeds ten meters of range. In case you are thinking it: no, there are no 40 mm snipers.
9. Grenades often are not felt.
Due to the low weight of the BBs normally used, 0.12 or 0.15 grams, and the moderate power of these devices, it is relatively common to fire at an opponent and for them not to call themselves out because, in effect, they do not feel the impact. It is actually difficult to miss when firing a hundred BBs at less than ten meters, but people who do not normally use 40 mm grenades do not know this and believe that the shot missed or was a ricochet. Arm yourself with patience and count to twenty.
+1. Despite everything... it is worth it.
Just like the player who crawls for ten minutes to get a knife kill or the sniper who does not blink for an hour and a half to notch another “one shot, one kill,” eliminating a group of players with a grenade is a rush that is hard to explain. Its use is complicated, yes… but it is worth it.
