G&G Raider L Spring Upgrade help.

[declanglx]

I was thinking of upgrading my spring to get a little higher fps out of my gun and was wanting to know what spring to buy while still being able to be under the fps limit.

Fps limit is 350fps at my sight with 0.2s and I'm shooting 0.25g bbs at 275fps and I think I can go to 315fps with 0.25g but I'm not 100% sure on that, would love some help and happy airsofting

[Tactical Pith Helmet]

If the gun is standard you may get higher fps by improving the airseal or fitting a tighter bored barrel.  

[declanglx]

Just now, Tactical Pith Helmet said:

If the gun is standard you may get higher fps by improving the airseal or fitting a tighter bored barrel.  

I have already done both of them things mate, but thank you for the reply

[Rogerborg]

350fps on 0.2g is (about) 1.13J which is (about) 311fps with a 0.25g BB.  Unless your site is still chronoing with 0.2g BBs (yuk) I'd suggest you to start thinking and home-chronoing in Joules and your usual BB weight rather than in fps.

 

You're currently at about 0.87J which is pretty weak.

 

Can I ask how you improved the air seal, and how you tested that?  With good air seal, it should be hard or impossible to push the piston forward with your thumb pressed over the nozzle, like this.

 

 

That should be achievable just with fresh and/or stretched and well silicon greased piston and cylinder head o-rings.  The reason that I stress the importance of this is that it determines how much spring you need, or don't need.  For example, I have a dirt cheap CYMA M4 with stock air seal components but with spot-on airseal and a ZCI 6.01mm 229mm barrel, and hopping 0.2g, I'm seeing bang on 1.13J with a fresh M90 spring.

 

The other possibility is air loss between the nozzle and the hop.  Hop buckings aren't all identical, and a fraction of a mm difference in the lips can result in a leak.  Sometimes it's just a case of pushing the barrel back into the hop unit a bit more firmly. Or pushing the hop unit back against the gearbox harder - the little spring on top of stock rotary hop units isn't great, and can be replaced with a stronger spring slipped over the barrel, or by popping rubber o-rings over the barrel to press the hop unit back.

 

So the answer is really: it depends.  With good air seal, you should notionally want an M100 or M105 spring for UK limits.  However, G&Gs tend to come with an M100-ish spring, so either that's got very tired and needs replaced like-for-like, or the air seal isn't good enough, or the air seal is perfect but airsoft witchcraft is working against you and you'll need to go up to (e.g.) an M110 anyway.

 

The first thing I'd buy is a cheap airsoft chronograph to take the guesswork out of it.  Better to invest on that than to lose a day's play and travel due to a hot gun.

 

tl;dr version:

 

Squish that barrel and hop backwards, and chrono.

then

Grease those seals, and chrono.

then

Throw in an M110, and chrono.

 

If you come out over 1.13J at any point, it's easy enough to cut a spring down, so it's reasonable enough to buy a hotter spring than you think you'll need, and then clip it down to come out just under the site limit.