Crosman’s new Raiden isn’t just another plinker—it’s the company’s first foray into battery-driven, true full-auto BB fire, and that matters more than the spec sheet suggests. At 430 fps with an 80-round mag and roughly 2,200 shots per charge, the gun gives backyard shooters the same cyclic-rate fun once reserved for pricier HPA or AEG platforms, but without the regulatory tripwires that come with powder-burning select-fire arms. For the 2A community, the Raiden is a reminder that innovation in the rimfire-adjacent space keeps pressure on legislators who keep trying to define “assault weapons” by cosmetic or mechanical features; a spring-and-battery gun that cycles 80 rounds as fast as you can hold the trigger undercuts the whole premise that rate-of-fire equals danger.
What’s equally interesting is how Crosman is threading the needle between toy-grade airsoft aesthetics and serious backyard training utility. The semi-auto setting lets new shooters drill trigger control and sight alignment at pennies per round, while flipping to full-auto turns the same platform into a low-cost way to practice malfunction clearance and transition drills—skills that transfer when the same shooter steps up to a .22 LR or even a centerfire rifle. In an era when primers and powder are still catching up on supply, the Raiden’s economics (roughly 2,200 rounds for the cost of a single box of .22) could pull an entire cohort of new enthusiasts into the hobby who might otherwise be priced out.
The larger implication is cultural as much as practical: every time a mainstream manufacturer ships a high-capacity, rapid-fire product that skirts the NFA and avoids the political heat of actual machine guns, it normalizes the idea that civilians should have access to the same fun and utility the military enjoys, just scaled to legal, non-powder propulsion. Expect the usual chorus from control advocates to label the Raiden a “gateway gun,” but the data already shows that jurisdictions with the loosest airgun rules also post the strongest youth participation numbers in the broader shooting sports. Crosman just gave the 2A world another data point that access and safety aren’t mutually exclusive—they’re often the same product wearing different paint.
