Manufacturer's out of the box performance

[Dan_W]

When, if ever, do you think the out of the box performance will reach a point where we don't have to do much to them? Or maybe things like correctly shimmed and so on.

 

I realise the problem with tuning in that it takes a while, but surely with advancements in the accuracy of production they could simply know how many shims to put on the gears because they are all precisely the same, and know exactly the correct angle of engagement. I'm using these two as examples.

 

Have you any other ideas on how they could easily be improved with new and upcoming technology?

[Spatch]

Buy a real sword and you will answer your own question, nowt required, end of

[TacMaster]

When, if ever, do you think the out of the box performance will reach a point where we don't have to do much to them? Or maybe things like correctly shimmed and so on.

 

Out of the box Cyma guns do pretty well. Crazy fps, decent hop, nice nub- but will probably need downgrading and AOE/shimming correction as the GBs are loud as fuck. Making loud screechy noises 'n stuff.

As is with Cyma guns the GBs need cleaning and regressing as they grease the GB with something not unlike a cutting compound used for metalwork

[Dan_W]

 

Out of the box Cyma guns do pretty well. Crazy fps, decent hop, nice nub- but will probably need downgrading and AOE/shimming correction as the GBs are loud as f*ck. Making loud screechy noises 'n stuff.

As is with Cyma guns the GBs need cleaning and regressing as they grease the GB with something not unlike a cutting compound used for metalwork

I bought a standalone CYMA V3 gearbox and that's what got me on to the idea of this topic

[jcheeseright]

We're at that point now, G&G, tokyo marui, real sword etc. none of those guns NEED upgrading in any way to be good.

[Dan_W]

I know they are good, very good in fact, but what I mean is EXCELLENT to the point where nothing can be done.

 

Read the article below and it shows the tiny fixes that still can be done to improve.

 

http://www.airsoftsniperforum.com/43-longrange-aegs/892-holy-grail-building-your-dmr-aeg.html

 

As the sport gets more popular and technology advances there will be more refinements and new innovations.

 

Look at polarstar engines and r-hop for example. They have been 'recent' improvements and I don't think we are anywhere near the peak of what can be done yet.

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Here's what needs to be done for no real tech work out of the box to be needed,for my standards at least.

 

AOE corrected with sorobthane padding (New lonex guns come with this,only manufacturer who does this I think) does wonders for long term reliability and durability.

 

Proper shimming (Some higher end guns have pretty good shimming,like TM)

 

Good quality bushings or 8mm bearings (Not the sh*tty plastic TM & JG as well as some other outfits use)

 

Deans connectors (G&P have this)

 

Low resistance wiring (Lonex have their silver plated looms in their newer guns I think)

 

Good sealed hop up and an overall properly made hop up unit. Realsword literally use some sort of glue to seal their buckings 100%. TM are still famous in their way of making hop up units work really well,some guys like CYMA make the best units in ACM.

 

Bearing sporing guides (lots of outfits are coming out with these,which is nice)

 

A basic mosfet (G&G nearly had this but their mosfet sucks balls)

 

Good greasing! Not the sh*tty snot the Chinese use. FFS silicone grease costs pennies! Why do some manufacturers use odd colored earwax? Thankfully most high end guys have this done

 

Radiused cylinder windows - Spread stress more evenly through the gearbox

 

Aluminium gearbox shells- Although they can be used, Zamak shells are starting to get too weak for the higher stress stuff like DSG builds and super powerful DMR stuff.

 

Neodymium motors - Neodymium magnets cost only pennies more than ferrous magnets. You can get an SHS HT for 30 quid,and most chinese manufacturers are coming with these.

 

Part suitable for long term use and usage on stress higher than what comes stock- Metal injection molded gears are starting to come out at good prices and in stock guns like ICS Transform4 line, Polyacetal and Nylon pistons are very common on ACM.

 

Some things I may have missed. But that's my basic opinion

 

Right now there are no manufactures who's guns out of the box can compete with tuned or upgraded custom builds,but they are getting close now. More and more stock parts are getting better and do not need replacing. Once companies get proper material and part usage going it's just a matter of time until they start doing things like AOE correction and proper shimming stock.

 

All we can do is still do the 15 quid tuneup and wait.

[M_P]

Please delete

[BrightCandle]

Most guns also don't come with really high end tightbore barrels either. Some of the top guns are coming with a tight bore but it can usually be improved upon. Equally most are coming with standard nubs and basic hop ups and moving to a higher quality bucking and H nub is a primary first step to better hop consistency although it would be nice if high end guns started coming with R Hops or flat hops. Still a lot to do to even a high end gun to get it shooting at its best.

[Dan_W]

Please delete

?

[M_P]

I meant my post not the thread

[Dan_W]

I meant my post not the thread

Ah OK

[jcheeseright]

For your normal AEG I'm still putting r-hop down as snake oil along with the fallacy that a longer tighter bore barrel is 'more accurate'. I've shot a huge array of guns and I've never had one shoot reliably further than 60 yards (that's a measured 60 yards on a range, not an airsofter's "my gun shoots coke cans at 60 yards") effective range. R-hop, j-hop, q-hop bla bla bla... none of them shooting 350fps or less have gone really any further reliably than that distance.

 

For a sniper rifle yeah it may be a marginal gain but for your average AEG? no.

 

That and sorbo pads, radiused gearboxes... really now? I know I roll this out pretty regularly but my old Marui M4 had been chugging away reliably for MORE THAN A DECADE with zero maintenance before I sold it, that includes a couple of years sat in a box under a bed with all the seals 'drying out' (clearly they didn't) and it shot just as well on the day I chrono'd it for sale as it did the day I bought it back in 2001. This is the same brand that uses 'crappy plastic bushings' and pot metal gears along with a terribly low tech non-radiused gearbox shell and not a bearing in sight! Yes, there are performance gains to be had on this design, but even so they're marginal... bearing spring guides etc yeah, they might extend the life of the gun by another decade?

 

Reliability is entirely down to good materials and quality control, without those things all the best bearings and sorbothane are useless from the factory. Performance is also entirely down to good materials, design and quality control... an r-hop by all accounts takes a vast amount of fettling to be effective and it'll never work from the factory.

 

Airsofters have this massive fixation with 'upgrades' and chasing the next big performance gain but if you've got a half decent gun to begin with you're chasing smoke, if you've bought a JG M4 with 5 previous owners you don't need upgrades, you need your head checking.

[Mack]

Agreed with above, dont see no reason to upgrade. Have owned 12 guns and have never seeen the need to upgrade any of them bar a hop rubber change. The cost to gain ratio is to small to be bothered with.

[Dan_W]

I think the only reason I want to start upgrading stuff is the horrible whine out of my CYMA gearbox. That's what started this thread more or less.

 

I haven't experience with higher end models yet so I'm not too sure what they are like.

 

I'm hoping to get one of G&G's pneumatic blowback gnus this summer. Hopefully that will cover up the horrible sound a bit.

[jcheeseright]

yeah, CYMA guns are unashamedly budget, and while they do make a few AK variants that shoot pretty well they don't make 'premium' items with high standards of QC.

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

For your normal AEG I'm still putting r-hop down as snake oil along with the fallacy that a longer tighter bore barrel is 'more accurate'. I've shot a huge array of guns and I've never had one shoot reliably further than 60 yards (that's a measured 60 yards on a range, not an airsofter's "my gun shoots coke cans at 60 yards") effective range. R-hop, j-hop, q-hop bla bla bla... none of them shooting 350fps or less have gone really any further reliably than that distance.

 

There's plenty of evidence on how R-hop is effective. AirsoftMechanics is the home where all of this 'snake oil' stuff generally comes from. Ask any reputable tech on there on how Rhop is effective,some practical evidence and theoretical evidence on how it is superior to traditional hop up.

 

A longer tighter barrel has been shown,quite a few years ago to offer no real gains unless you have your gun matches to it. There's a thing called matching the volume of your cylinder to the barrel length,roughly,so the BB will always have air pressure pushing down on it. The thing is unless you have constant pressure behind the BB and instead have decreasing pressure It can reduce backspin and overall effectiveness. It's more widely accepted at ASM that the BB rides the top of the barrel from experiments with translucent acrylic barrels and simply looking at wear marks. Right now it seems that barrel bores at around 6.05 and a length of 400-430mm has been the 'sweet spot' for some guns but again,there are lots of variables such as air seal quality and consistency and volume matching.

 

 

That and sorbo pads, radiused gearboxes... really now? I know I roll this out pretty regularly but my old Marui M4 had been chugging away reliably for MORE THAN A DECADE with zero maintenance before I sold it, that includes a couple of years sat in a box under a bed with all the seals 'drying out' (clearly they didn't) and it shot just as well on the day I chrono'd it for sale as it did the day I bought it back in 2001. This is the same brand that uses 'crappy plastic bushings' and pot metal gears along with a terribly low tech non-radiused gearbox shell and not a bearing in sight! Yes, there are performance gains to be had on this design, but even so they're marginal... bearing spring guides etc yeah, they might extend the life of the gun by another decade?

 

 

Sorbo pads reduce shock to the gearbox shell,so there is less stress on the metal. Shock absorbing is very much real and far from snake oil. Run a gun with no sorbopads on a 150 and one with sorbopads and see the difference. Radiusing gearboxes is no where near as effective as sorbo padding but does help marginally. A right angled cylinder window is more likely to crack than a radius ed one. If you can just imagine how the stress goes about on that point it will be clearer. I'm still rather novice at this AEG tech stuff,so I'm not too good at explaining.

 

The thing with old TM reliability- They are not built to be upgraded,taken apart or to have different parts jammed in. All of their stuff is made in house to match each part well,tolerances are tight. The whole gearbox is under very low stress. The spring is soft, so there is no massive load to compress and no massive stress on the gearbox. The gears are under low stress so the bushings can be plastic. The piston is weak to stop you from jamming in a massive spring and going over the 1J legal limit.

 

Seals generally don't dry out,silicone grease is fairly resilient stuff and I've never had any of my seals drying out. It's idiots who coat their shit in petroleum based slicone sprays who complain of seals going out or hop rubbers drying.

 

Any gun can last a decade if it's matched well to the parts and tuned. That's TMs trait,it's ready to go with all the stuff in there. The chinese have their stuff OEM by different factories so tolerances are off. They produce things in massive quantities so everything is rushed and quickly assembled. Instead of designing and engineering everything with tight tolerances they just make it out of a tougher material. If you yourself decide to do what the factory should be doing in the first place,like not sneezing on it to lubricate it and not having a blind 4 year old assemble it,and putting in a weaker spring to reduce stress then they can chug along for decades of abuse due to even stronger parts than a TM. Not everyone has the skill or will to do all the little tuning so they guns often fail due to being over stressed or due to poor QC.

 

The fixation with upgrades is what's really driving airsoft tech- we have things like CNC machined Chromoly steel gears which can take literally any spring reliably,neodymium motors with massive amounts of torque leading to more efficiency,dual sector gears for 50+ RPS and of course mods like G hop and R hop to get as much range and accuracy as possible. Airsoft tech has evolved massively. Compare the internals and performance of a Marui m4 from the early 2000s to something proper high tier like a Lonex M4 and there is a noticeable difference in material use and parts quality.

[M_P]

Or you could just get a decent gun that shoots as well as or better than the vast majority of others out of the box...

 

Fair enough all this techy stuff is interesting for some but it's not a necessity.

[DX115FALCON]

anyone dealt with APS? I hear that they are OK, although I am a bit wary of them (they seem to be cheap Chinese stuff )

[AK47frizzle]

I've bought a cyma v3 gearbox myself for my ak, i've greased it all and sorted out all the gears and it still makes a loud noise.

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

CYMA gearboxes,especially V3s,have some QC issues where the holes for the gear axles/bushings/bearings on the shell are drilled off leading to the gears meshing poorly and screeching. You are not the only one. There are plenty of issues like this. More common on newer production runs. Several users on ASM have complained about this. CYMA have some good parts,especially their pistons,motors and hop ups but their QC is getting worse and worse. JG & quite recently,E&L have the best part QC of any ACM company IMO.

[Dan_W]

Any idea how G&G intermediate range are out of the box?

[M_P]

Pretty much any g&g will be a good choice out of the box, they tend not to need anything doing to them to be worth using.

[jcheeseright]

I agree with all of your points UTJ, but the question was "when will be able to just buy a gun and have it work acceptably out of the box" and the answer to that question is; right now, you can buy a quality gun today, put a battery and a full magazine in it and have no problems whatsoever.

 

Radiused gearboxes etc to handle M150 springs? Why? The limit effective limit is 350-370 fps and that can be achieved with an M100.

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

Radiused gearboxes & sorbothane padding even for low stress builds- It's really just my mentality of wanting to eliminate any possible source of failure so I can rest easy. Otherwise it will always be on my mind,I always look at GB shells and imagine possible sources where they might crack.They might be perfectly fine and well cast but my low faith in airsoft manufacturing standards just makes that feeling stronger.The same goes for known to be weak internal parts on guns. I like to have a gun that I can safely thrash around and never worry about a weak part failing. I like to know that if a gun I build can handle 40RPS on a 130 spring and a 40c 11.1 lipo reliably then it can handle much weaker stress long term and I don;t have to worry about it.