5" vs 7" vs 10" M4 Variants - Help Me Choose

[Point Two Balls]

Hi Guys,

What are the pro and cons?

It is purely user comfort and user asthetics, or is there some real truth about longer barrel / more accuracy in an Airsoft environmemnt which realistically isn't often much more than 30-50 metres.

Thanks,

Pat.

 

[Lozart]

It is purely user comfort and user asthetics, 

Yes

Thanks,

Pat.

You're welcome.

Loz

 

[Skara]

Oversimplified, but yeah, it's mostly a cosmetic thing.

Keep in mind that the shorter the barrel is, the stiffer the spring is needed to achieve X level of power compared to a longer barrel.

On the other hand, anything over 10" is essentially useless.

Barrel length (assuming the cylinder, piston stroke and spring are the same) mostly affects power output.

What brings the most to the table is BBs, hop up and air seal, the more consistent those three are the tighter the "groupings"

 

[Rogerborg]

10"/ 250mm is about bang on for an airsoft AEG.  More is pointless.

Less will work, but you may notice some wider groupings way out yonder.  Indoor CQB, not an issue.

 

[Lozart]

OK, yes I was a little simplistic there but to be brutally honest, once you get over about 200mm (ish) barrel length doesn't make that much difference for something like an M4. 10" is a good sweet spot in that it's long enough to be reasonably accurate but not so long as to be cumbersome. 5" will likely suffer from the Stormtrooper effect (where you'll hit literally everything around what you're trying to hit but not the actual target) unless you're doing super close CQB type games.

In terms of power difference, you'll probably notice more of an issue if you went from a full length 14.5" (363mm inner) right down to a 5" (pointless inner) than between a 7 and a 10 for example. As long as you're not hugely over or under voluming (ie matching the cylinder type to your barrel length) you'll be fine.

Main things to be thinking about is the quality of the bore in your inner barrel and the consistency of your hop unit/nub/bucking combination.