cableguy95 Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Hi guys Just had a quick question about AEG maintenance, I was at a skirmish last week when it was raining and wondered what would be the best way to clean the barrel and anything else I should be wary of. At the skirmish I found that the BB's were flying all over the place both left and right would this be a result of the barrel or hop up? I've heard about using WD40 for cleaning the barrel and then putting some silicon oil in the hop unit. Is this correct and any other maintenance advice will be appreciated. Thanks Cableguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Monty Posted October 19, 2013 Supporters Share Posted October 19, 2013 There could be dirt in the barrel, and don't use WD40, use silicone oil. If you have a cleaning rod, take that and weave cotton through the little hole at the end of the rod, then push the rod down the barrel a few times with the oil either in the barrel or on the cotton itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baz JJ Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Hi, I was at that game as well. The raindrops were falling so hard, it was like BB's striking. I'm sure I put my gun in the air a few times because of the rain falling off the trees. My understanding is that you should never use WD40 in airsoft weapons as it damages the rubber. I just dried my gun out at room temperature in a well ventilated room for a few days and then used silicone grease on the moving parts, removed the mag and put silicone oil through the feed and then put the weapon back in the gun case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 Never use WD40 and silicone oil in the hop and barrel. WD40 eats the rubber while silicone makes the rubber slippy and barrel smoothness uneven. I simply use warm water to clean the barrel and hop after each game and let it air dry. However,every two months or so,I do a capital clean,with polishing the barrel and soaking the rubber. -Remove the barrel and hop.separate them. -Soak the hop up rubber in warm water,and let it dry naturally. -Clean the barrel with Isopryl alcohol( at least 70% alcohol content) and let it dry naturally -Polish the barrel with Brass polish -Buff the barrel with a cloth Alternatively,If you have done a seal mod in which removing the rubber is a bitch,simply soak the rubber while it's still on the barrel and be super careful when polishing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted October 20, 2013 Supporters Share Posted October 20, 2013 Yeah, under no circumstances put WD40 on any part of an AEG when to do so might get it on the hop rubber, hop unit, air seal nozzle, or gearbox - easiest just to avoid it completely. You can use silicon oil to clean a barrel, but it's sort of like washing dishes with just water - it takes a lot more elbow grease and you wont get them squeaky clean. You can use just water too, but the same thing applies. Isopropyl alcohol is cheap, cuts grease easily, and dissolves dirt readily. If you use these pads you can wrap them around one of those plastic barrel cleaning/clearing rods - I cut the folded pad in half and use 1 layer in 2 stages. If I'm in a hurry, like it's the night before a skirmish day and I'm not sure if I did clean it after last use, I dry the barrel and rubber out using some SA80 barrel cleaning ribbon* wrapped around the rod, otherwise I let it air dry. *Which you can see in this drastically overpriced fleabay listing. It crops up on its own occasionally, but you could use a piece of lint-free medical gauze just as well. A few times I've given them a good 'scrub' using soapy water, which I then rinsed out with water several times, dried and then finally swabbed with alcohol to make sure that there was no residue of soap left behind. The dirt which comes out when I just use ribbon/swabs soaked in alcohol is always black, but the ribbon I've used with soapy water has had a slightly brown tinge to the stain left on it, so I think that it is getting something out which alcohol alone is leaving behind. As UTJ said, I wouldn't get oil on the hop rubber - it's supposed to be sticky so it grips the top of each BB as they pass. Micro droplets of oil and/or grease will continuously coat the rubber through the barrel window, because they will get blown out along with that portion of air which has been sucked through the gearbox and also enter the airflow during every back stroke of a vented piston head, assuming there is grease/oil on the O-ring. However you choose to clean the rubber, in the hop unit, or after some degree of disassembly, getting rid of grease/oil is the point. I have heard that soaking silicone rubber parts in brake fluid makes them a bit stickier, but I've never tried it. Just from the general smell of the stuff though, I wouldn't be surprised if it could deform it too. Any steel parts of a gun should always be oiled or lightly greased after getting wet, to prevent rust obviously, and it wouldn't hurt to do the same on any wooden parts too, to stop waterborn microbes/spores getting into the wood through any scratches. Eventually it's probably a good idea to disassemble guns and clean off any crap which has collected inside and the lubrication inside the gearbox can't last forever, particularly that which helps the piston O-ring seal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunstar Posted October 21, 2013 Share Posted October 21, 2013 Never use WD40 and silicone oil in the hop and barrel. WD40 eats the rubber while silicone makes the rubber slippy and barrel smoothness uneven. So true! The best way of cleaning a gun depends on what gun you have ... The risk of getting a cotom ball stuck in the gun may scare people off that aproch (But it's a good one if you don't jam it in the gun). I personaly don't reccoment that but it does work well. Some people (And some airsoft guides and manuals) say you should spray silicone down the barrel. DON'T DO IT !!! One of the worst things a gerbox knows is mud, sand, etc. and spraying stuff down the barrel risk it running down into the gearbox... Most of the time it will "just" scratch your cylender, but if you are unlucky it can find it's way into the gears and ruin the gun (I Have seen it on guns i fix!). So sprying stuf down the barrel is a NO GO .... The optilmal way to clean a gun is to disassemble it (Pull out the inner barrel). Remove the rubber and wash it in varm (not hot) water. Then clean the inner barrel (Now that the rubber is not there use whateaver works to clean). Dry everything off (Cutton is good here) so you don't get any oil or silicone on the rubber and re assemble ... If you can't disassemble the gun go for one of the "alternative" methods (cotton, or paper wiper on stick methods) the other people has proposed. But remember: When spraying anything into an assembled and dirty gun (Water, silicone, etc) keep the barrel pointing DOWN! So you don't spray dirt into your gearbox (gears or cylender)... A good idea can bee to spray into the mag feed instead (So that it runs down the hole barrel). But it depends on what you are using to clean with (Hint metal don't like water, so if you have a metal hop unit don't use water) ... In general i recoment (like Ian_Gere) paper cleaning wipers warpped around a rod... Plus silicone oil if you are planing to put yout gun away for the winter to keep the rubber fresh for the spring ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cableguy95 Posted October 21, 2013 Author Share Posted October 21, 2013 Thanks for all of your help my guns are G&G Tr16 and UMG (UMP45) and both have metal hop up chambers so from what I am understanding is I should (ideally) take the inner barrel out and take the hop off to clean, make sure that they are dry then reassemble. Please correct me if I'm wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted October 21, 2013 Supporters Share Posted October 21, 2013 I'd say yeah, disassemble once in a while, but for the usual 'after every skirmish day' clean, just go with an alcohol swab on a cleaning rod - it doesn't have enough alcohol on it to pour down through the hop carrying shite into your gearbox. Just give it a good spin all the way down the barrel and into the hop unit until it wont go any further and carry on spinning it as you bring it back out. Then fit the other layer of the swab to the rod and do it again. As you can see, the first layer comes out well stained, but the second has hardly anything on it - that's clean enough to be going on with. You don't want to get obsessive about scrubbing away at your barrels because doing that will put micro scratches on it, that the cleaning is supposed to help prevent, and wear them out faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunstar Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I'd say yeah, disassemble once in a while, but for the usual 'after every skirmish day' clean, just go with an alcohol swab on a cleaning rod Exactly! No need to disassemble after each game.... I usualy doo the full "disassemble and clean" something like 3-4 times per year (2-3 if i don't play in the winter) and also after every time that mud may have found it's way into the barrel .... So in general: After normal play (Where you don't get mud all over) just doo a swab. But if mud's all over the place (Like it sounds like in your original post) then do a disassembly cleaning ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.