Airsoft-Ed
Retired Moderator
- Nov 7, 2010
- 4,164
- 941
Warning: Long technical read ahead. Alternatively, you may think of it as a "Tedious Ed Essay" in which case, you're a penis.
Grab your breakfast and get stuck in.
READ IT ALL BEFORE VOTING - I'm hoping to see every vote go one way, unless there's an epic flaw in my argument that I'm missing, but the number of times I've seen people argue about this until the cows come home and swear blind that they're right when they're arguing for the wrong side, it makes my brain cry. I'm arguing on the side of proven science fact, vs opinion. Don't get it wrong again people, I'll hunt you down, I swear to that bearded dude in the sky who may or may not be there... Let's not get into another debate...
If I were to count the number of times I've seen people have the fps vs range debate, then I would lose count, lose hope in humanity and then hang myself to get away from everyone's massive, unparalleled idiocy. What annoys me the most is that it's usually a new player posing the question, "won't increasing my fps give me more range?" and they're often met with, "no, you don't need fps for range"
The thing is, you don't need fps for range because you can still fire up to about 60m with a properly set up gun, firing at 330fps (*1) But, where people fall on their face revelling in their own moronity (totally a word btw, I know 'cos there's no red squiggle), is that should you increase that fps to something higher, adjust the hop to account for the speed difference, and then add an appropriately heavier weight of BB, then you will ALWAYS shoot further than before. So you don't need fps for range, no. But to get more range, increasing the fps would be a good way to go.
Though obviously, do not exceed your site limits under any circumstances, or use heavier ammo to cheat the chrono, we measure the energy output, not the fps. Fps is just a simplified way to look at it, that's why we either measure with a .20, or have a conversion chart handy - which can be wrong because of barrel bore and length, but I'll not go into that. (Just chrono with .20s, saves the hassle and keeps people safe and insured)
Step 1 is to understand physics.
Physics lesson 1:
Things that go faster, take longer to stop and therefore travel further. Simple. BBs aren't controlled by wizards, the same rules apply.
A .20 flying at 500 fps is always going to go further than one flying at 450fps, 400fps, 350fps - any, lower fps. It might be by an inch, but it's still further.
Physics lesson 2:
Heavier things also take longer to slow down - it takes more energy acting on them to slow them down to the same extent.
So it stands to reason, that the faster a heavier thing goes, the further it will go. The faster heavier thing will always go further than the lighter thing travelling at the same speed, and the heavier thing will even go further if it's travelling slower than the lighter thing, so long as they both started off with the same energy behind them.
If you did want to get the lighter thing to travel a greater distance than the heavier thing, then you would have to massively increase its speed in order to make it force through the air resistance that can so easily slow it down due to its lighter weight, in comparison to the heavier thing.
(2*)
Anyway though, moving on, step 2 is to apply physics to BBs. Making sense of the last paragraph.
Pretend there's a gun firing at 350fps measured with a .2 and the hop is set to give it a perfectly flat trajectory - the second this bb leaves the barrel, gravity and air resistance will act on it. Gravity pulling it down, air resistance slowing it down. Hop will resist gravity for a time, but this time depends hugely on deceleration, if the bb loses its speed, then it loses its spin, therefore losing its battle against gravity and by extension, killing its range before it can go much further.
Because it's a .2 and it's light, air resistance acts on it quickly and its speed bleeds off in no time at all. After 20m it will have lost a significant chunk of its speed and the hop will have become significantly less effective than it was over the first 10m.
Now fire a .25 from the same gun - it will leave the barrel at a slower velocity, depending on the barrel bore and length it could be travelling anything between about 310 and 330fps, but the point is, it's slower.
Now, because of physics lesson 2, the air resistance has to work harder to slow this BB down, so although it started off going slower, it also decelerates slower and it ends up travelling further than the lighter BB. Once this BB passes the 20m marker, it will be travelling faster than the .20 was at the same point, despite starting off going slower. Just the weight dragging it through the air and requiring more air resistance to slow it down, allows it to maintain the speed it started with for a much longer period of time, allowing it to maintain its hop effectiveness, and battle gravity for longer.
So what's this? More range from the same gun, with heavier ammo? (It's been scientifically proven - http://arniesairsoft.co.uk/?filnavn=/articles/fps_dist_time/fps_dist_time.htm) But you said more fps gave greater range?
Ah, well you see, the thing is, greater BB weight also gives you greater range, so long as the fps post weight increase is still high enough to propel the BB a decent distance anyway, you'll always see a range increase - it's all about balance. If you're only firing at 300fps, then anything more than a .2 is probably going to be too much. Why? Because gravity doesn't scale down like your fps does when you add heavier ammo, and your hop's effectiveness actually depends on the speed of your BB to cause it to spin and create the lift.
For 320 and below, I'd use .20s.
For 320 to 350, I'd use .25s.
For 350 to 420 I'd use .30s.
For 420 to 500 I'd use anything higher, depending on the effectiveness of your particular hop.
Things like .23s and .28s are kinda like intermediate rifle rounds in my eyes - The BB equivalents of 6.8mm ammunition, use them for greater punch at shorter range, in CQB. Or greater accuracy at shorter ranges in woodland, stuff like that. If you wanted to fit them into the chart I've just created, then I'd say to use .23s firing at around 340fps and .28s firing at about 360fps if you wanted a place to start to have them working best for your range and accuracy.
Of course, this is just me musing what would be best, based on my experiences with some of the BB weight at some of those fps levels. By all means experiment with all of it to find the best use of what weight with which speed for your style of play, I just thought I'd provide my own rough guide.
One thing is certain though, so long as you don't go too heavy for your fps, heavier ammo will always give you greater range than the lighter stuff.
So if we upscale to snipers firing at 500fps, they tend to fire .40s and higher out to 80 or so metres. A good 20 to 30m further than the effective range of most AEGs. If we apply the idiot's failed physical principles to snipers, then you'd assume people would be happy to run them at the same fps and use the same BBs as AEG, but just use an ultra pro hop unit and rubber to give them their advantage, right? But they don't, they use heavier ammo fired at a much higher velocity because that is how you get more range!
The reason they don't use .20s is because as mentioned before, lighter BBs bleed off their speed stupidly fast, the speed at which they decelerate increases exponentially the higher their velocity is. The faster they travel, the more air they hit, the quicker they slow down. So you use heavier BBs, they're slower with their increased weight, dragging themselves through the air, almost despite the air resistance, reaching out and hitting targets to a significantly greater range.
Although .46s come out of the 500fps sniper at around 330fps, they stay at 330fps for the majority of their flight time, and end up hitting with a much harder punch, even out to extended ranges of 50m or more. In my experience BBs are at their most stable when travelling at between 330 and 280fps, so I would say that if you use heavier ammo to put your gun's chrono reading within that boundary, post weight increase, then that will be your key way to get the most out of it.
I'd bet money on it in fact.
If I had the time then I'd get a proper tuned sniper, a DMR, an AEG and a pistol together, measure their fps readings at various ranges and then make a graph showing the points at which their fps readings match, you could visualise it by having a sniper at the back of the range, firing past the DMR, firing past the AEG etc, then the DMR would stand at the point at which the sniper's in flight velocity matches that of the DMR's muzzle velocity and then you'd have the AEG down range of that, standing where all 3 guns' fps readings meet, then the pistol at the end, with them all getting closer towards the end of the range as the deceleration caught up with the BBs.
You could also use the data gained from it to make a variable MED for snipers, working out the exact joule output for any given range. You could set a site's MED up so that a sniper never hit harder than an AEG, or whatever you wanted.
Does that make sense to anyone other than me? What about the rest of the post?
I just lack the mathematical knowledge to work out the rate of deceleration of each BB and each speed to put it all together.
TL;DR heavy BBs go further, especially if they're going faster. Range is increased by increasing fps.
1*
though you'd struggle to do that with .20s - .20s are the BB weight for noobs (just throwing it out there). .25s are the way forward. I would suggest that they become the standard weight, but then all the noobs still using .20s wouldn't be at a disadvantage anymore and it'd be harder to call them noobs...
2*
Adding to this, I don't think it would actually be possible to make a .20g BB in airsoft, travel further than any heavier weight airsoft BB, irrespective of the speed you made it go. If you had a sniper tuned to hit a target at 80m using .46s and firing at 500fps measured with a .20, then I'd bet you'd have to fire the .20 at around 800fps or more to make it travel that far, and you'd still need the hop present to battle gravity, otherwise the highly aerodynamic-less shape that is the BB would be grabbed by gravity and then just immediately nosedive into the ground, because it's shaped in a way that allows it to be pulled around by whichever force has the greatest effect on it, in this case gravity. But since applying hop to a BB travelling at that speed would be next to impossible without annihilating the hop in the process, or maybe even the barrel and/or the entire gun, it'd just be impossible to keep it flying true long enough to beat the heavier ammo.
Grab your breakfast and get stuck in.
READ IT ALL BEFORE VOTING - I'm hoping to see every vote go one way, unless there's an epic flaw in my argument that I'm missing, but the number of times I've seen people argue about this until the cows come home and swear blind that they're right when they're arguing for the wrong side, it makes my brain cry. I'm arguing on the side of proven science fact, vs opinion. Don't get it wrong again people, I'll hunt you down, I swear to that bearded dude in the sky who may or may not be there... Let's not get into another debate...
If I were to count the number of times I've seen people have the fps vs range debate, then I would lose count, lose hope in humanity and then hang myself to get away from everyone's massive, unparalleled idiocy. What annoys me the most is that it's usually a new player posing the question, "won't increasing my fps give me more range?" and they're often met with, "no, you don't need fps for range"
The thing is, you don't need fps for range because you can still fire up to about 60m with a properly set up gun, firing at 330fps (*1) But, where people fall on their face revelling in their own moronity (totally a word btw, I know 'cos there's no red squiggle), is that should you increase that fps to something higher, adjust the hop to account for the speed difference, and then add an appropriately heavier weight of BB, then you will ALWAYS shoot further than before. So you don't need fps for range, no. But to get more range, increasing the fps would be a good way to go.
Though obviously, do not exceed your site limits under any circumstances, or use heavier ammo to cheat the chrono, we measure the energy output, not the fps. Fps is just a simplified way to look at it, that's why we either measure with a .20, or have a conversion chart handy - which can be wrong because of barrel bore and length, but I'll not go into that. (Just chrono with .20s, saves the hassle and keeps people safe and insured)
Step 1 is to understand physics.
Physics lesson 1:
Things that go faster, take longer to stop and therefore travel further. Simple. BBs aren't controlled by wizards, the same rules apply.
A .20 flying at 500 fps is always going to go further than one flying at 450fps, 400fps, 350fps - any, lower fps. It might be by an inch, but it's still further.
Physics lesson 2:
Heavier things also take longer to slow down - it takes more energy acting on them to slow them down to the same extent.
So it stands to reason, that the faster a heavier thing goes, the further it will go. The faster heavier thing will always go further than the lighter thing travelling at the same speed, and the heavier thing will even go further if it's travelling slower than the lighter thing, so long as they both started off with the same energy behind them.
If you did want to get the lighter thing to travel a greater distance than the heavier thing, then you would have to massively increase its speed in order to make it force through the air resistance that can so easily slow it down due to its lighter weight, in comparison to the heavier thing.
(2*)
Anyway though, moving on, step 2 is to apply physics to BBs. Making sense of the last paragraph.
Pretend there's a gun firing at 350fps measured with a .2 and the hop is set to give it a perfectly flat trajectory - the second this bb leaves the barrel, gravity and air resistance will act on it. Gravity pulling it down, air resistance slowing it down. Hop will resist gravity for a time, but this time depends hugely on deceleration, if the bb loses its speed, then it loses its spin, therefore losing its battle against gravity and by extension, killing its range before it can go much further.
Because it's a .2 and it's light, air resistance acts on it quickly and its speed bleeds off in no time at all. After 20m it will have lost a significant chunk of its speed and the hop will have become significantly less effective than it was over the first 10m.
Now fire a .25 from the same gun - it will leave the barrel at a slower velocity, depending on the barrel bore and length it could be travelling anything between about 310 and 330fps, but the point is, it's slower.
Now, because of physics lesson 2, the air resistance has to work harder to slow this BB down, so although it started off going slower, it also decelerates slower and it ends up travelling further than the lighter BB. Once this BB passes the 20m marker, it will be travelling faster than the .20 was at the same point, despite starting off going slower. Just the weight dragging it through the air and requiring more air resistance to slow it down, allows it to maintain the speed it started with for a much longer period of time, allowing it to maintain its hop effectiveness, and battle gravity for longer.
So what's this? More range from the same gun, with heavier ammo? (It's been scientifically proven - http://arniesairsoft.co.uk/?filnavn=/articles/fps_dist_time/fps_dist_time.htm) But you said more fps gave greater range?
Ah, well you see, the thing is, greater BB weight also gives you greater range, so long as the fps post weight increase is still high enough to propel the BB a decent distance anyway, you'll always see a range increase - it's all about balance. If you're only firing at 300fps, then anything more than a .2 is probably going to be too much. Why? Because gravity doesn't scale down like your fps does when you add heavier ammo, and your hop's effectiveness actually depends on the speed of your BB to cause it to spin and create the lift.
For 320 and below, I'd use .20s.
For 320 to 350, I'd use .25s.
For 350 to 420 I'd use .30s.
For 420 to 500 I'd use anything higher, depending on the effectiveness of your particular hop.
Things like .23s and .28s are kinda like intermediate rifle rounds in my eyes - The BB equivalents of 6.8mm ammunition, use them for greater punch at shorter range, in CQB. Or greater accuracy at shorter ranges in woodland, stuff like that. If you wanted to fit them into the chart I've just created, then I'd say to use .23s firing at around 340fps and .28s firing at about 360fps if you wanted a place to start to have them working best for your range and accuracy.
Of course, this is just me musing what would be best, based on my experiences with some of the BB weight at some of those fps levels. By all means experiment with all of it to find the best use of what weight with which speed for your style of play, I just thought I'd provide my own rough guide.
One thing is certain though, so long as you don't go too heavy for your fps, heavier ammo will always give you greater range than the lighter stuff.
So if we upscale to snipers firing at 500fps, they tend to fire .40s and higher out to 80 or so metres. A good 20 to 30m further than the effective range of most AEGs. If we apply the idiot's failed physical principles to snipers, then you'd assume people would be happy to run them at the same fps and use the same BBs as AEG, but just use an ultra pro hop unit and rubber to give them their advantage, right? But they don't, they use heavier ammo fired at a much higher velocity because that is how you get more range!
The reason they don't use .20s is because as mentioned before, lighter BBs bleed off their speed stupidly fast, the speed at which they decelerate increases exponentially the higher their velocity is. The faster they travel, the more air they hit, the quicker they slow down. So you use heavier BBs, they're slower with their increased weight, dragging themselves through the air, almost despite the air resistance, reaching out and hitting targets to a significantly greater range.
Although .46s come out of the 500fps sniper at around 330fps, they stay at 330fps for the majority of their flight time, and end up hitting with a much harder punch, even out to extended ranges of 50m or more. In my experience BBs are at their most stable when travelling at between 330 and 280fps, so I would say that if you use heavier ammo to put your gun's chrono reading within that boundary, post weight increase, then that will be your key way to get the most out of it.
I'd bet money on it in fact.
If I had the time then I'd get a proper tuned sniper, a DMR, an AEG and a pistol together, measure their fps readings at various ranges and then make a graph showing the points at which their fps readings match, you could visualise it by having a sniper at the back of the range, firing past the DMR, firing past the AEG etc, then the DMR would stand at the point at which the sniper's in flight velocity matches that of the DMR's muzzle velocity and then you'd have the AEG down range of that, standing where all 3 guns' fps readings meet, then the pistol at the end, with them all getting closer towards the end of the range as the deceleration caught up with the BBs.
You could also use the data gained from it to make a variable MED for snipers, working out the exact joule output for any given range. You could set a site's MED up so that a sniper never hit harder than an AEG, or whatever you wanted.
Does that make sense to anyone other than me? What about the rest of the post?
I just lack the mathematical knowledge to work out the rate of deceleration of each BB and each speed to put it all together.
TL;DR heavy BBs go further, especially if they're going faster. Range is increased by increasing fps.
1*
though you'd struggle to do that with .20s - .20s are the BB weight for noobs (just throwing it out there). .25s are the way forward. I would suggest that they become the standard weight, but then all the noobs still using .20s wouldn't be at a disadvantage anymore and it'd be harder to call them noobs...
2*
Adding to this, I don't think it would actually be possible to make a .20g BB in airsoft, travel further than any heavier weight airsoft BB, irrespective of the speed you made it go. If you had a sniper tuned to hit a target at 80m using .46s and firing at 500fps measured with a .20, then I'd bet you'd have to fire the .20 at around 800fps or more to make it travel that far, and you'd still need the hop present to battle gravity, otherwise the highly aerodynamic-less shape that is the BB would be grabbed by gravity and then just immediately nosedive into the ground, because it's shaped in a way that allows it to be pulled around by whichever force has the greatest effect on it, in this case gravity. But since applying hop to a BB travelling at that speed would be next to impossible without annihilating the hop in the process, or maybe even the barrel and/or the entire gun, it'd just be impossible to keep it flying true long enough to beat the heavier ammo.
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