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Gun Care TipsAmmo Reusing BBs Batteries Chargers Motor Height Storing Your Rifle AmmoMake sure you use the right BBs for your gun. To many of you this seems like a no brainer but many of us, this one little thing can be easily overlooked even though it is without a doubt the most important tip there is. 90% of how your gun works is based on the ammo you use. The vast selection of brands and weights can seem daunting at first but there are a few things that make it easier.When in doubt, use a good quality 0.20gram BB. That one is so important it deserves to stand out. Most of the Airsoft AEGs on the market are meant to use the .20gram BBs. I have fixed countless guns that have broken because the owner was using .12gram BBs, including my own when I first started. This can be expensive, and infuriating. Especially if you bought a nice AEG like a Classic Army, KWA, or Tokyo Marui. I remember being so excited when I got my first rifle. It came with a sample of .25gram BBs and was amazed at how accurate it was. Unfortunately, I neglected to get more BBs when I bought my gun so I quickly ran out. At the time, the only ammo I could find in town was a huge bag of .12gram BBs. I took that bag and my rifle to my first game and not long after I was horrified at how inaccurate my gun was shooting, it broke. I was heartbroken. $300 down the drain. Luckily, one of the more experienced players at the game felt sorry for me and gave me the spare parts to fix my gun on the condition that I never use .12gram BBs again. The lesson was well learned. Remember that the heavier the BB, the more likely it is to be accurate. Lighter BBs are impossible to keep from blowing around when they are shot so you can never hit anything. Instead, you are wasting your time, ammo, and maybe your gun. All but the very worst AEGs require 0.20gram BBs or heavier. 0.20gram BBs are pretty much the industry standard. If you look in the owners manual for your rifle it usually says in very specific terms that the rifle was designed to use 0.20gram ammo or better. They aren't even more expensive most of the time so that isn't a good excuse to use the poor quality .12gram BBs that certain companies sell. I can rant on this subject all day long but I won't. Just don't use them unless your gun says to only use .12gram BBs. The shinier the better. If you look very closely at a BB, you can tell right away if it is any good. BBs of acceptable quality will be very shiny and not have any visible seams, dimples, gouges, or discoloration. The barrel of your gun is machined to tolerances of a thousandths of a millimeter and so are most BBs. If the BBs are low quality, they can just roll out of the barrel or, worse, jam in the barrel and cause parts in the gearbox to break. A smooth BB will shoot farther, straighter, and will not jam in your barrel or magazine. As much as I would love to tell you what brands to avoid, listing their names here would be a great way to get myself into legal trouble so I won't. However, if you go to any of the large superstores and find yellow, green, orange, Back to top Reusing BBsDon't. Ever. Just don't do it. I'm not here to sell you BBs so you can trust me on this. Once a BB has been shot, it is no longer round. Whether it hits something hard and dents on one side expanding on the others, or cracks and spreads open a little, it is not good to try to use it again. Remember that we are dealing with tolerances of thousandths of a millimeter on the good guns. After the BB has been shot, it is no longer the same shape. Even if you just shot it into a pillow, it is a fraction of a penny. You aren't saving much money and you are riskng the cost of a new gun. I have seen guys on the field complaining about how their gun jams all the time, breaks gears, and is not accurate anymore as they are picking up BBs out of the dirt and putting them back in the bag. The best case scenario is that you destroy your bucking and get a lot of scratches in your barrel. The worst case is more expensive. IT IS NOT WORTH IT. Unless you want to pay people like me to fix your gun all the time. In that case, please do.Just joking. Please do not reuse BBs.  To better illustrate this point, I'll show you what I just pulled out of a gun that was sent to me for repairs. This BB has quite obviously been shot before. You can see the flat area where it hit something and the big crack that ran all the way from one side to the other. Naturally, it was jammed in the barrel of the rifle keeping it from shooting. Luckily, the owner stopped using the rifle when he realized there was a problem. If he had kept trying to shoot the rifle, something in the gearbox would have given out soon. Usually the tappet plate or the piston. Here's the best photo I could get of it without actually touching the camera to the BB.
Back to top BatteriesYour battery is the heart and soul of your gun. Most companies do not include a battery or charger with the gun for good reasons. The guns that come with batteries and chargers are usually adequate at best. Inferior at worst. If a company includes a battery and charger with the gun, you can bet that they are taking the cost of those goods into consideration with the final cost to you. They want it to be as inexpensive as possible so we are tempted to buy it. This means the batteries are usually not what we would want to buy, and the chargers are inferior to even the $10 ones you can get at Radio Shack. These will be the first things you want to replace if you decide you want your gun to work better. The gun companies that do not include batteries and chargers know this so they do not waste your money forcing you to buy a package with substandard goods. Besides, you may already have a good battery and charger so that extra cost really is wasted.So what makes a battery good? Mostly that depends on your current needs and what you eventually want out of your gun. If you just want to leave your gun stock and use it as is, a basic battery pack will do just fine. For Large type batteries, this usually means at least an 8.4volt pack with at least 1800mAh but the higher the mAh rating, the better. Higher mAh ratings will mean the battery will last longer and give a slight increase to your gun's rate of fire. For Mini type battery packs, the 8.4v stays the same but the mAh drops a bit because the cells are a little smaller. 1100mAh should be fine but, again, more will make you happier. If you want to upgrade your gun, or if it is already shooting in the neighborhood of 400FPS, the battery will be under a huge strain. All other parts being equal, a gun shooting only 400FPS will drain a battery roughly twice as fast as a gun shooting only 300FPS. That more than doubles again when you are looking at 450FPS. You will want to get the very best battery you can fit into your gun without doing ridiculous modifications to get it in there. A Large type 8.4v 3000mAh or better would be ideal, but sometimes that is not an option. If you use an M4 with a collapsible stock, you know what I mean. I've seen several people buy an M4 and then, we being guys and all, decide we want it to shoot harder for more range. That's fine. The trouble starts with finding the best battery we can squeeze into the fore grip. There is not a lot of room in there and that is why the Nunchuck style of batteries became popular. It allowed the use of larger batteries to be squeezed in around the barrel to make better use of the limited room available. This allowed batteries like the 9.6volt 2000mAh to go in there and it was a huge improvement over the traditional Minis we had before. A 400FPS spring like the Systema M120 was just too much for most Mini type batteries a few years ago without using torque-up gears and other parts as well. Luckily, battery options continue to get better and better so this is not so much of a problem anymore, but one people still run into from time to time. NiCD or NiMH? NiCD (Nickel Cadmium) batteries are the oldest type around and still used quite often. While they usually do not hold as much juice as a NiMH can, they are still popular with a lot of people because they can deliver that juice faster when they need to than most NiMH batteries so they work well in upgraded guns. Especially those capable of using a Large type battery. Granted, this usually isn't noticeable unless you do a side by side comparison to a NiMH battery with the same mAh rating. Aside from the limitation on the amount of juice it can store, NiCD batteries require to be stored empty or they develop the dreaded Memory Effect. This means you have to discharge the battery before you recharge it or when you are done using it for a few days. This can be annoying and many of us forget from time to time. This leads to the battery capacity becoming smaller and smaller until eventually it is useless. Many good chargers can recondition these batteries but we'll get into that later. NiMH (Nickel-Metal Hydride) batteries are newer and generally preferred over NiCD packs because they are much more user friendly. For starters, you do not have to discharge the battery. Just top it off again with your charger before a game and you're set. They also can pack more juice in the cells so you get more playing time out of them. What's not to love? Well, there are a couple of minuses. The first thing you will notice is that they are a little more expensive than NiCD packs. The other is that while NiMH cells can be recharged anywhere from 200-500 times depending on the quality of the brand, NiCD packs can be recharged three to five times as much before they become worthless. Plus, NiMH batteries self-discharge up to 20% in the first 24 hours after charging, then as much as 15% per month. Self-discharge is highly temperature dependent. NiMH batteries self discharge about three times faster at 40 °C than at 20 °C. Age also effects self discharge. Older battery packs self-discharge faster than new ones. That's why it's important to top off your batteries the morning before the game to get the most out of them. Also, please do not leave the battery hooked up to the gun when it is not in use. It is rare, but sometimes bad things can happen. If it is really humid or the gun somehow gets wet, or there is a frayed wire somewhere in the gearbox, there is a chance that it can short out and drain the battery or worse. Not to mention, if someone picks up the gun, someone might get shot. Back to top ChargersIf the battery is the heart and soul of your gun, then it makes sense to treat it right and a good charger or at least the right charging habits can make a huge difference in whether or not your gun keeps working well. Many Airsoft guns come with NiCD batteries because they are less expensive and many people still buy NiCD batteries as well. These need to be discharged to stay useful. There are three ways to do this.The first is to play with the battery until it will not shoot the gun anymore. This is a bad idea because it does not completely discharge the battery. The gun locks up long before the battery is completely dry. Let's say this gets the battery down to 5% capacity. If you recharge it now, it will start to form memory and will not accept as full of a charge each time you do this. You can see how over time, this will kill your battery and make you mad. Not to mention, if you stop playing but still have a lot of juice left over in the battery, just sitting there shooting the gun until it goes dead is just putting unnecessary wear and tear on the gun. The second option is to use a stand-alone discharger. There are many types but I will not get into them. I love these! They are usually inexpensive and you can connect your battery to it and forget about it. Just charge your battery again before the game and you're all set. The third option, and most common, is to get a good charger that has a discharger built in. This makes it easier because you have to keep track of less equipment and if you are in a hurry, the good charger will start to recharge as soon as the battery is drained. Fast chargers / Smart chargers are quite nice. Not only can you charge your battery a lot faster than a basic wall charger, but these usually have dischargers and other features built in. Some of my favorites are peak detection, occasionally a meter, adjustable amperage in most cases, and the ability to charge both NiCD and NiMH batteries since they require different methods of charging. If you want to know more, be sure to check out the NiCD and NiMH links above for a fascinating read between the two technologies. Not to mention, it will help keep you from burning out your battery on accident. Lets use an example. Let's take a Large type NiMH 8.4v 3600mAh battery. If you follow the manufacturers recommended charging methods, one of the trickle chargers that you plug into the wall (like the ones that come with most AEGs) would have to put out a maximum of 180mAh per hour. That will take 20 hours to charge that battery. Most of the wall chargers I've seen put out considerably more than 180, and even up to 500mAh so that battery has a good chance of melting and being a smoldering heap in the morning if you plug it in and go to bed. If the battery is smaller than 3600mAh, the odds increase much more. Why then do these companies include trickle chargers and NiMH batteries with some of their guns? Your guess is as good as mine. Either they don't know better, or they just don't care. If you used a good peak detection charger with adjustable amperage, you can have that battery safely charged in about 1 hour. For the cost of two of those batteries, you could get a pretty nice charger that will keep all your batteries happy for years to come. It's definitely worth the money. Especially when you forget to charge your batteries until it's almost time for the game. So, back to the trickle chargers for a moment. NiCD batteries work well with the trickle chargers because they do not have special charging needs like the NiMH packs. Still, assuming that you do not have a good charger yet, and you still need to be able to charge your batteries, how do you know how long to charge your battery? For NiCD packs, the math is pretty simple assuming that the pack is fully discharged. If, for example, your battery holds 1500mAh of juice and the charger puts out 250mAh (it will say on the charger under Output) then 1500 divided by 250 gives your 6 hours. That's just a short cut, it's more complex than that, but it's also easier at the same time. Since trickle chargers keep pumping juice into the battery pack until you unplug it, you have to be sure to unplug the battery in time. When the battery gets full and it has nowhere else to put the energy the charger keeps forcing into it, the battery bleeds the extra energy off by getting hot. When you feel your battery and it is warm like hot cocoa, it's definitely done. If it is too hot to touch, the battery has been given WAAAAY too much juice and is probably destroyed. Do not go to bed with the battery on the charger. I've seen a lot of innocent people make this mistake. Back to top Motor Height
This is something that does not get a lot of attention but I think it should. You may notice that when you have your ear close to the gun when you are shooting it, you will hear the motor and gears quite a bit. Sounds like a big sewing machine, doesn't it? If that sound is too loud, you know you have a problem. The pinion gear on the motor and the bevel gear in the gearbox are cut with the teeth at an angle so they can turn freely. It is important that these teeth line up properly or they strip out and break. For example, on guns with a type 2 gearbox, the motor goes in the pistol grip. On the bottom of the grip you will see two screws that hold the grip plate on. In between these two screws is another screw. Usually a small 1.5mm Allen head set screw like the one in the picture. That screw pushes in on the small disk that pushes the motor into the gearbox. Over time, the vibrations of the gun can cause this screw to slowly back out allowing the motor to get out of position. This causes all sorts of headaches. I will describe some situations below.1 - If someone has tightened the set screw too much, the motor pinion gear is forced against the bevel gear and the gun will not shoot at all. You will squeeze the trigger and the fuse to the battery will probably blow instantly. Dont' worry, fuses are cheap but annoying to replace all the time. 2 - If the set screw is tightened too much but not enough to keep it from turning, the whining noise of the gun shooting will be pretty loud and you will notice the rate of fire being lower. 3 - If the set screw is adjusted to the sweet spot, the noise will be minimal and the gun will fire very well. Unfortunately, the noise is never completely gone. 4 - If the set screw has backed out of the sweet spot, you will hear the same noise as in number 2. 5 - If the set screw has backed out too much, the teeth on the pinion gear and the bevel gear will be grinding on the edges and at least one of the two will need to be replaced very soon. If the motor grip plate has been taken out recently, the little disk that pushes the motor in likes to slip down beside the motor where the magnets pull it. This usually leads to situation 4 and 5. Make sure it's still where it needs to be if the grip plate has been removed recently. Adjusting the set screw is pretty easy. You'll need to make sure you have a battery connected and no BBs in the gun or this could get interesting. The first thing you will want to do is fire the gun on full auto for just long enough to hear what the whine sounds like. Then, tighten the set screw (clockwise) 1/4 of a turn and fire it again. If it sounds better, turn it another 1/4 of a turn until it starts to sound bad again. Back off a little bit and you are done. If you tightened the screw and instead of sounding better, it sounded worse, untighten the screw until it sounds the best. I like to use a little bit of thread locking gel on the set screw so that it stays put better but be sure to use only the tiniest bit and keep it off anything but the threads. The last thing you want is for it to get into the hole you need to put the allen wrench to adjust it again. You can find several types of thread locker at auto part stores but be sure to get the blue type and not the red type. Red is much much stronger and usually leads to drilling. You may be tempted to put some on the screws that hold the grip plate onto the grip but I strongly discourage that. The grip is plastic and when the thread locker expands around the screws, it gets destroyed. Back to top Storing Your RifleMany people tell me that their gun does not have the same range that it did when they first bought it several months ago. Maybe this has happened to you. It happened to me one year after not playing all winter. One way to tell is to chronograph your gun to see how fast it is shooting. If you know how fast it was shooting when it was new, that instantly tells you how much velocity was lost. There are a number of things that can cause this. The worst scenario is if a part in the gearbox is starting to fail like the piston head, o-ring, nozzle, main spring, or maybe just the bucking. Sometimes that happens and the only thing you can do is replace the part(s) that need to go. A lot of the time, it's something much easier to avoid. Since almost all AEGs are capable of firing full auto, it is quite easy to compress the spring without realizing it. The longer the spring stays compressed, the more strength it looses. What happens is that when you are firing the gun, the piston is moving back and forth very fast and when you let off the trigger, the piston will stay wherever it was. If the piston was near the back, it is compressing the spring. If left like that for a long time, that is why the spring starts to get weak. The best way to avoid that is to fire the gun on semi auto two or three times (not too fast) before you put it up. This way you have a better chance that the spring is not compressed before you put it away.It is worth mentioning again that you should unload your gun and magazines and take out the battery too. I have a few holes in my drywall because I did not do that and someone else picked up my rifle and got a surprise. Don't let this happen to you too. Back to top More to come! |
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