Aug hc foregrip/barrel help

[Tanith]

This is my first proper AEG.

I've noticed the quick release barrel is attached to the foregrip mount. I'm worried that with continued use and pressure holding it this may affect the barrel and guns accuracy but haven't seen anythin written anywhere, seems to be a top notch gun otherwise? Looking for any input from you guys with Augs.

I think I'll replace it with an afg to be safe but what can I do to make this safe and secure with 0 wobble? I want it as non-wobbly as possible! 

Also, any tips or tricks for maintaining this specific rif to keep it tip top?  Or is it the same as any other. 

Furthermore, I know not to tamper with the internals of a hc in terms of upgrading, but this is my mid tier gun and I want to do whatever I can to safely upgrade it before my next purchase/project an AK dmr. Would a barrel change be a good idea after what I've just asked??

Cheers

 

[Iceni]

Augs do wobble a bit, It's part of how they work.

The adjustment to make the wobble better is done on the hop unit tension spring. It's between the hop and inner barrel and the outer barrel. And that spring governs the pressure the front end puts on the gearbox. There is a limit to how much adjustment you can make. You need to remove the barrel from the upper, then 2 screws secure the hop into the outer. The big spring between the hop and body controls all of the body tension stretching it out is all you have to do. I will warn you if you overtighten those 2 screws, put them in catching the inner barrel, force anything or get the hop spacer in wrong you can significantly hurt the gun. As that whole assembly is far more important to the AUG than in other gun designs.

It's one of the reasons you can't shim an Aug barrel with tape or O-rings. The inner barrel on the spring has to move.

When you split the upper and rebuild it you should feel the hop unit engage the gearbox, then there should be some pressure beyond that to be able to push the pin over. It's only about 3-5mm of travel you are feeling for.

Do not be tempted to shim the gearbox forwards as it cracks the magwell plate eventually. 


The front end of the AUG is a pretty odd arrangement of parts. It's not weak, most of the outer barrel is plastic inside the gun. The metal outer is only held in place with a single grub screw and simply slips over the upper.  An aluminium tube runs through both the plastic and metal parts and acts to loosely shim the inner barrel. What that means is even tho it might feel like there is a lot of movement on the upper, internally it's pretty well contained, and you shouldn't be able to cause much deflection of shots handling the gun like an animal.

The wobble is also contained at the rear of the gun where there is nothing actually pressing on the upper. It's simply held in place with that bar and spring and will rock freely on that bar without incident as it's not pressing on anything. The sides of the upper where meet the lower stop rotation. Provided you don't mess with the inner barrel and try shimming it, then all of this will work without any issues.

It's one of the reasons M4 style body upgrades can ruin an AUG. Once you start to mess with that whole setup then you can find yourself in a bad airseal situation with no apparent cause. 

If you want to reduce wobble in a safe way learn to be a gentle touch. The Aug is well balanced and doesn't need to be grabbed. Training yourself not to break it is far easier than trying any modification.

Augs require no maintenance. I grease my trigger slide and spring and grease the cocking handle springs just to reduce the noise they make. Some blue threadlock on the 3 body screws will stop them falling out, Make sure the mag catch is nice and free when you reassemble, It's normally the mag catch nut that falls out!

A mosfet is a good plan if it doesn't already have one. If it's your first gun just run 7.4v lipos and be happy till it breaks it been a TM that should be a decent period of a few years. The electrical trigger contacts are easy to find as it's the same semi block as the AK V3 gearbox, and the auto contacts are just a copper plate and 2 prongs. It's only a few £ to replace the contacts so don't sweat not having a mosfet, just don't run 11.1v or higher, no matter what your mates tell you.

Don't bother with the inner barrel upgrade. TM barrels are decent enough, attempting to put a TBB into it means stripping the hop, AUG hops are easy but also very easy to get wrong. And unless you have spent a bit of time with them then you will find you won't see the issues! If you are adamant on a barrel upgrade get a hop unit as well so you have 2 complete barrels and hops.. That way you can test the rebuild against the stock one. It'll take you several attempts to get it right.

 

 

[DrAlexanderTobacco]

You can also remove that foregrip mount completely if you want - it's what I've done to mine and I find it just feels a lot better to hold as a result.

 

[Tanith]

Couldn't really have asked for a better answer, thanks. It Co firmed my suspicions and explained how.

I tend to hold it like a pistol anyway and always felt cheesey, but knowing that it's not simply a case of tightening a screw I think I'll stick with the original plan. Less tension on the front even if it's meant to be like that anyway can't hurt.

I'm very happy with the gun and it fits my style perfectly; none of what's been said detracts from that. But I do wish I could squeeze out a bit more accuracy or fps. I'd rather not break it though.

Thanks a ton for the replies guys, can't wait to...  It do anything with it apart from dress it pretty. 

Would a silencer help it at all? 

Thanks ICeni aka Aug God

 

[Iceni]

I run a silencer on my A3.

They have some effect on barrel noise if you get one with foam packing. It will not make the gun silent.

To make an aug silent you have to do a full teardown and rebuild with new internals. You can get them really really quiet with the correct upgrades done right. My A3 is very very hard to pinpoint in a firefight, and outside of about 10m you simply don't hear it.


Accuracy should come with a bit of use if it's new. If it's secondhand it might need some work doing to the barrel and bucking. 

Bucking wise I like the prommy purples and the G&G greens. The basic AUG hop is very good and you shouldn't need to upgrade it unless it breaks. I've tried several manufacturers hops and they all work well if built correctly. Barrel wise if you are upgrading have a look at the ZCI barrels on AK2M4, There well priced and always seem to perform well for me.

 

[Tanith]

I run a silencer on my A3.

They have some effect on barrel noise if you get one with foam packing. It will not make the gun silent.

To make an aug silent you have to do a full teardown and rebuild with new internals. You can get them really really quiet with the correct upgrades done right. My A3 is very very hard to pinpoint in a firefight, and outside of about 10m you simply don't hear it.


 

 Would you recommend a silencer on a TM hc solely for improving 'performance'? I'm not too bothered about actual shot noise reduction but it will help as I often flank through areas I'm watching the enemy team...

You're help is much appreciated as I know I will never go to the lengths you have to learn about the technical side of airsoft, so thanks.

How many Augs do you actually own? I love them in general 

 

[Iceni]

Silencers don't do anything for performance.

Your only performance upgrades are gearbox and battery related. I wouldn't bother with a TM HC. You are already shooting at 20+rps on a 7.4v lipo.

Upgrades are very much a personal thing and TM do a very good job of providing an out of the box gun that requires no upgrades.

The lower FPS 280 is done for Japanese law, but also the gears TM use are notoriously soft. Whilst they run forever at 280fps as soon as you upgrade to 350 the lifespan of them decreases exponentially. It also devalues the gun, as second hand buyers are more than aware of what a stock TM should be shooting at.

I run 2 Augs, but have plans for a 3rd when money will allow. Neither of them are standard internally. I've owned many more.

If you want to do upgrades you picked the wrong Aug. You should have picked up a cheaper variant. Since the bodies on the cheap and expensive models are identical. You then go to town on the gearbox. 13:1 gears, mosfet, bushings, shimming, Piston and head, spring guide, piston body, airseal nozzle, motor. All you have left stock at the end is the shells contacts, and trigger. You then do the same to the hop and inner barrel, ZCI 6.03 lapped and crowned, prommy purple bucking, Perhaps a flat hop.

You'll spend almost as much as the TM upgrading a JG. The outcome is a gun that will perform how you want it to.


Realistically there is only so much you can do. Gears and motors will cover the basic rounds per second. TM is already on the money here with 20rps, my builds are not significantly faster averaging about 22rps.

Tuning a gun to that degree isn't needed.

Accuracy is 99% bucking and hop build. Unless you have a bad barrel even a JG 6.08 can be accurate.

You are power limited to 1.13J so you can't gain any more energy for the BB.

So the build becomes about smoothness, longevity, Trigger response, and consistency. Consistency is the real key, A gearbox that always puts out the same energy will by design always have the best chance to repeat it's accuracy shot after shot, To get consistency you need to get things running at tight tolerances, with perfect seals, and plenty of good lubrication.

BB's are also by there nature inaccurate. The single best upgrade you can do is buy 0.25g BB's.


These batteries are also well worth the money if you haven't picked up any lipo's.

https://www.componentshop.co.uk/7-4v-2200mah-35c-continuous-discharge-lipo-battery.html

 

You will need a proper lipo charger, and you may need to modify the gearbox backplate depending on the version TM are currently using to get it to fit. And you may need to upgrade the fuse to a higher rated one.

 

[Tanith]

As mentioned, I got this Aug because I roundabout knew it was solid, reliable and didn't need to be fiddled with out the box. But not gonna lie I can feel the itch. I'll stick to my guns and leave it, for the next one, mostly following your sage advice. The list of upgrades is getting fave'd for reference. Concise.

I will look into a mosfet for my hc, downgrade the 11.1v batteries I got after the retailer reccomemded them to 7.4, be gentle with the the barrel/foregrip to avoid making wobble worse, despite it being stable enough.

I did a few skirmishes 10+ years ago with a friend's TM M733... And it still works fine! If I can't shift it then it'll become my guinea pig so I can get some practical technical knowledge under my belt. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to help a fellow Steyr/aug fanatic and a relative noob ?

 

[Iceni]

That M733 is testament to TM's build quality. Provided you don't upgrade them, or run them on stupid batteries they run forever.

You won't make the wobble worse just by using it. It'll take a good few hard knocks and even then it'll still be much the same. Unless something actually breaks the AUG is typically very solid. The broken ones you see in the sale threads are often failed upgrade attempts or major neglect like cracked bodies and missing parts. I once tried to split an AUG body in half thinking it was only a dab of plastic weld holding it together and it beat me. The body didn't split and I didn't manage to damage it. I had a 12" breaker bar inside it pushing on steel plates. So not a weak design at all. The easiest way to break one is probably to fall face first and smash the barrel and upper up and away from the body, It'll probably smash the mag plate, the metal outer barrel, Hop unit, and air nozzle, With a bit of time and TLC even that should be fixable, provided the upper and lower are still intact.

Parts are probably the hardest part with the AUG. Some are easy to get, but a few are like hens teeth. The gearbox trigger assembly, barrel release mushroom, feed tube, mag catch and spring are almost impossible to find. So if you ever do strip it make sure you bag everything! The rest of it is common, Air nozzle, hop, Upper and lower body, butt plate and cap are all pretty easy to a source with a bit of internet searching, 90% of the gearbox is standard V3. And it can be mosfetted without needing to open the gearbox.

If you are feeling the itch grab a cheap AUG to play with.

The snow wolf AUG A1 is a fantastic base gun to upgrade and learn to tear down on.

https://gunfire.com/en/products/sw-020a-carbine-replica-tan-1152215953.html

For under £100 you get a full gun that requires work to be perfect. And in addition, will give you a 100% spares package for the TM. As everything is cross-compatible, And by everything I mean everything. Gearbox, barrels, Upper lower, buttpad, mag catch ect ect all identical to the TM.

The snow wolf is an APS body type, and typically suffers from a very bad piston head design with an injection moulding point on the sealing face. It means they tend to damage o-rings without the piston head been upgraded. They will run on the stock one, but the airseal will deteriorate after a few games. As such it's the perfect gun for scratching that itch with.