in the earlier days of AVing question
 

i dont even know how long was AV been around for
but in the earlier days, how did people get their airsoft guns?

haven't been around long enough to see pre Av ASC but I know when I started AV'ing was just to control ASC's own buy/sell section and it wasn't as "here or nowhere" as it was back in the day, you could actually go to walk in stores and internet stores and buy them just like you can the clearsoft g&g's that's how I got mine, from kelowna armoury

99% of these stores are now closed the rest converted to clearsoft/safesoft retailers and now AV'ing is a must if you want a decent gun. but before you could buy them like paintball guns

well, from what I remember there was a pimp involved and his name was Tru

IN the earlier days, craftsmen carved the components out of wood and stone. BBs were made from dried fruit.


Airsoft has only really been popular in Canada for about 20 years. Before that, you could buy them all you like 1998 I beleive is when they were considered replicas and prohibited devices.

from stores online or not and through forum classifieds. The same as you get them now but now this forum and many other enforce an AV system.

Mostly online stores.

A few people got arrested and the rest just closed down.

2003ish is when it came into effect.

Back in high school a lot of my friends bought their guns from the classified section... And thus AV was born.

I bought and sold several guns before being AV'd. I joined in 2005.

Must have been post 2005.

Oh you're totally right lol, Wow it actually wasn't that long ago..

Bought stuff from classifieds and from Tru. Back then it was a rule to sell to 18+ but couldn't be enforced.

IIRC sometimes the retailers would call the house that was ordering the gun, you know see if they were actually 18 or some minor. It was something at least.

Then there were retailers like M1, Rangers, A&A, SpecArms, APEC, Xtreme Precision, Blue Seas, TruMart, etc. It all fell down though around 05/06 IIRC after Peter got into some legal trouble and then there was SpecArms and Warcraft that got charged too and it just went downhill from there.

I remember APEC downtown sold, they were called something before they were APEC, and changed the name shortly after that too. Thats where all the cool kids bought there guns around here...

APEC, Xtreme Precision, Blue Seas Trading were all one in the same and owned by Peter K

there was no av the classifieds were just there. also there were stores abound.

Ahh yeaaa, those all sound familiar. For a while there I think he was sponsoring op-for. I kinda fell out of the sport shortly after that and haven't paid attention until recently.