You have heard of a blowback gun and are now considering whether you should choose it instead of a non-blowback gun or vice versa. If that is the case I will help you determine your goals by comparing these two and giving you the advantages of both.
It is important to mention that under the term “blowback and non-blowback guns” fall both rifles and pistols.
However, it is more common to think of a pistol when talking about blowback, primarily because they are more popular. Furthermore, there are gas blowback guns and electric blowback guns but gas blowback guns are more popular in that regard.
What is better Blowback or non-Blowback Airsoft Gun?
In short, the best benefit of a blowback gun is realism while most of the other benefits like gas efficiency, maintenance, and fps power belong to the non-blowback guns.
However, it comes to personal preferences, it is safe to state certain pros and cons that I will mention in the following post.
If you are deciding to buy an airsoft gun, do not hurry, take a seat, a cup of soda and decide what is going to provide you with the most fun on your own.
I will state which criteria you should consider when buying the airsoft gun, especially if it is your first time.
Another useful post may be the one I have written about CO2 FAQ (this type of gas is the best gas for airsoft guns), you can find lots of relevant and important information if you want to own a gas airsoft gun.
What does Blowback mean on Airsoft Guns?
A blowback is an option on a gun that offers it an enhanced recoil, thus increasing the overall realism of a gun, such guns are manufactured that way and the guns can not be upgraded to it.
It is achieved by the implementation of a movable mechanism that gets powered by green gas, CO2, or an electric battery.
Often, airsoft guns try to get as close to replicating real guns, so sometimes you can expect that certain parts can be used on real guns and airsoft guns and vice versa.
What is the difference between Blowback and non-Blowback Airsoft Guns?
The best way to give you a full picture of the difference between blowback and non-blowback guns is to name the advantages of each, and then give you a conclusion based on the advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages of Blowback Guns
Realism
Those guns just scream realism and anyone whose priority is realism should consider blowback guns over non-blowback guns.
Those guns get extremely good at mimicking the authentic recoil of a real gun and are therefore a great use for anyone who needs that realism to be present on a gun.
That may be suitable for filmmakers or people who want to exercise the real shooting experience whether they plan to stay on that or later switch to some real guns.
There are many people who first start shooting with air guns before they move to real guns, although the feeling is not exactly like shooting with a real gun because you are shooting airsoft BBs and not real bullets, it can prepare someone to get better at handling a gun and dealing with a recoil that blowback additionally adds up to.
Just imagine the feeling wherewith each shoot you make, the gun makes that satisfying click when its movable part slides back and sends those vibrations throughout your body. This was one of my first requirements when I was deciding to buy the airsoft replica pistol.
Did I also mention that a blowback gun will tell you when you are out of ammo? It will do so by sliding backward and stay in that position until you refill it, saving you precious gas otherwise spent on shooting the empty magazine.
Let’s also mention that blowback airsoft guns can be quite louder than non-blowbacks!
The difference may not be big, however, it is noticeable. The sliding mechanism adds up to the sound effects, and if you think that it is cool to hear each shoot echoing, well do not think twice!
This sound effect is present on all blowback guns because the sliding mechanism makes it after each shot, however, the more profound, more expensive replicas are created of high-quality metal that has a different sound effect and will mimic the sound of the real gun closer than a replica made out of plastic.
More movable and replacement parts
Just like real firearms, blowback airsoft guns are manufactured out of many parts that can be swapped, so such guns are easily disassembled.
This is a cool feature for some people who just like disassembling different parts and then assembling them back into one piece.
This also makes them a bit more vulnerable to the dirt because there is more room for the dirt to get in and such guns require a bit more maintenance to keep everything nice and lubricated.
The advantages of non-Blowback Guns
Price
These guns are cheaper than their blowback counterparts, although the difference does not have to be necessarily dramatic, it still is impactful. I have found some decent non-blowback pistols that start at 55$, while decent blowback ones start at 95$.
You also have to calculate magazines that you may take additionally so you do not have to always reload manually and it may cost you an additional 20$ for blowback ones and 30$ for blowback ones.
The non-blowback gun will use less co2 so you can also expect to save some money there as well, however, the cartridges are not that expensive but you may still save a few dollars that way.
Therefore this goes in favor of all those people who are on a budget or want to start building their collection slowly up!
Consumption
When it comes to consumption it is logical to assume that a gun that has to produce more force in order to move a mechanism and cause a recoil effect must use more energy.
The energy comes from sources like CO2, Green gas, or Electric power and each source of energy will be sooner drained out in blowback guns than it will be the case with non-blowback ones.
In the long term, you will notice that Non-blowback guns save you some money for cartridges and their refill.
To give you an example of what it would look like in practice take a look at the example down below:
If Joe has two guns, one blowback, and one non-blowback and he starts shooting them both at the same time, he will on average shoot 2-3 more magazines with non-blowback on the same gas fill.
As it can be seen, non-blowback will focus all of the gas for one purpose only, and it is to shoot that means BB out of a gun and hit the target without any fancy realism!
Maintenance
The fewer single unique parts that form a gun, the less maintenance required to keep it in shape.
If there is no mechanism that allows your gun to slide that means that it will reduce the possibility of dirt getting into your gun and therefore causing it to function inappropriately.
It also means that whenever your gun is constructed from fewer parts, there is less of a chance for your gun to break, and the overall cleaning process is reduced.
Not so loud
This factor may not be important to you and greatly depends on your own criteria.
When a gun shoots and does not produce much noise, for some people it destroys the feeling, but some will look for this feature and may take it on top of their list when deciding to buy a gun.
The benefit of a silent gun is that it allows you to play stealthily and not get discovered by your enemies whenever you shoot toward someone.
This feature is important to some players who like to take that stealthy approach, like players who play with snipers and use a pistol as a secondary weapon at close distance, or for players who just prefer to be sneaky at the end of the day.
Because of the lack of moving parts that cause a recoil effect, such guns will produce less noise, but it will not completely eliminate it.
If you are looking for an even less noisy option then you may think of suppressors or silencers that you attach to the gun but they do not serve such a purpose on airsoft replicas besides providing you with an awesome look.
They work on real firearms but you can not additionally silence an already silent replica because the only reason such replicas are making noise is because of the mechanism inside the replica itself.
Gas Blowback Rifles or Gas Blowback Pistols
Some people praise the Gas blowback rifles and claim that they work longer and feel better than AEGs, it may be true but certainly, they also cost far more and are way harder to maintain.
I do not own a GBBR but have heard that people have to clean them literally every time after a single day of shooting.
I like to stick to AEGs instead of GBBRs because AEGs are cheaper and easier to maintain and are known to work without malfunctioning in the long term.
You can still get yourself a gas blowback rifle if do not mind the price and enjoy the best possible realism because they feel almost identical to the real rifles.
As mentioned, blowback is more meaningful on pistols because airsoft pistols have better use of it, are better at mimicking the real pistols than airsoft rifles do mimic the real rifles after making a summary of both advantages and disadvantages that come with them.
Conclusion on which one should you get
Based on all the benefits that we have stated above, It is easy to make a conclusion that if you are looking for realism, including realistic recoil, slightly enhanced sound produced, and feeling of vibrations that run throughout your body (really noticeable on rifles, slightly less on pistols) you should go with a blowback gun.
However, most of the benefits stated go to a non-blowback gun.
You can check my top picks for non-blowback airsoft pistols here.
So, if you are on a budget and want to purchase your first gun and you do not really care about realism you know what to do.
The non-blowback gun is going to do the job without hesitation and fancy stuff.
So, following that logic, you will not only save some money but also get a gun that has slightly more power in a long turn that is easier to clean and maintain.
In the end, I would suggest you take a look at some guns on both sides and decide what matters more to you.