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Eye protection -- got it!

Obviously it wouldn't replace practicing with the real thing on the range, but I like the idea of being able to practice more at home, and to practice things that we might not be able to do with a real firearm.

Out of curiosity, how likely is it that there would be any sort of issue with having an extremely realistic replica of a firearm? I'm not planning on walking down the street waving it around, or even using it in the front yard for that matter. But is there any sort of protocol for making it clearly distinguishable, or should I be aware of any potential problems? And for those who have kids and airsoft guns, any tips for how you handle that? I'm especially concerned about the fact that the two would look nearly identical, especially to a small child. For the record, our guns are locked up or under our direct control at all times, but I like to have a few overlapping layers of safety so that no single failure would be disastrous.

I'm a new gun owner, working toward getting my CHL this year. I participate in a women's pistol league, and after range practice last week the question came up of what to do about training/practicing if you're having trouble finding or affording ammo. One suggestion was to buy a high-quality airsoft gun in a similar model to what you shoot. That was an intriguing idea as I'd love to be able to practice more, but I'm pretty clueless about airsoft so I thought I'd ask for thoughts or advice from anyone who's done that (or has thought about it and decided not to for some reason).

Would this be something we could do in the backyard, or does it require more of a setup than that? We're in a fairly typical suburban home in Travis County, outside any city limits. Instead of neighbors behind us we have an open field and then a busy road. Our backyard has your standard 6' wooden privacy fence around most of it; a small portion is a taller (7 feet?) stone wall. We do have access to some property outside of Bastrop as well, but it's about an hour away and we have three small kids, so it wouldn't be as convenient as home if home worked. To be clear, though, the first priority is safety and responsibility, not fun or convenience.

How well does shooting airsoft translate as practice for the real thing? I know it wouldn't be a substitute, but is it pretty beneficial overall? How do you get the most benefit out of it? Any major pitfalls to avoid?

In case it helps, this is specifically what I was looking at: http://www.airsoftgi.com/product_info.p ... s_id=12274" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; It's not actually available yet and we don't want to rush into anything anyway, but it looked like about what we'd want.