Upgrade advice

[Jacco]

Hey guys, pretty new to everything airsoft but absolutely love it and definitely have the bug! I'm after a bit of advice from people that actually know their stuff. 

I have a specna arms Sa-e14 (rock river arms)

Chronoing around 300 on 0.25s
6.03 inner barrel
Gate X-ASR mosfet
Orion gearbox

I am seeing all over the place that upgrading the bucking and barrel etc will help with performance, but on this gun is it actually worth doing anything? There's plenty of videos saying do this do that but I don't fully trust agendas on YT to be honest with so many sponsored videos etc. 

I also acknowledge that I am new to the sport and don't really want to start digging into the rif too deeply as to end up with a non working or unreliable piece from my lack of experience. 

I'm mainly concerned about getting as much accuracy as possible and if possible an increased RoF. 

So with my rant over, is it worth changing anything at all or will I not get much performance change in this rif? 

Budget wise I'm happy to spend £100 or around that if it's worth it. 

On a side note I am looking to get a second incase this one fails and have been looking at the g&g arp 556 to suit more CQB matches, is this a good gun for long term? I'm assuming it's quite a bit better than my current SA am I right in saying that? It's nearly £120 more than the SA cost me. 

Any help would be much appreciated. Any other info I've missed let me know. 

Thanks guys. 

 

[Adolf Hamster]

I am seeing all over the place that upgrading the bucking and barrel etc will help with performance, but on this gun is it actually worth doing anything? There's plenty of videos saying do this do that but I don't fully trust agendas on YT to be honest with so many sponsored videos etc. 

"worth it" is a very subjective term in this hobby. yes you absolutely could improve the performance of most stock pews, although how much money/time/effort you're willing to spend to get there and wether or not the improvement will be enough for you to justify it is entirely down to you.

I also acknowledge that I am new to the sport and don't really want to start digging into the rif too deeply as to end up with a non working or unreliable piece from my lack of experience. 

this is the primary reason to suggest, for the time being at least, leaving well enough alone. as the saying goes "if it ain't broke don't "fix" it". main reason is it's very easy especially when you're just starting out to mess up installing parts or re-assembling the pew which could end up with it performing worse than before (even if the parts are better on paper) or even breaking, which needless to say sucks when you have to go home early because your pew isn't working and trust me that shit gets real old real fast.

the best way around is to wait until you have a decent backup. you can either buy another pew then work on your current one or buy something specifically with the aim of tinkering with it and keeping your current as the backup. that said, you can just jump straight in like i did but at least you've been warned what'll happen so my conscience is clear 

I'm mainly concerned about getting as much accuracy as possible

for range/accuracy generally i tend to recommend the following as a rough guide, starts off with the easy/cheap stuff going to the harder/more expensive stuff:

-cleaning the barrel on a regular basis, really makes a difference and i'd suggest doing it at least once before each outing. if you start going for tighter bore barrels you might find you need to clean even mid-game day.

-good quality heavy ammo, personally i'm a fan of geoffs. weight wise it's a balance between cost/performance, heavier ammo will be better but it costs more and you might be limited by what the hop can lift. commonly folks tend to find the 0.28-0.32g range a nice compromise between price/performance for outdoor work.

-changing hop bucking/nub combo, tied into above something like the maple leaf macaron tan+omega nub combo is gonna help spin up heavier ammo and isn't too expensive/difficult to install.

-air seal, this is the big step up in difficulty because it involves cracking open the gearbox, so you might want to leave this be for the moment. the best way to check how decent the current setup is performing is to look at the range of fps values it's spitting out (ie when you say "about 300fps" then quantify that as 300fps±Xfps), the smaller the range of values the better. for the ways of checking air seal when assembling a gearbox have a look here.

-spring, the reason why this isn't earlier in the list is you need to be sure you're not losing energy to an air leak, you may well find that the power jumps up from doing the previous 2 steps because of fixing leaks. however once you're sure that you're getting everything the spring has to offer and you're a decent chunk under the limit then you could look at a stronger spring. however for the moment sounds like it's close enough to not worry too much just yet.

-barrel, we're very far down the diminishing returns curve at this point, so there might not be massive gains to be had here, but this is the point where you might find something like a zci 6.02 stainless might be worth a look at.

if possible an increased RoF. 

worth being clear if what you want is a higher rate of fire in auto, or a snappier response in semiauto, and what you're currently using battery wise.

for auto rate of fire generally running higher voltage batteries, faster motors or higher speed gearsets are the go-to.

for semi-auto response you can boost by doing the above, but a mosfet with precocking can really make a big improvement without increasing the actual auto rate of fire (which can be good for longevity)

 

[Cannonfodder]

Welcome to the mad house. Have you played yet? If not I suggest gettng getting a few games days under your belt so you can see how the gun fits your playing style and what needs changing (if anything). When you've done that we'll be able to give better, more accurate advice. 

Unfortunately there's a few people who think that any airsoft gun is unskirmishable unless completely gutted and upgraded, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Keeping the barrel clean will help with accuracy (really should follow my own advice there) and a higher rof can be achieved by switching to a higher voltage battery. 

 

[Albiscuit]

The best FREE upgrades have been mentioned.

clean your barrel (I’m a sucker for NOT doing this) 

up your bb weight. The heaviest your gun can sling will make a difference over standard .2s 

and as mentioned I would think long and hard about if it’s worth it. 
I spend a fair amount on ‘upgrades’ in my first gun and they were totally pointless and cost too much for what I ended up with and I soon after bought a better gun and all of my previous issues were sorted with the new purchase.

In your instance I would buy the ARP, and run both for a little while. I have an ARP9 I found stupidly cheap brand new (£120ish) and it has the same range as any of my £300+ guns and I do not feel outgunned using it.

I tend to use semi as I prefer to play that way so the ROF is moot for me but range and accuracy are up there with most guns out of the box

after you have bought and used that then maybe see if you still want to sink money into your other RIF

 

[Jacco]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Have been a few times and am overall really happy with the gun as it is, may look at changing the rubber etc (easier bits) and give it a good clean. 

I'm not overly an auto guy so most of the time I'm in semi mode. Snappier response would be great but Im not left feeling I Need it after a game. 

Will probably look into modding more once I have a back up incase my modding goes sideways ? 

Thanks again 

 

[Rogerborg]

Well, all covered above.  300fps with 0.25g is 1.04J, so you're not far off the typical UK site limit anyway (typically 1.13J, although my local is 1.2J).  That's pretty good from what I'd assume is the Specna M90 spring, so I'd expect you've got decent air seal.

The Specnas have a decent hop unit.  I can't speak to the barrel, I yeeted mine into the Bits Box right away as I was DMRing it, but there was nothing obviously wrong with it.  Cleaning it always a good idea.

One quick trick to help with air seal is to split the receiver and squirt a little silicone lube into the nozzle.  Point the gun up and let it sink into the piston o-ring, then before re-assembling, give it some auto bursts into a wank-rag until it's shooting clean.

I also binned off my stock Specna hop bucking and nub, but I'm moderately convinced that they were an un-advertised flat hop combination.  That's unusual, and if you're going to drop money on it, the first thing I'd suggest is getting a Maple Leaf 60 degree Macaron bucking in there, plus either a Maple Leaf omega nub, or the Gear Parts knock off omega (I'd suggest soft).

See:

https://www.ak2m4.co.uk/internal-parts/hop-up-buckings-nubs