ICS L85A2 owners please help

[NickM]

Well I've skirmished my L85 twice now and I’ve finally managed to get it chrono'd. It’s totally stock and now I’m wanting to get started on improvements.

 

Current niggles, stock spring on M setting 275-280 on High 290, this was a bit disappointing. On auto before lunch I would get 4 or 5 shots on auto fine then the next

3-4 seemed to trickle out of the barrel, this didn’t happen on semi or after lunch (I didn’t do anything). My fire selector often passes beyond the marks when this happens on semi it stops firing. Bonus I don’t seem to be getting the over hop issues or double feed others were getting.

 

I realise Finius and Ed have both posted up guide to their setups but as you have now had a time to tweak stuff I would like to condense the current upgrades to this gun and get some ideas for how to fix some problems.

 

Specifically what are you using for the following parts:

Spring (can you give a rough idea a spring that will give 340 on the mid setting without playing with the nozzle)

Barrel (brand, bore and length please, Ed I remember you talking about several different ones and even saying you were going to go to a tight bore from the twist)

Hop rubber and nub

Finally I’m after a decent set of mid-caps the bigger the better.

 

Sorry for the long post, cheers for getting this far.

Nick

[Airsoft-Ed]

Hmm, did you buy it second hand?

 

Those faults seem very uncharacteristic of the ICS L85, it ought to come stock with an M120 spring, which on the middle tension setting ought to be around the 350-360 mark.

 

Either you have a fault with either the piston, piston head, cylinder head or air nozzle, or you've got a really low power spring in there at the minute, probably an M85 or 90 if it's only shooting at 250 - 290 fps.

 

If the trickle issue has sorted itself then it's probably best to leave it as it is for now, it might have been something to do with the hop, it might've just needed a few shots through it to bed in or something. Airsofting isn't an exact science unfortunately.

 

The fire selector thing sounds quite odd, I've never known mine push further than it's supposed to go, but I'd hazard a guess that if you push it beyond a certain point then the bar that connects the trigger mech to the fire selector will be pushed into an unusual position in relation to the gearbox.

The position in relation to the gearbox is important because the bar interacts with the cut off lever in order to provide your semi fire mode. The bar moves with the cut off lever on the inside of the gun when in semi and as it moves it pushes the trigger off the contacts, breaking the circuit after one cycle.

On auto the bar and cut off lever are left to their own devices, but if you push the lever too far, it might block the cut off lever's movement, which would cause a jam in the gears = no firing.

 

If the selector moves beyond the semi and auto selection points very easily then I'd advise replacing the fire selector assembly. Which is something I'm not sure how to do. But if the issues persist then you could damage the cut off lever, or strip the piston if it slips from auto to semi during a full burst.

It'll probably survive a lot of harsh treatment because it's built like a bomb shelter. But unnecessary harsh treatment is best avoided I think.

 

You might find that just taking the gun to bits and reassembling it will sort some of the issues, break out the tools, dismantle the gearbox and barrel/hop assembly, check them for anything that looks broken and then reassemble and test, there have been a few times when I've been unable to diagnose a fault and just taking it to bits has fixed it... It's weird. Not sure it'll work for the fire selector unless you dismantle that part as well, but I've never touched that before so I wouldn't know what to advise.

 

If you get the BB trickle issue back though, then take it all to bits, it might well work.

 

You might find that you aren't suffering from over hop or double feeding as a result of the low fps it's shooting at, as the fps increases the BBs pass the hop faster, causing them to spin faster, which gives them more lift. You'll have to wait and see how it shoots once you've fixed the fps up to 340, but using .25s will generally sort out over hop.

 

I'd advise using .25s anyway if you want the most from the gun, range and accuracy are far better with .25s, that goes for any gun in my experience.

 

As for my set up:

 

I'm running a madbull M120 in mine currently and on the low setting it's running at about 365 fps, which I thought was pretty high, well, very high... But I figure it's just bedding in as it's only been used for two day's skirmishing over the last 4 weeks. My site limit is 370 so it's not an issue anyway.

 

For 340 I'd say either get an M100 and use the highest setting, or an M110 and use the middle or lowest. You'll have to test the different settings with a chrono, but I imagine both springs will be capable of providing the right fps value for you. I find I get the best performance by using .25s at about 310fps, so aiming for 340 with .20s is probably a good plan.

Be aware though, you might have to put a few thousands rounds through the gun for the spring to bed in, so if you're worried you might be shooting hot it might be safer to go for a lower power spring over the higher power option.

 

For barrels, you can get any length up to 510mm, anything longer will be visible through the flash hider. The stock barrel is 480mm long though if you wanted to know.

Any M16, AUG, AK, G3 length, AEG cut barrel will fit completely fine. A Madbull 6.03mm will improve performance, combine it with a Madbull blue hop rubber and you'll see a pretty noticeable improvement.

 

Me and Finius both use TK Twist barrels though, which only come in one bore and I'm not even sure what it is, his is 480mm long though, like the stock barrel. Mine's 509mm. We also both use the Madbull blue rubber, but instead of using the nub it comes with, we use Big Out H Nubs.

Though to be honest, any nub will do an alright job, I used a biro ink tube cut to size for quite a long time. You tend to need so little hop with the twist barrels that getting a snazzy nub is sort of pointless anyway.

 

For mags, I use Magpul Emags now, but if you're after regular STANAGs then what I used to use were MAG made plastic mid caps, which I think come in either boxes of 8 or 10, I can't remember which, but they're around £50 in most places. I got mine from airsoftsupplydrop.

Every mag I've tested so far has both fit and fed fine though. KWA, G&P, ICS, G&G, TM, my Magpul Emags obviously. Finius uses Ares mids if I remember correctly. Might be best to just shop about for the best deal.

 

What was that you were saying about a long post?

[NickM]

Cheers Ed,

 

I have started using .25 already and I've really noticed a difference. I'm planning on going with many of your internal mods as you and Finius have obviously been doing this for a while. The 510 TK barrel is the almost the same price as many of the 6.03 ones I've seen and if you are both running it and have used tightbores there must be a reason for you having it.

 

I do remember seeing something you wrote about the TK barrel being hard to fit into the brackets in the gun, have you used barrel spacers or simply electrical tape and did you need to modify anything to get it to fit?

 

Thanks for the advice.

[Airsoft-Ed]

I just wrapped mine in electrical tape to get it to fit snugly.

 

As for the fit:

 

The hop unit has two plastic pieces that sit in the front of it and grab the barrel. They're C shaped on the inside, so when they're together they form an O shape that grips the barrel.

 

On the inside edge of the O shape there are some square protrusions, which are there to fit into the grooves cut into the outside of the barrel.

 

The protrusions on both of my hop units were too big for the cuts in the barrel, so I just sanded them away completely and rely on the friction of all the parts in contact with the barrel to hold it in. It stays in fine, no chance of it moving.

 

You can actually remove the two parts completely instead of sanding them down, but you'll lose a weeny amount of air through the space you create by removing them. So just sand them down a bit and keep them in.

 

You might not have any issues. Since the parts are made of plastic there's probably a degree of difference in all the hop units made. I doubt the tolerances are spot on for each one. You might be lucky. But I was unlucky, twice.

 

But as I say, sand paper can fix it in about 30 seconds and it doesn't alter the performance.

 

If the parts do need sanding, you'll know because the two pieces will be a giant arse to get back into the hop unit.

You can use the screws to fasten it back into the outer barrel to tighten them up and force it all back together, but then the barrel will be squeezed insanely hard by the protrusions and it actually causes the barrel to bow inwards, not enough to notice by eye, but your shots will get caught and you'll see a massive dip in fps, as well as general performance.

 

So ensure it all fits together smoothly and don't force anything.

[jpairsoft]

Sorry to revive this thread, but Nick

Current niggles, stock spring on M setting 275-280 on High 290, this was a bit disappointing.

did you ever found out what was the cause of this? did yours just ship with a wrong spring?

When/if you replaced the string, did the FPS jump anywhere near the values Ed indicated?

 

My brand new ics l85a2 is also shooting at a way lower fps than average out of the box

[NickM]

Yeah, after a few days of use I ordered an M120 spring. Fitted it which is very simple, and it fired bang on what Ed was predicting on the middle setting. I think they shipped it with a lower power spring than I was expecting.

[jpairsoft]

Thanks mate, I'll put an order for a spring and see if it's the same case with mine then.

[jpairsoft]

Right, I went for a Guarder spring (still about £6 cheaper than MadBull).

Guarder SP100 gives a FPS or 395-400 on High, 350-355 on Low, with Prometheus 6.03mm 509mm TBB (TBH installing the barrel didn't change any FPS readings).

(My chrono reads <5fps higher than ZeroOne in-shop one, and 20fps higher than GroundZero one)

 

I'm guessing mine shipped with wrong spring or had it's spring replaced, like yours.

 

I'm hoping what I read on forums about springs bedding in and loosing 5-10fps is true

[jpairsoft]

Mine must have a super good seal. I've put an M110 madbull(light metallic blue) and gave me 365-370 on low to 410 ish on high ugh.

 

Getting an SP90 and a madbull M100 to try and bring it to 345-350