I-57 Airsoft
About the Blog
I-57 Airsoft is a platform to share reviews and discussions, dedicated to high-quality equipment with an emphasis on MilSim airsoft. Read more about the story behind the blog below.
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The Story:
I launched I-57 with the intention of creating a platform to share reviews and discussions focussing on MilSim airsoft and associated kit.
This platform is a culmination of just over ten years (as of August 2022) of my participation and interest in airsoft. I came across the game by chance in mid-2012 after buying a cheap spring-powered BB gun at a market stall (during a school trip, of all things) and subsequently attended my first game in September 2013. I quickly became interested in the MilSim side of things, and this was my main focus from around mid-2014. I attended my first MilSim-type event in 2015 and continued to attend events like this regularly thereafter. In early 2016, I became a Staff Writer for Airsoft International Magazine and continued in that post until September 2018, writing about a range of topics and interviewing people in the industry. In early 2017, I launched a Facebook page and YouTube channel under a different banner, mainly just as a way of documenting my experiences of the game and as a platform for releasing some gameplay clips and such. I gradually began to focus more and more on the impressionist side to MilSim, first with a US Pararescue/PJ kit in 2016, and subsequently a late-2016 UKSF counter-terrorism kit which I built through late 2017 and early 2018. I was subsequently invited to attend a series of mock counter-terrorism exercise events for UKSF impressionists, latterly as part of the command team there. That is where the I-57 name comes from: it is my command callsign at those events.
Everything came crashing to a halt for me in August 2018 when I was on the wrong end of a serious spinal injury where I became paralysed from the waist-down. At that time, I was advised that airsoft would no longer be viable for me due to the lasting effects of that kind of injury, so I stepped back from the hobby. It wasn’t until as recently as August 2022 and a change in my medical team that I got the go-ahead to start playing again. I wanted to start a fresh platform, albeit with a nod to its predecessor, which will allow me to document the work which is going into my kit and training as I throw myself back into the hobby, as well as add a fresh perspective to reviews having been away from the tactical world for a while.
The Philosophy:
I believe that reviews should be completely honest and fully transparent, and that discussions around kit and loadouts should focus just as much on the “why” behind things as they do the “what” of them. That is what I want to offer on this platform. I’ll always disclose any relationship I have with manufacturers, suppliers or third parties linked to anything I am writing about (whether in a review or otherwise) and I’ll always be completely honest and as unbiased as I possibly can be.
Similarly, I think it’s important to focus on the thought process that goes on behind buying something, or setting kit up in a particular way, or even training in a certain way. I think it’s way more useful to focus on that in the context of discussions about kit, with the aim that understanding a bit about the thought process will encourage you to be able to build kit that is set up precisely for your needs and parameters.