BB weight vs Range

[Groot]

This is not a which BB am best0r thread. 

I have googled and I have failed to find an answer. 

Has anyone here done or have a link to a decent test of a normal 1.1 joule rifle, (so not DMR or Sniper power) test of ammo weights to see which actually does get the best range? ( carrying an acceptable hit accuracy ) 

 

Current lore is that 0.32 in an AEG am best0r
Other Angry techs say its 0.28's 
Today someone swore to me that he has consistently out ranged others with 0.25s

I have all the hardware to test but no where to do it. So hoping someone else has

Shibby

 

[SSPKali]

38 minutes ago, Groot said:

This is not a which BB am best0r thread. 

I have googled and I have failed to find an answer. 

Has anyone here done or have a link to a decent test of a normal 1.1 joule rifle, (so not DMR or Sniper power) test of ammo weights to see which actually does get the best range? ( carrying an acceptable hit accuracy ) 

 

Current lore is that 0.32 in an AEG am best0r
Other Angry techs say its 0.28's 
Today someone swore to me that he has consistently out ranged others with 0.25s

I have all the hardware to test but no where to do it. So hoping someone else has

Shibby

 

There was a spreadsheet produced by someone on here that allowed you to plug in the numbers and it would give an estimate of the range attainable, it even took into account hop up (Magnus effect) It might have been @Adolfhamster? 

Heavier BBs carry their energy further and have a more pronounced hopup effect, with no increase in drag caused by air friction. I can see what some angry airsoft techs are saying that some builds work better with, say, 0.28g vs 0.36g ammo. Best bet is to get samples of ammo and give it a test! 
 

I will try and have a search for the thread later once tea is cooked and small person put to bed

[shadowfacex]

48 minutes ago, Groot said:

Has anyone here done or have a link to a decent test of a normal 1.1 joule rifle, (so not DMR or Sniper power) test of ammo weights to see which actually does get the best range? ( carrying an acceptable hit accuracy ) 

 

Watch this. The team behind it put science next to airsoft and give you facts about this stuff. They even designed a replicable grading system for testing rifles.

 

 

[SSPKali]

Yep, here it is  Grab a beverage and settle down for a long read!

 

 

 

[Druid799]

3 hours ago, Groot said:

This is not a which BB am best0r thread. 

I have googled and I have failed to find an answer. 

Has anyone here done or have a link to a decent test of a normal 1.1 joule rifle, (so not DMR or Sniper power) test of ammo weights to see which actually does get the best range? ( carrying an acceptable hit accuracy ) 

 

Current lore is that 0.32 in an AEG am best0r
Other Angry techs say its 0.28's 
Today someone swore to me that he has consistently out ranged others with 0.25s

I have all the hardware to test but no where to do it. So hoping someone else has

Shibby

 

On a level playing field of AEG’s+FPS it’s the hop/nub/inner barrel that’ll define your range and accuracy NOT the BB weight . You can have a who knows what M4 from ‘BBgunziswicked.CoM and a Cyma from a ‘reputable’ retailer and the Cyma will totally out perform the other one , no matter what weight or brand you use .

Same as my stock TM 416 recoil doing barely 240’ish with .3’s will happily send them out as far as if not further than a lot of ‘stock’ snipers simply due to the legendary TM hop(admittedly the rounds are moving that slowly I think the cover could grow faster than the roundreaches the target !🤦‍♂️) BUT it’ll still send them silly ranges and still has excellent accuracy at the end . 

[Adolf Hamster]

4 hours ago, Groot said:

Current lore is that 0.32 in an AEG am best0r
Other Angry techs say its 0.28's 
Today someone swore to me that he has consistently out ranged others with 0.25s

 

its a system that can get rather complicated.

 

from a purely physics perspective (ie ignoring the gun), a bb with X energy, given the correct amount of backspin for its weight, will go further the heavier it is, which is what the spreadsheet @SSPKali linked to is all about. there's a site online which i forget the name of goes much much much further down the rabbit hole.

 

however that isn't strictly the whole argument if you apply it to an aeg and there are scenarios where other factors start to drift in. the crucial thing is assuming that the energy is constant and backspin is magically acheived without affecting energy.

 

the first issue is the amount of backspin, the energy, and how this is linked. to take a simplistic example lets say a gun can spin a 0.2g correctly and fires a perfect 1J with the hop set to 25% on.

 

we swap out to 0.25g we need to set the hop to 35% on, the extra resistance from the hop nub being further in drops the energy to 0.8j

 

then we try 0.3g, with the hop set to 60% on, the energy then drops to 0.6j

 

try it with 0.4g and there's so much resistance it won't even fire.

 

how much the energy drops in order to spin a given ammo weight is dependent on hop design, hence why the likes of maple leaf rubbers, s hops, r hops etc are a thing, they're trying to give the bb more spin whilst taking less energy to do so, usually through a larger but longer contact patch, softer grippier compounds etc. what's fun is i've even seen dual "sweet spots", where if you start from zero and dial in the hop you'll meet that point of perfect hop, but keep going and you can do it a second time where the over-hop and energy drop converge again to lift the round properly, of course the lower energy results in much lower range.

 

the next hurdle is volume, a heavier bb is going to spend longer in the barrel and have higher back pressure, so every source of air leak (including the gap around the bb in the barrel) is going to leak more air, kinda like the reverse of joule creep (where more time spent in the barrel means picking up more energy in systems that are pressure fed and not volume limited). this is dependent on a lot of factors but assuming "perfect" air seal both having a longer barrel or wider bore will add to this issue whereas a shorter barrel and tighter bore will do the reverse. this is more relevant for dmr platforms where folk both have long barrels and want to use heavy ammo in a system with a fixed maximum volume (and hence why you tend not to short-stroke dmr length guns).

 

so a gun that's built properly (by design or chance) to lob 0.25's may well be worse if you move to 0.3's, but that doesn't mean a gun built properly to lob 0.4's isn't going to be better.

 

and that's before we start talking about the difference between absolute range (ie how far the bb is capable of going) and effective range (ie how far you can aim, fire and hit a target). when it comes to the latter even things like optics, the size/weight of the gun, trigger response, and skill of the shooter start playing serious factors. for example i stopped running the super heavies in pistols not because the range was any better on the lighter ammo but because it was still better than my capability to shoot with a handgun and you weren't changing bulged nozzles every other magazine. same as how it's pointless running heavy ammo in cqb because accuracy/range is not the deciding factor for getting hits.

 

1 hour ago, Druid799 said:

On a level playing field of AEG’s+FPS it’s the hop/nub/inner barrel that’ll define your range and accuracy NOT the BB weight .

 

problem is that's focusing on only part of the system, bb weight absolutely is a factor alongside airseal (read: fps consistency), volume and energy.

 

to take an automotive example, you could fit the engine from an f1 car in a vw golf and put lewis hamilton behind the wheel, but he won't be winning the championship, hell even if you put a more powerful engine in he still won't win because the rest of the system isn't good enough to take advantage of the strongest element.

 

1 hour ago, Druid799 said:

Same as my stock TM 416 recoil doing barely 240’ish with .3’s will happily send them out as far as if not further than a lot of ‘stock’ snipers simply due to the legendary TM hop

 

not just the hop. tm's "magic" isn't just one thing being excellent (as much as we like to joke about the tm hop fairies), it's everything being a good match for everything else in a world where one part not properly fitting another is the norm. 

 

permitting myself a little "luke" moment; tm's are very well put together for the energy they do but it is somewhat curious how whilst the ~0.8j of a tm is commonly reported to outrange everything, many recoil owners feel the need to crack open their pews and fill them with the contents of the prometheus catalogue, likewise the mighty mk23 with its legendary range gets the maple leaf+hadron treatment, the vsr gets filled with PDI, the MWS gets filled with whatever the hell mws people fill their guns with etc.

[Druid799]

1 hour ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 many recoil owners feel the need to crack open their pews and fill them with the contents of the prometheus catalogue, 

Yup lots and lots do do this but I’ve always been of the mind this is a classic example of ‘ The ‘Emperors new clothes’ or “just because you can doesn’t mean you should ?” yes it can make your TM fire a bit faster , further and even a bit more accurate BUT the moment you start messing about with a TM’s internals you’ve started a countdown time to it imploding on you(or it’s next owner) as you said your self TM’s are made to very fine tolerances , which are tailored exactly to the Japanese market and their FPS limit . I have both a stock socom that’s over 13yrs old and a 74su that’s 12’ish and both working fine(mag shut off can be very temperamental but that’s all) , I’m sorry but no way will I believe any ‘upgraded’ ones will still be running 13yrs after they where built ! Plus (to me anyway) if you gut it and replace all the TM internals with all singing and all dancing Prometheus parts then it’s not really a TM Recoil anymore so why buy one in the first place ? 😳

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

1 hour ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

 

and that's before we start talking about the difference between absolute range (ie how far the bb is capable of going) and effective range (ie how far you can aim, fire and hit a target).

Effective range varies itself.  A snap shot has more limited range than a sneaky, walked in mortar like trajectory fired from a concealed position. 

 

Out of interest, what maximum PBR do people consider suitable for airsoft?  For extreme contras: a .303 only uses the first 25 % of its usable range within pbr.   I imagine that the rif hop v RS rifling effect is pretty extreme?  

 

Possibly a daft question, but if anyone can entertain a physics dunce...

 

 

[Rogerborg]

9 hours ago, Adolf Hamster said:

backspin is magically acheived without affecting energy

 

Very true if we're talking about dropping heavier BBs into the same toy that shoots 0.2g at 350fps without doing anything else to it.

 

Which is another reason to scoff and flick snot at toys tuned for 0.2g, and sites and retailer who still think in terms of novelty weight BBs.

 

But I'd assume that the folk interested in this thread will be tuning their toys for the BB weight that we want to use, in which case all that matters is that we've sprung and sealed them sufficiently to get 1.1J of linear velocity, as well as sufficient angular.

 

Given that the cheapest stock CYMAs are sprung to produce 1.4-1.5J of linear (on novelty weight BBs) it's not a big ask.

[AlphaBear]

Well this is am interesting topic which comes up time and time again as there isn't a definitive answer... My view is simple... A BB is like a box of chocolates... You won't know how it will perform until you get it out of the box and try it in your pew pew. Yes there are other factors too such as the set up of your pew pew or even the atmospheric conditions that will have a material affect either positive or negative. I have tried many different brands of BB and I've now settled for two only.. G&G and Geoffs... I won't touch Nuprols with a barge pole coz in my opinion they smash too easily especially with the MWS (just don't get me started on that topic), they caused feeding issues in my NGRS mags even had chopped BB's coming out of my recoils and when I tried them in my PTW what an absolute joke they were. Interestingly, I've heard some good remarks about the Ares Amoeba Diamond Precision BB's but haven't tried them. 

 

On the topic of upgraded recoils......believe it or not I still have one stock, untouched by mortal hands, MK18 sat in it's box. I have deliberately left it that way for when I play any indoor games (which I still have't yet) but also to remind myself how good a stock TM is. However, and here comes the 'BUT' given an option I will always go out with my 'Scottish' TM as it's just stupidly good out in the field...Yes it's upgraded to the hilt and yes it's accuracy and groupings are pretty good and yes the BB hit's its target approx 70fps faster than my stock TM. Now, the question is...... will a stock TM perform just as good at say average engagement distances of 40m to 50m? Yes no doubt. But, when you start acquiring targets over 60m then that's when the upgrades seem to be effective. My 417 is another example... it's tuned to 450fps/R-Hop and it's internals have again been ripped out... There is nothing TM at all inside that gearbox. However, it's range and groupings accuracy is astounding. Stick a 0.2g BB in for a laugh and you will not even see it leave the barrel. Stick a 0.4g Geoffs and you can just see the bb in flight... I do know one thing though at some point down the line that Prommy piston will probably fail due to the extreme  battering it's getting.... that's just a trade off as far as I am concerned..

 

 

[Rogerborg]

Perhaps not the most scientastic or replicable, but data points.

 

 

 

[AlphaBear]

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

Perhaps not the most scientastic or replicable, but data points.

 

 

 

Actually AATV and Clearwater did some Bio BB tests at Inrange just recently. The video is online too. Makes for some interesting viewing. I’d skip towards the end though for their conclusions (just saying).
 

Oooooh on a side note, the NGRS MP5 looked good too. As did the upgraded NGRS MK18 and also the MWS and the TM AKM. Oh blimey I didn’t realise they used all TM’s for their testing. Well there’s a coincidence if ever there was one 🤷🏻‍♂️😂

Edited September 17, 2021 by AlphaBear
Spelling

[Adolf Hamster]

9 hours ago, Druid799 said:

Yup lots and lots do do this but I’ve always been of the mind this is a classic example of ‘ The ‘Emperors new clothes’ or “just because you can doesn’t mean you should ?” yes it can make your TM fire a bit faster , further and even a bit more accurate BUT the moment you start messing about with a TM’s internals you’ve started a countdown time to it imploding on you(or it’s next owner) as you said your self TM’s are made to very fine tolerances , which are tailored exactly to the Japanese market and their FPS limit . I have both a stock socom that’s over 13yrs old and a 74su that’s 12’ish and both working fine(mag shut off can be very temperamental but that’s all) , I’m sorry but no way will I believe any ‘upgraded’ ones will still be running 13yrs after they where built ! Plus (to me anyway) if you gut it and replace all the TM internals with all singing and all dancing Prometheus parts then it’s not really a TM Recoil anymore so why buy one in the first place ? 😳

 

yes i can see your point. as i mentioned everything is a trade off, and reliability is a factor that i personally rarely consider. but you make a good point that by not pursuing the peak of performance you're gaining longevity.

 

ultimately it's a case of how happy a person is with that balance, for example my view is i'd rather have the performance and accept the higher maintenance that entails, at least within reasonable limits (eg how i mentioned bulged nozzles in pistols).

 

9 hours ago, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

Effective range varies itself.  A snap shot has more limited range than a sneaky, walked in mortar like trajectory fired from a concealed position. 

 

absolutely, for example with my playstyle i always had trouble with intermediate range- too far to hip fire and too close to take your time, that kind of snap shooting is where i tend to fail miserably.

 

8 hours ago, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

Out of interest, what maximum PBR do people consider suitable for airsoft?  For extreme contras: a .303 only uses the first 25 % of its usable range within pbr.   I imagine that the rif hop v RS rifling effect is pretty extreme?  

 

 

not familiar with PBR as a term (i'm guessing it's not "patrol boat river"  ) but going by the context of it meaning something like "practical battle range" i'd say it's very personal in terms of what a given person is happy with.

 

my viewpoint is the better the gun shoots, the more opportunities it opens up, eg when you only have a foot poking out of cover, or the other guy is shooting through a small window, plus it's less infuriating to miss from your own lack of marksmanship than the hardware failing you.

 

there are folk who scoff at the notion of trying to go down the route of maximizing range arguing along the lines of "just get closer", and that has it's own logic. but you bring what your good at to this game and every bit of pew performance i can leverage means i can get away with not having to run quite as fast or hide quite as well, which for someone as pathologically lazy as me is exactly the ticket.

 

1 hour ago, Rogerborg said:

But I'd assume that the folk interested in this thread will be tuning their toys for the BB weight that we want to use.

 

yep, and if you're going to the extremes then that can impose its own limitations, you end up having to decide which aspect of performance is more important to you.

 

it's like choosing a mk23 over [generic gbb pistol], you're trading the feel of the gbb and snappier response for reliability, precision & silence.

 

or choosing to hpa- you're trading the hatred of your peers for bb lobbing performance

 

or choosing gbbr- you're trading performance for feel.

 

none of these choices are inherently wrong, and it's a good thing that we have such variety to choose what we want to prioritize.

[DerDer]

1 hour ago, AlphaBear said:

Actually AATV and Clearwater did some Bio BB tests at Inrange just recently. The video is online too. Makes for some interesting viewing. I’d skip towards the end though for their conclusions (just saying).
 

Oooooh on a side note, the NGRS MP5 looked good too. As did the upgraded NGRS MK18 and also the MWS and the TM AKM. Oh blimey I didn’t realise they used all TM’s for their testing. Well there’s a coincidence if ever there was one 🤷🏻‍♂️😂

That was an interesting video as regards the Bio BBs. There seemed to be a broad selection that was decent, a few that were worse and a handful that were better. There certainly seemed to be less performance variation than the non bio equivalents video.  Possible fewer OEMs actually cranking out the Bios or a degree of consolidation in the firms producing the ammo? Was intrigued by how well the Ares BBs did as recall a thread where a user had some dodgy specimens among his bag. 

 

What I find complicates it further is both different brands and their weight performance. Had some companies where the lighter (0.25 & 0.28) ammo performed very well. Went up to their 0.30g offering and had jams and fliers galore.  Have settled on G&G 0.28g BBs for support guns.  Still trialing different stuff for rifles. 

[AlphaBear]

1 minute ago, DerDer said:

That was an interesting video as regards the Bio BBs. There seemed to be a broad selection that was decent, a few that were worse and a handful that were better. There certainly seemed to be less performance variation than the non bio equivalents video.  Possible fewer OEMs actually cranking out the Bios or a degree of consolidation in the firms producing the ammo? Was intrigued by how well the Ares BBs did as recall a thread where a user had some dodgy specimens among his bag. 

 

What I find complicates it further is both different brands and their weight performance. Had some companies where the lighter (0.25 & 0.28) ammo performed very well. Went up to their 0.30g offering and had jams and fliers galore.  Have settled on G&G 0.28g BBs for support guns.  Still trialing different stuff for rifles. 

My thoughts exactly, it’s not an exact science. The Nuprols which buggered up my MWS and got chopped in my recoils were 0.28’s. Yet i contacted Eagle6 and KoA and they swear by Nuprol 0.30’s saying they’ve never had issues with them  The only conclusion is either I had a dodgy batch or the 0.28g weight just has issues.🤷🏻‍♂️
 

I concur with G&G 0.28’s. They are damn good and use them in everything except in the 417. Incidentally,  I have a few packs of 0.3 G&G too but they are grey in colour. No one can see those coming 😂. I use them exclusively in the PTW although it can lift up to 0.4 easy but then it gets expensive 😂

[Adolf Hamster]

1 hour ago, DerDer said:

What I find complicates it further is both different brands and their weight performance.

 

yep, quality is a very big factor.

 

not just in terms of dimensional/finish consistency but also weight consistency.

 

which is yet another factor of how gun X might shoot better on 0.28g rather than 0.32g even if both bb's are from the same brand, as they're likely at least different production lines if not entirely different oem's.

 

and how adaptable a gun is to being fed bad food is another factor that can trade with out and out performance.

 

funny really how a bunch of relatively simple systems can get insanely complex when they're put together.

[Brown082]

Don't really know much about the range but i have the AEG heavy BB weight and it's pretty cool .

[Ad_]

1 hour ago, DerDer said:

That was an interesting video as regards the Bio BBs. There seemed to be a broad selection that was decent, a few that were worse and a handful that were better. There certainly seemed to be less performance variation than the non bio equivalents video.  Possible fewer OEMs actually cranking out the Bios or a degree of consolidation in the firms producing the ammo? Was intrigued by how well the Ares BBs did as recall a thread where a user had some dodgy specimens among his bag.

 

That would be me. Some bad BBs and the ones that looked ok didn't seem like anything special (the ones I looked at were the 0.25g version though while the ones tested in the video were 0.28g):

 

https://airsoft-forums.uk/topic/48745-what-bio-bbs-should-i-be-buying/?do=findComment&comment=410419

 

I had a similar experience with the "6mm Ammo" BBs - I bought some in .30g after seeing their performance in the same video (they tested .28g but those were out of stock) and found a bunch with significant defects in the pack I received, although in that case they otherwise do seem to be above average. I also bought a pack of the tracers in .30g but all of those were fine. Could easily be a case of bad luck & getting some from a dodgy batch... or maybe the OEMs have been cutting corners somewhere to increase profits & hoping that noone notices.

 

It's also possible that people just aren't looking at them closely enough to notice if there only a few dodgy ones in a pack, and in a bag containing 3000+ BBs it's easy to see how maybe a dozen or so messed up BBs might go unnoticed if you're not specifically looking for them in every pack you open.

 

1 hour ago, DerDer said:

What I find complicates it further is both different brands and their weight performance. Had some companies where the lighter (0.25 & 0.28) ammo performed very well. Went up to their 0.30g offering and had jams and fliers galore.  Have settled on G&G 0.28g BBs for support guns.

 

1 hour ago, AlphaBear said:

My thoughts exactly, it’s not an exact science. The Nuprols which buggered up my MWS and got chopped in my recoils were 0.28’s. Yet i contacted Eagle6 and KoA and they swear by Nuprol 0.30’s saying they’ve never had issues with them  The only conclusion is either I had a dodgy batch or the 0.28g weight just has issues.🤷🏻‍♂️

 

I've seen this with some of the bio BBs I've looked at, e.g. the Nuprol .20s were really soft but the .25s were ok; the Geoffs .28g tracer BBs I looked at were significantly out of spec (undersized) but the .28g regular versions and both .30g versions I looked at were fine... it likely varies from batch to batch, who the OEM is, how the material composition differs between each weight etc.

[DerDer]

50 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

yep, quality is a very big factor.

 

not just in terms of dimensional/finish consistency but also weight consistency.

 

which is yet another factor of how gun X might shoot better on 0.28g rather than 0.32g even if both bb's are from the same brand, as they're likely at least different production lines if not entirely different oem's.

 

and how adaptable a gun is to being fed bad food is another factor that can trade with out and out performance.

 

funny really how a bunch of relatively simple systems can get insanely complex when they're put together.

Yeah, good call as regards different lines. With Geoffs some claim their precision line is the same as the BLS ones. While their super precision is from a different producer.  Also there can be drought of particular weights of BBs. Then suddenly three or four different brands get a restock. Wouldn't be too conspiracy like to imagine quite a few of them come from the same source. 

 

The food comparison is a good one. No point upgrading your primary to a high extent only to plug in a weedy lipo and run it with a poor match of BB. 

14 minutes ago, Ad_ said:

 

That would be me. Some bad BBs and the ones that looked ok didn't seem like anything special (the ones I looked at were the 0.25g version though while the ones tested in the video were 0.28g):

 

https://airsoft-forums.uk/topic/48745-what-bio-bbs-should-i-be-buying/?do=findComment&comment=410419

 

I had a similar experience with the "6mm Ammo" BBs - I bought some in .30g after seeing their performance in the same video (they tested .28g but those were out of stock) and found a bunch with significant defects in the pack I received, although in that case they otherwise do seem to be above average. I also bought a pack of the tracers in .30g but all of those were fine. Could easily be a case of bad luck & getting some from a dodgy batch... or maybe the OEMs have been cutting corners somewhere to increase profits & hoping that noone notices.

 

Excellent,  that was the thread I was thinking of. Find AATV to be thoroughly entertaining lads, who are good to reply to comments and interact. Used their non bio video to select a few brands to test. Still your experience would certainly give me a degree of hesitancy in trying 6mm.  

 

One of the shortcomings is even if you find a good BB, it might not necessarily be in stock year round. 

[Adolf Hamster]

6 minutes ago, DerDer said:

Yeah, good call as regards different lines. With Geoffs some claim their precision line is the same as the BLS ones. While their super precision is from a different producer.  Also there can be drought of particular weights of BBs. Then suddenly three or four different brands get a restock. Wouldn't be too conspiracy like to imagine quite a few of them come from the same source. 

 

indeed, i'd wager an awful lot of bb brands don't manufacture their own, i remember it mentioned at some point there's something like only 3 companies that actually do the manufacturing, but put a massive citation needed next to that statement.

 

9 minutes ago, DerDer said:

The food comparison is a good one. No point upgrading your primary to a high extent only to plug in a weedy lipo and run it with a poor match of BB. 

 

yep, and more than once have i "fixed" feeding problems by doing nothing more than emptying the magazine and refilling it with different ammo.

 

wether or not you're happy for a gun to be fussy about what ammo you give it is ofc another personal preference decision, eg i'm happy knowing i can't just buy any old random site bb's and expect them to work at least passably.

[AlphaBear]

I read somewhere that ASG manufacture their own BBs too. It was on some blog somewhere but then again anyone can write a blog eh and claim whatever. In terms of how many OEMs there are, 3 has always been the so called number floating around as @Adolf Hamstermentioned above. One in Japan, one or two in Taiwan (BLS and ???) and now maybe ASG in Europe. Also different finishes are applied to different brands which correlates to better performance and higher prices which would explain why these few OEMs can produce different lines of BB quality. 

[DerDer]

From what I vaguely recall was about three or four in Taiwan. Something like BLS/G&G/others like Airsoft surgeon.

With regards ASG think they are manufactured in the East and then "processed" in Denmark.