Due to the high speed of the BBs (which may exceed 480 fps or 146 m/s in some cases) many players opt to wear military BDUs for more than just cosmetic reasons. These thicker clothes help protect from potentially painful welts that might be caused by the impact of a BB from a "high" (400-550 FPS) velocity gun at shorter ranges, but may somewhat hinder one's ability to determine if they've been hit by a "standard" (275-350 FPS) velocity gun at longer ranges. Also, protective glasses or goggles are a minimum requirement to play and virtually all players absolutely refuse to play without proper eye protection. If one is shot in the naked eye with an airsoft gun, it will almost assuredly seriously injure their eye, and the player runs the risk of losing vision in that eye. For this reason, while a very few fields have less stringent requirements for eye protection, nearly all organized groups of players, and fields that allow airsoft require that their eye protection fully seals the area around the eyes, and also meets or exceeds ANSI's Z87.1-2003 Goggle standard for eye protection (resists 3 joules of impact energy without damage). Some players will buy paintball goggles, which are held to higher impact rating standards, ASTM's F1776/. Note: Z87.1-2003 rated goggles are not intended for use in industry and manufacturing, and are not specifically intended for use in sports. According to ANSI publications as of June 2006, The ASTM is curretnly developing ASTM Z1535Z - Standard Specification for Eye Proctective Devices for Airsoft Sports.

Some other rules such as a maximum BB velocity and distance guidelines are used in different ways by groups depending of their location. Though not required at all fields, a facial covering such as a balaclava or a paintball mask (paired up with the set of goggles) is recommended, as there have been a few cases of players having chipped teeth due to direct hits by airsoft pellets.

There is not yet a world wide consensus between Airsoft players regarding muzzle velocities, and different limits may apply depending on the airsoft field. For security reasons majority will use limits far below skin penetration level assuring airsoft as a safe sport. These limits are based on muzzle velocities measured using BB’s weighing 0.20 grams, although BB’s of other weights are allowed for play, 0.20 as become a standard when performing measurements.

One commonly adopted practice is for players to shout the words "Blind Man" and halt an ongoing game if a player or bystander is seen without proper eye protection. Any player hearing the words must in turn stop and also shout the words, resulting a chain reaction which halts and alerts the whole game. Once the situation is resolved (by removing the person from harm or properly protecting them), the game is usually commenced at the same point at which it was stopped.