Rounds per second

[Matt.2504]

Hi guys; 

first of all I want to make it clear this question is not about speedsoft; this is not about an M4, MP5, or Evo. My question is solely relating to LMGs.

 

in the real steel world LMGs have a significant advantage in a firefight; normally higher caliber, higher capacity and higher rate of fire than standard rifles.

in airsoft they don’t seem to have that suppressing superiority due to high cap mags and everyone throwing the same plastic pellets at each other. 

so now comes my question; what sort of RPS should I increase my LMG to in order to keep peoples heads down better but without looking like a bit of a D*ck? I beleive it’s currently around the 22rps mark. 

also can electric drum magazines be worked on to improve their feed rate? 

 

thanks in advance

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

I use an LMG.  Proper suppressive fire does not need a massive rof.  Causing a stream of plastic to whir past where someone may stick there head out is of dubious worth.  You're better off rattling a longish slow burst into cover so that folk know there being covered in my experience.  

 

In airsoft milsims and filmsims the advantage is mag capacity and round amount loaded.  No advantage in skirmishes.  

[EDcase]

Yeah, 22rps is plenty.

A box mag will enable the suppressive effect but as TacticalPith mentioned, its a bit less practical in general skirmish games.

Anyone who wants to play as LMG can just use a drum mag with a HoneyBadger or MP5.  I think some sites do restrict that which is good.

[AK47frizzle]

25 to 30 rps I feel is the limit without being an arse. As soon as you stop hearing the individual shots and becomes a constant noise (around 35-40), that's when it begins to get arseholey. 

[Adolf Hamster]

9 hours ago, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

I use an LMG.  Proper suppressive fire does not need a massive rof.  Causing a stream of plastic to whir past where someone may stick there head out is of dubious worth.  You're better off rattling a longish slow burst into cover so that folk know there being covered in my experience.  

 

^that

 

tbh, this is part of the reason actual lmg's aren't all that useful for general skirmishing. although they seem to be more useful in milsims where ammo is limited.

 

a higher rof won't really help, and from a technical standpoint it's going to be trickier on an lmg anyway due to the magazine becoming the limiting factor.

 

 

[Tommikka]

In real life the original objective of ‘machine guns’ was to be inconsistent & inaccurate.  That meant a high rate of fire and a low level of accuracy was not to deliver a line of bullets in quick succession but a distributed ‘cloud’ which either deny an area suppressing the opposition or hit a wide random selection of advancing opposition. 
 

If you’re suppressing then you want a high enough rate of fire to make the opposition hesitate from chancing their ability to run through the spaced out gaps in between them

 

 

If you have a muzzle velocity of 350fps and a rate of fire of 22rps/bps then each BB has travelled 15.9 feet before the next one follows.

(Ignoring deceleration etc) If they are consistent and accurate then your opposition has a gap of almost 16 feet to  move in 1/22nd of a second 

 

If you’re firing accurately then they just need to keep their head down and dodge that spot

[Impulse]

Take my opinion with a pinch of salt, since I typically like my sniper rifles, but you can achieve everything you need on 15rps easily. 20rps is pretty fast and 25rps is brrrrrrrt. My local site has a ROF limit of 25rps and having seen what 25rps is like when I was playing around with my m21 HPA build, I agree with this limit (before I essentially disabled full auto). 25rps is pretty savage!

 

Also, if we're going for playing a proper support gunner role, with the suppressive fire and all that, a high ROF is going to chew through your ammo faster than you realise. Assuming 2000rds in the mag, 25rps will give you 80 seconds of shooting, which sounds like a lot but that will vanish sooooo fast as a support gunner. I have a friend who palys support gunner and he can chew through thousands of BBs per game. 15rps gives you just over 133 seconds of shooting, so almost double the longevity to do the same job just as well.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Impulse

[Hatchet]

I have one and there's essentially two different approaches to this.

 

The first is the A10 brrrrrrrrrrrt approach, which works well in short bursts and for putting down a line of death that people can't run through. For me, mid 20's and higher is probably this.

 

The other is the continual rain of long bursts onto a target, and I think around 18rps is good for this. As mentioned above it becomes about the length of time you can sustain the fire and how much ammo you go through.

 

And of course, as usual there's the usual considerations around overkill. If you're using long bursts from a high ROF gun into either crowds or unsighted (because you're shooting into bushes/a window) the chances of someone getting grumpy because they've taken 50 rounds in the face before you've come off the trigger tend to be higher.

 

I've set mine up for the slightly slower fire rate, but admit to being tempted by HPA purely for the ability to be able vary ROF (not power) based on the situation on the day.

[Keithlag]

My M249 runs at 19 rps and in a 2 hour gameI have got through up 17000 rounds in that time just supressing. I also have the m60e4 it runs the standed rps about 15RPS and i can do the same job for around 7000.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Keithlag

[Shamal]

31 minutes ago, Keithlag said:

My M249 runs at 19 rps and in a 2 hour gameI have got through up 17000 rounds in that time just supressing. I also have the m60e4 it runs the standed rps about 15RPS and i can do the same job for around 7000.

 

Ffs! That's a huge amount of ammo to use. The pounds must add up or have you got a source of really cheap bbs?

Regards 

[Jacob Wright]

My M249 is set up completely standard (RPS wise) and when I looked at increasing this I decided I didn’t need to bother. 
 

It chugs along at a steady rate, and will throw .25’s out to about 60m accurately and further creating a ‘beaten zone’. It’s bloody effective at keeping peoples heads down and the regular support gunner on our team does exactly that. 
 

However, it’s not unheard of for him to go through 1000’s of BB’s in a game, and that’s playing predominantly mil/filmsim games. 

[Rogerborg]

On 07/12/2021 at 23:56, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

In airsoft milsims and filmsims the advantage is mag capacity and round amount loaded.  No advantage in skirmishes.  

 

Sad fact.  The BBs don't care what the externals of the toy they came out of looks like, only we do.

 

My local runs occasional Semi-Auto Sundays at which only LMGs are allowed to shoot auto, which works pretty well, and doesn't strictly exclude anyone with a functional fire selector.

 

However, it leaves box-mag-Firehawk owners a bit out of sorts, so they only run it occasionally.  Worth seeking out similar games locally, if not film/milsims, if you want to get some benefits out of hauling around an LMG.

[Keithlag]

19 hours ago, Shamal said:

Ffs! That's a huge amount of ammo to use. The pounds must add up or have you got a source of really cheap bbs?

Regards 

get them of patrol base in bulk 24 bottles at a time