Fps raise. Let's get it DONE

[Chippins]

The FPS hard limit for AEG's and all pistols would be 500

I wouold agree if it was enforced that people had to use real cap mags.

 

[Samurai]

Hi guys,

I'm new to this forum but not new to airsoft and I think I can add some info on this.

Here we have FPS limits of 400 for AEGs, 500 for semi-auto only AEGs (20m MED), 600 for bolt-action snipers (20m MED).

Most veteran players downgrade their guns to about 350fps even though we could go for 400. As we say, if you can't solve a problem with 350 then you can't solve it with 400 either. There is only minimal difference in the effective range with those velocities.

The 500 fps dmrs have semi only (1 BB in air at a time) and 20m MED. These two limitations are much worse than what you gain in range so veterans playing the DM role usually downgrade below 400. If you are able to shoot 2-3 BB-s with semi auto to a target before the first reaches it, you usually get more hits than with one 500 fps shot.

Finally the snipers with 600fps. Experience says that anything above 500fps only shortens the BB's travel time. It doesn't change the accuracy or the range at all. Actually higher fps tends to be a bit less accurate but that's only marginal.

Has anyone actually done any controlled testing of different weights? a gun in a bench rest and several hundred rounds of each weight shot at a target at various rages?

I've made some tests with different BBs at different fps-s.

The result is: use the heaviest BB your gun can handle (the hopup can spin it). BB quality and weight matters the most to accuracy.

In the test I fixed the guns on a workbench table, and used a target on 40m, no wind. I made a lot of shots, counted the hits and misses and averaged the results. Both 350 and 400 fps were tested but on 40m there is no real difference.

This is the brand of BB's I use (sorry, only available here) that I found to be the best.

Weight: hits

0.20: 76%
0.20 Bio: 80%
0.23: 87%
0.25 Bio: 100%
0.28 Bio: 100%

As you see with this test setup I couldn't measure the difference between 0.25 and 0.28 but 0.28 IS more accurate. I should have a bigger yard.

Bio BBs are more accurate due to how they are made, there is no bubble in them so they spin evenly.

Other band. No bio. I was using this one before I swithced to the above one.

0.23: 65% (I think this batch was faulty, it should have been higher. Maybe 75-80%)
0.25: 90%
0.28: 95%

For my normal AEGs I use 0.28 Bio or 0.30. Hell, I use 0.28 in my 300fps handgun. Never use 0.20 except when chronoing.

People think heavier BBs have shorter range. That is also not true. Heavy BBs retain the kinetic energy better (air resistance doesn't effect them that much) so they actually have the same or slightly better maximum range too. (Check the Airsoft Trajectory Project on this)

I hope this helps a bit.

 

[CaptainSwoop]

Excellent, that's what I was after. Proper evidence.

I am persuaded. Heavier BBs are the way to go.

 

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Airsoft trajectory project ftw. Probably one of the best references on airsoft accuracy and range.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Here we have FPS limits of 400 for AEGs, 500 for semi-auto only AEGs (20m MED), 600 for bolt-action snipers (20m MED).

Welcome to the forums Where are you?

Most veteran players downgrade their guns to about 350fps even though we could go for 400. As we say, if you can't solve a problem with 350 then you can't solve it with 400 either. There is only minimal difference in the effective range with those velocities.

That surprises me because, in my own experience, the difference between 345FPS and 365FPS is about 15m effective range and the difference between 365FPS and 425FPS is well over 30m.

The 500 fps dmrs have semi only (1 BB in air at a time) and 20m MED. These two limitations are much worse than what you gain in range so veterans playing the DM role usually downgrade below 400. If you are able to shoot 2-3 BB-s with semi auto to a target before the first reaches it, you usually get more hits than with one 500 fps shot.

As far as I understand it, the reason for the difference in restrictions is because BB's fired full-auto leave the muzzle so close together that they can arrive on target literally one behind the other, so the energy they carry could be delivered to exactly the same spot on the target individual, or their eye protection (in completely still air conditions and only when the target person is jammed into a position so they cannot move, ie impossible but necessary to imagine for insurance purposes). I have not heard of a semi-auto restriction of 1BB in the air at a time, but it doesn't sound unreasonable at 500FPS. Nevertheless, even at the extreme when, say, 6 semi-auto BB's are in the air at the same time, nobody could get a grouping at 20+m in which hits overlapped enough to be a concern.*

Finally the snipers with 600fps. Experience says that anything above 500fps only shortens the BB's travel time. It doesn't change the accuracy or the range at all.

That is not my experience.

It's difficult to know for sure about the maximum range of BASR's because their long range trajectories are steeper than an AEG's, so generally speaking, whether a shot will hit a target at the extreme limit of how far the BB could possibly travel is down to BB weight vs wind conditions, but that isn't the same as determining what that range will be. Perhaps more important is how high the sniper is prepared to bother aiming above the target, which will be partly determined by how wide the objective lens of their scope is. So when we talk about "effective range" it means different things concerning AEG's and BASR's.

I adjust my AEG sights for approx 35m range but, in practice, I only use them for L<=>R target acquisition. This is because my instincts will do for elevation at normal skirmishing distances and, because the wind conditions affect the trajectory far more than anything else, at long range, say 60m, that effect is so much that I will get a hit in less shots by walking them onto the target than by using the sights. I set my SVD scope up for 70m and aim down at normal skirmishing ranges. This is so that when I aim at long range it is easier to keep the target individual in view, even if just their head, in the lower half of my scope POV.

For eg, with the above scope adjustment, at approx 495FPS w/0.2g BB's but using a 0.3g BB, I aim roughly level with the top of a target's head at 80m to hit him/her in the upper chest, but even though the scope is set for such ranges, the BB disappears up out of the POV of both 32mm and 40mm objective lenses and only returns as it nears the target. This is comparable to how a 345FPS AEG shot aimed at a 60m target behaves to the naked eye. The difference is that aiming the AEG only a little higher will produce a trajectory along which the BB ends up by coasting toward the target, easily deflected by the slightest breeze, ineffective for skirmishing because the target will not feel a hit even if you get one, whereas a BASR shot will not behave similarly until beyond 100m.

I do not yet have enough experience of sniping to say for sure whether 100FPS difference in muzzle velocity equates to a useful difference in maximum range. My instinct is that it does matter, although I do believe that air resistance plays an increasingly important role the faster the BB travels. However, if we say that "effective range" is the maximum distance at which you can get a 0.6m grouping with any number of shots (excluding only those BB's which fly off madly due to a defect in manufacture) then the difference between 5 and 6 hundred FPS is massive!

During my SVD upgrade it was firing at around 535FPS with its stock M150 spring; at 80m I could hit a particular 10cm-ish knot on a tree 4 out of 5 shots in average air conditions. Now it has an Element M135 spring and fires at approx 495FPS and 5 shots gives me approx 50cm grouping. That is the difference between hitting somebody in cover and, at best, keeping their head down, at worst, giving your position away and compromising your tactics irretrievably.

Actually higher fps tends to be a bit less accurate but that's only marginal.

That is completely opposite to my experience. I'd be interested to know how you came to that conclusion?

I've made some tests with different BBs at different fps-s.

The result is: use the heaviest BB your gun can handle (the hopup can spin it). BB quality and weight matters the most to accuracy.

In the test I fixed the guns on a workbench table, and used a target on 40m, no wind. I made a lot of shots, counted the hits and misses and averaged the results. Both 350 and 400 fps were tested but on 40m there is no real difference.

This is the brand of BB's I use (sorry, only available here) that I found to be the best.

Weight: hits

0.20: 76%

0.20 Bio: 80%

0.23: 87%

0.25 Bio: 100%

0.28 Bio: 100%

As you see with this test setup I couldn't measure the difference between 0.25 and 0.28 but 0.28 IS more accurate. I should have a bigger yard.

Bio BBs are more accurate due to how they are made, there is no bubble in them so they spin evenly.

Other band. No bio. I was using this one before I swithced to the above one.

0.23: 65% (I think this batch was faulty, it should have been higher. Maybe 75-80%)

0.25: 90%

0.28: 95%

For my normal AEGs I use 0.28 Bio or 0.30. Hell, I use 0.28 in my 300fps handgun. Never use 0.20 except when chronoing.

People think heavier BBs have shorter range. That is also not true. Heavy BBs retain the kinetic energy better (air resistance doesn't effect them that much) so they actually have the same or slightly better maximum range too. (Check the Airsoft Trajectory Project on this)

I hope this helps a bit.

I'm not sure I really understand all of this bit. I mean, I think everybody knows that heavier BB's travel more slowly but have equal or greater range, so long as the hop will lift them. The issue is what effects any increase in muzzle energy have, if they are significant and, if so, are they desirable in our sport/hobby?

Which brand/s of BB's, BTW? As far as I know there should not be bubbles inside any BB's, but I have heard and read people say that it happens. I have never seen a shattered fragment with a smooth curved interior surface which makes me think there was a bubble. When a BB behaves oddly I assume a manufacturing defect and an uneven density due to a bubble seems like a plausible explanation, but since I've never seen one, I wonder if there is something else we are missing?

*Actually, in tests I conducted on how sturdy mesh is, it took 3 more rounds fired at 320FPS full-auto to penetrate the mesh than the same 0.2g BB's fired from the same gun at the same distance semi-auto. I put this down to the fact that on full-auto some of the BB's shattered, using up energy flinging fragments all over, whereas on semi, at 25mm range, all the rounds delivered all their energy to the same spot.

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

I think to say higher fps makes guns less accurate is only true if you use light ammo. Or at least, ammo that's too light for whatever the fps is.

A .2 at 500fps won't hit the broad side of a barn, you're going to have to use something like a .3 at least just to stabilise the shot, otherwise it'll spiral off all over the place.

I find that BBs are their most stable at between 290 and 330fps, so I will always use heavier ammo to get the fps into that ball park.

Other than that nothing really strikes me as that surprising, aside from bio BBs being more accurate and better put together. I'd have thought the opposite was true.

I always took bios as being good for nothing other than using at home, because since they degrade the mess they make of my garden will at least be shorter lasting as oppose to practically eternal.

But I assume that some tiny degree of degradation will at some point begin to effect my shot's flight, even if it takes years to set in the fact the possibility is there at all makes me feel like they're a less viable option unless I'm forced to use them by the site regs. Also, most decent BBs that aren't bios won't have air bubbles in them anyway. Blasters are fine, Bastard BBs are fine, Madbull are fine, and they're all I use so I have no worries about that.

 

[Samurai]

Thanks. I'm in Hungary now but I'll move to the UK in about a month. That's why I joined the forum.

The things I wrote about are our experience here. I think a bit specific to our fps rules and restrictions. For example the rule to have only 1 bb in air for the DMRs is to make the marksman rely more on aiming and less on spray and pray. It's not really about the safety.

Actually higher fps tends to be a bit less accurate but that's only marginal.

That is completely opposite to my experience. I'd be interested to know how you came to that conclusion?

No lab tests on this, just experience. The snipers here tend to agree on this. Mostly. It is very hard to prove it since you can't change the spring in a bolt action sniper without taking it apart, changing the spring and then putting it together the same way. These are so delicate guns that I don't think those can be put together with the same results twice.

Which brand/s of BB's, BTW? As far as I know there should not be bubbles inside any BB's

The only regular BBs I have ever seen or read about that have no bubbles are the SGM 0.29 ones. Madbull 0.40s are quite accurate because the bubble is about in the middle of it. You can use a wire cutter or something similar to cut the BBs and check it.

There is no real brand of this BB I'm using. The shop I'm buying from directly imports it from a china manufacturer. But it's actually so good that I'm sure when I move to the UK, I'll still buy this. A few years ago I've used Blaster and that was not good enough. Maybe they improved since then. Then I've used G&G and Marui BBs, they are not bad. I've used Guarder, ICS too but I can't remember how they performed. The old XTreme and Taiwangun.com's own BBs are the worst I've met.

Other than that nothing really strikes me as that surprising, aside from bio BBs being more accurate and better put together.

When the first bio BBs came around they were really bad. Inaccurate, uneven, and they started degrading if they came to contact with humidity of the air. If you left the bottle open for a few days, they got bigger and soft.

The current bio bbs are really good. They degrade by the bacteria in the dirt so you can leave them open if you want to. And because the lack of the bubbles they can be amazingly accurate.

Again I can only speak my experience and not facts, feel free to experiment and prove me wrong. Except for the BB tests. Those are facts.

 

[Ian_Gere]

I decided to try an experiment...

 

[Semi-only]

If you've seen YouTube vids like jet the dessert fox you will notice that there is a rule banning you from shooting people under ten feet I personally find it better and more fun to shoot the shit out of people at 3 ft and don't mind getting hit as well . It might hurt but if you can't take it play some nerf

 

[CON]

I think 350-400 mark is fine, any higher and injuries would increase, especially at my site where we dont have the bang bang rule.

Maybe for strict milsim games when engagments are generally ranged and its not a mix of players

But at skrims it would be pointless,,, for my site anyway.

Although I dont know why its 320 for you...is that just at ur site or a a irish thing?

 

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

It's Irish law. Airsoft guns must fire less than 1 Joule to be classified as airsoft guns.

 

[Ian_Gere]

I think 350-400 mark is fine, any higher and injuries would increase...

What injuries?

 

[CON]

Getting shot in the face at close range, I got shot in the lip by a sniper yesterday from a fairly long range, if it was closer it woulda fucked my tooth up

 

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Mesh masks exist for that reason yo

 

[CaptainSwoop]

Wear some protection. Practice Safe Airsoft.

Or Take the Pain.

 

[Nickona]

Someone did a study and just increasing FPS does very little to the range of the gun.

Also Teo in the US they have lots of MEDs and would much prefer no MEDs as it keeps it more real and less like paintball.

 

[CaptainSwoop]

MEDs?

 

[M_P]

minimum engagement distance.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Someone did a study and just increasing FPS does very little to the range of the gun.

People keep telling me this, but my experience continues to stubbornly agree with Isaac Newton. I just can't account for it. Take a 6.02x247mm barrel out of my AKS-74U and replace it with a 6.05x230mm and the range drops by a few meters. Must be the hop or some complex gobbledegook way over my head. Strange though because when I took the worn M150 spring out of my SVD and replaced it with an M135 the same thing happened, but this time the effect was much more noticeable - 16-17m and a flatter trajectory gone in one fell swoop. Bummer really, but it had been way hot (535FPS) so I had to do it (495FPS). Come to think of it, when I 1st bought my G36KV I was a bit disappointed with the range, but I had sort of been expecting it because it had been set up to fire @330FPS. I knew I was going to upgrade the arse out of her, but wouldn't be able to do it all at once. To see what effect my erroneous belief that higher FPS would result in more range produced, I swapped the barrel from 6.08x390(iirc)mm to an AK barrel 6.04x455mm - blow me if it didn't shoot further.
One of these days i'm going to put an M170 in Svetlana and get someone with an HD camera, Ed probably, to video the whole process. Then I'm going to keep a sticky on my desktop with a linky to the YouTube so I can save myself some effort. I'd do it right now actually, but sadly I'm a cock. Earlier today i cocked my USP while fucking about with the slide and let it fire... right into my lappy screen, so that's forty notes downstream and fuck all to show for it. But in a couple of weeks...

Split lip, sir? Tooth out?* Injury? Lol! Played rugby? Boxing? Football even?

*Actually I'm so phobic of dentistry that i have medicated myself through months of on & off agony rather than go to the bastard (and really, WHO becomes a dentist?), so yeah I would be in a right state if i got a tooth shot out. The thing is, teeth get shot out at low velocity as well as high. I suspect it's because they have a crystaline structure, so when a polished hard BB comes along, it's the same as taking a tiny piece of porcelain to tempered glass (check YT if you don't know).

But as above, wear the right gear for your sport and you will drastically reduce your chance of injury. Just recently we've been treated to the giblet-jellifying occurance of an airsofter being hit in the eye while skirmishing and wearing eye protection and a 1/2 face mask. Terrible. Just frighteningly terrible. But what is the lesson to be learned? Lower gun power? How about, if you wear a 1/2 face you should wear it tight and shooting glasses may well be rated to stop buckshot, but that doesn't mean they're proper eye protection for airsoft, because when you're shooting shotguns, you are behind the lead and, if not, whether you lose an eye is likely to be low down on the list of things you'll soon be without which you'd rather keep, so really they need only be proof against cartridges pinging out when you crack your gun.

I honestly think we do need to split into 2 disciplines: airsoft for the soft approach and call it strikeball (like the Russians) for people who take being struck by a ball seriously.

 

[Samurai]

FPS doesn't mean range. With higher FPS you can use heavier bb and a matching hopup bucking that would result more range. But even a 300fps gun can aim and shoot at 55m.

It's in Hungarian and it's a long, boring and annoying video but this guy uses laser rangefinder and chrono for the test so it seems legit.

It is very rare when only one part of the gun changes with an upgrade. People say that the barrel has been changed and don't mention that also the hopup bucking, the nub and the BBs were also changed and maybe the cylinder, the o-ring, the shimming and everything has been cleaned nicely.

Dropping from 535fps to 495 should not have decreased the range that much there must have been other factors that made it that much worse.