Leo Greer

Absolutely true. The main reason I don't "stick with the noobs" as much is that I tend to move extremely fast to wherever I'm going, and we all know how it is getting folks to rush. We should definitely be spending time teaching new players and helping them develop their skills, but at the same time I don't want to let it interrupt my gameplan.

First off, if you built this RIF 25+ years ago, have you checked inside it for any issues? Is the hop rubber still fresh and soft? Second, what ammunition are you using? BB quality is a big deal. Third, you shouldn't ever need PTFE tape on an AEG. That mod originated for VSR cut barrels and hop rubbers, where the design allows air to balloon the hop packing and cause a leak. If the hop unit is loose on the rubber, then yes, you should wrap the rubber/barrel in layers of tape for stability, but that's a spec issue at heart, and I would suggest finding a rubber or unit that fits better. Fourth, this issue could be something as simple as the nub or hop arm having shifted, putting more pressure on one side of the rubber. In order for us to give you better advice, I'd suggest disassembling your barrel group, testing and feeling everything, and post pictures! Give us the details and the nitty gritty.

Generally, I'll organize with either my buddies, or folks who have military experience. They know the value of calling enemies out, holding strategic points, and pushing when they need to, so even if it's not a win at the end of the day, we'll typically take home more than our fair share of kills. However... If I'm working with noobs, or even just disorganized players, typically I do my best to simply hold a few strategic points and provide cover fire for anyone nearby. In my perspective, it's often tactically useless to try and organize a push, since if I leave a strategic, game-winning position and have to respawn, chances are that no one on the team will move to cover it. At the end of the day, I feel out who is actually going to work with me and who isn't and play accordingly. It feels amazing capturing flags with one or two skilled players and really turning the tide of the battle, but if there just isn't any team cohesion, I move fast to take and hold overwatch positions and allow other players to move up safely and do well.

A MOSFET, or the very simple old-school dielectric grease on the contacts, which I should've mentioned. Most people have no idea that you don't actually need a MOSFET to avoid arcing on the trigger contacts.

I run 4S pretty frequently in certain builds. In general, the motors seem to handle it fine. However, you should note that GATE Titans (mine and those of others) have been known to have issues on 4S. Perun, on the other hand, seems to deal with it fine. I run 4S paired with a 38 TPA motor and 12:1 gears, which allows me to use whatever spring power I'd like (currently using a PDI 170%, which is right for my American fields' assault limits), and so if I want to I can simply up the spring power and start feeding it heavies and have myself a DMR. But really, in my case, it's just for funsies. I saw a 4S on sale one day, and then saw the 38 TPA on ChiHai Shenzhen one day... and the two sort of came together. I will say, the two instances I see people using 4S for practical purposes are DMRs and low-speed motor DSGs (which I have done), especially those that use overly strong springs. It's also a way to more cheaply mimic brushless trigger performance while not having to deal with the avoidance of certain ETUs and settings.

Are you already using an 11.1v? I don’t know what the spring strength on those G36s is like, but if you can get away with it an 11.1v LiPo is by far the easiest and most effective trigger response upgrade. If you suffer from double shots, you can short stroke and increase spring power, or even shorten the inner barrel and increase spring power.

First off, I should mention that you actually have a rather high speed set up posted here. Rocket/SHS HTs tend to run at around 35K RPM unloaded. Assuming everything is built right, this setup should give you 30+ RPS on 11.1v. The issue with this is PME on your fairly weak spring. Next, I should mention that the majority of the parts posted aren’t really upgrades. Before buying anything you should check the gearbox yourself, as none of these parts are actually better than the stock parts (if they’re not broken or messed up for some reason). In fact, some of the parts could be downgrades depending on fitment (air nozzle and piston). Nozzles in particular can be very, very finicky, and chances are that your stock nozzle does its job great already. The Perun and clicker I can wholly recommend. It’s a luxury upgrade that’s worth it. The barrel is a maybe, in my opinion. AA barrels have a great rep in many circles, so I’d say it’s a good choice IF you wanted to replace your barrel… but there might not be any reason to replace in the first place. Before replacing the barrel, you should always examine the stock one for any defects or reasons to replace, and if not you should polish it up, stabilize it, and try it out! A hop rubber can be a good upgrade, but you should note that the Prometheus purple, while a fine choice, won’t perform better than your stock rubber, unless the stock rubber has something wrong with it, like being too slick and hard or having imperfections/tears in it. TL:DR, you need to assess the internals yourself before doing anything, as most “pro techs” are garbage at what they do. You don’t know what actually needs to be changed, modified, or replaced until you get inside a look.

Shorter barreled models often have stronger springs because of the shorter barrel. They need a stronger spring to maintain joule output. For example, if you fit a long barrel to a G&G ARP9 (American version) you can bump your joules to 1.7J+ from 1.15Jish, since they have a strong spring to avoid PME and boost power. Most likely, the FPS differences between model are caused by Krytac just using the springs available to them and not caring about the difference. For example, my stock Krytac Trident SPR (American) shot about 1.6J OOTB and didn’t lose any of that power, which is above most field limits for “assault rifle” power.

Of course. Gas supply is just severely more limited with AEGs. It's not even close. Even on .20g BBs, you start running out of volume at 509mm with an efficient AEG. You could make the barrel of most GBBRS four feet long and still have tons of extra volume.

I'll second the above posts, as well as add this: In general, a very short barrel can be made to shoot just about as well as a long barrel. Airsoft does not benefit in any way shape or form from a long barrel, as the only thing the BB needs is enough time to fully stabilize in the barrel. In RS shooting barrel length is much more important because RS bullets travel faster and have much less time to stabilize. How fast BBs stabilize in your RIF is individual to your setup, your BBs used, and several other factors. As a general rule... 300mm seems to be the sweet spot where accuracy and length meet. You gain nothing by going above, but may gain accuracy by lengthening to 300mm. However, for example, my primary uses a 260mm and gets amazing accuracy. This is just a ballpark and not a hard rule. Range in general is governed by the joule output, BB stability, and BB backspin/weight. These are all, for the most part, independent of barrel length.

Good call on playing first and “upgrading” later! Many of what we call “upgrades” are situational, specific, and many companies and parts aren’t actually any better than stock, and can in fact be worse. It’s good to take your time, so your research, and learn from those that have made mistakes before you! Adolf is correct—you will get numerous different answers from everyone, and it’s your choice as to what you want to go with. Chances are everyone’s suggestions will work fine. Here’s the skinny: in simple, the hop rubber is the rubber piece that goes over your barrel and, when depressed by the hop arm/nub, provides backspin to the BB. Some designs use a forked contact patch, the original (or legacy) design uses a mound shaped patch, and others use flat patches or concave patches and various other shapes. The best shape depends on your setup and application, but suffice it to say that you can make any of them work great. For a beginner, I would recommend changing to the PDI W-hold, Krytac orange or blue, G&G blue, or another reputable forked nub rubber, as they tend to offer better performance than legacy style rubbers (in my experience) like the Prometheus purple and other mound style rubbers (the rubber in your gun is probably mound styled). The forked nub rubbers (or split nub) are also easy to tune. You don’t need to change your nub, and you shouldn’t suffer from overhop issues. I should note, in general before changing anything, you should clean everything around and inside the barrel group and hop unit thoroughly with rubbing alcohol, and you can also do DIY stabilization mods that may increase accuracy by a lot. These are mods like shimming your hop arm, shimming your inner barrel inside your outer barrel, and shimming your hop unit in your receiver. I wrote a full guide to accuracy in general HERE Not everyone will agree with my specific opinions, but in my guide I aim to provide a general understanding of how the system works, the principles behind upgrading, and parts and consumables you may use to get there.

Anyone have one yet? My squirrel brain is telling me yes, and my wallet is telling me no, so I thought I'd see if any of y'all have firsthand experience and good reasons to go for it or avoid it!

I did the same thing with 5000 BLS .32g. My man, you’re in good company!

I should’ve elaborated more—a good spring should experience little to no power drop over a minimum of 100,000 cycles, and hopefully much longer, but, of course, all springs will experience some power loss.

Seconds on the PDI W-hold for hop units that don’t like ML rubbers. I can confirm that they don’t like anything heavier than .30g even at 1.5+J. Mine perform the best using .25g. I like the PDI W-Hold or Modify Ryusoku for “legacy” spec hop units, those being tighter than newer design and less likely to accept ML rubbers. If an ML rubber can be used, then that is my recommendation. I will also be happy using Krytac Orange and Blue, G&G Blue, and I’ll flathop just about anything. In general, using the correct nub and with correct stabilization, you can make almost any rubber perform excellently. The key is in using the proper nub shape, and how you set up the rest of your barrel group around the rubber.

Too loose is indeed better, but in my experience you can have too tight of shimming and still have a good sound. Most of the cycling noise is related to the bevel-pinion junction, and how well the teeth match up. I believe your results will probably hold true for longer ranges as well, given that the barrel and rubber don’t affect the BB once it leaves their influence. So, the variance you see now should carry over, extrapolating into similar variance at any range. Have you perchance done stabilization mods on either RIF?

Open warfare is inevitable. Embrace it.

Seconds to what Fatboy posted. A good spring should basically never compress, whereas bad springs can lose power very quickly, or even bend.

A better question is why you want such a long barrel?

This issue is caused (almost certainly) by that small little microswitch in the top right corner. Looks up how microswitches react to relatively high amperage (compared to what they’re supposed to be used for) and you’ll have your answer. It’s a design flaw with the EFCS, causing the microswitch to send thousands of electrical pulses through the system, causing heat to build up, causing the chip to fry.

Let me see if I can dig up some more info. As far as I’m aware there is no such effect. I know people who do the mod in builds running 70 RPS+, but of course it depends on what you use, where you put it, how much, etc. Let me see if I can ask some the high RPS techs how it wears in.

It is indeed real, my good sir. I believe people have also used different kinds of rubberized sealants in thin layers, but I’d go shrink wrap for simplicity (you seal it with a heat gun or hair dryer).

Certain springs are quieter, in my experience, but Guarder are not especially so. They’re also not especially loud either. If you really want to make your spring quieter, you can just put some shrink wrap around a few of the coils.

@Lozart Good point on parts availability. I try not to recommend anything I know is super hard to find, but I’m sure it happens… @MrTea Glad you’ve been able to find most of the items you need! I’m watching the thread waiting to hear what you’re able to get out of it.

Which one did you buy? Umarex doesn’t actually make those—they’re just a rebrander with an HK license—and there are different models from the extreme cheap crap to being made by VFC.