How to Fix Your Airsoft Aug Grip

Every bit a seasoned airsoft gun tech, I have encountered more problems than I tin can count. Each of these problems could take been avoided if only I had been more resourceful.

To help you lot not meet these issues on your airsoft tech journey, here is the complete listing of my top 23 airsoft tech tips and mistakes. Hopefully, this list saves you countless headaches.

1. Bad Airsoft Gearbox Shimming

This is a very crucial 1 on my list. This is because the shimming done at the mill is something you cannot really count on, as it is a very time-consuming procedure. And in the business world, time equals coin, which is why the greater majority of airsoft guns accept terrible shimming. Ane known exception to this general dominion is the airsoft guns from the famous brand, Tokyo Marui.

For those who are unfamiliar, shimming is the process of adding very tiny washers to the face of your gears. This helps reduce the amount of play between the gears, which in plough makes the gears perform efficiently with maximum contact.

By shimming your airsoft gun THE RIGHT Style, yous volition too find that your gun will run quieter and smoother. Yay, less screeching and whining from your plastic plinker.

Although this task is very time consuming, it is considered a necessity for premium performance by near professional airsoft techs.

I will be working on a shimming guide and post it here when information technology is completed.

2. Bad Airsoft Motor Meridian

This is an easier event to fix. If your motor tiptop is not adjusted properly, then the starting time thing you lot will observe is loud screeching or other weird noises coming from the pinion-bevel gear contact. Also, your motor will exist consuming more current than it needs from your battery, causing faster discharge rates. This is because your pinion gear will either not be receiving enough contact, or it will accept also much contact with the bevel gear.

This can be easily fixed past adjusting the screw on the base of your pistol grip, which will either be a flat head or an allen fundamental type. Continue in heed if your bevel gear in the gearbox is shimmed likewise tight, or too loose, then yous may notwithstanding have these noticeable issues. Its recommended to shim your gun and adjust the motor height in the gearbox at the same time to do it the proper fashion.

iii. Loose Piston Head

I cannot tell yous how of import information technology is to secure your piston head, especially if you are doing your own tech work. The piston caput is well known to come loose, and so you should always make sure it is fully secure when opening your gearbox. Complete this easy task or yous may risk failure in your gearbox during play, which would not be fun.

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How to prevent or fix it:

Apply a medium type loctite, on the piston head screw. Then tighten information technology and let it cure. Try not to cycle the gun as well before long, equally the loctite may not have cured yet. Bank check the specifications on your canteen of loctite.

4. Not Correcting AOE in the Gearbox

Holy, moly, this is deemed a large one by all airsoft techs! By completing this modification, you volition maximize the contact area between your piston's pickup tooth and your sector gear. This will extend the life of your airsoft gun to infinity (OK, well maybe not that long, just it will last a really long time).

How to correct it:

Remove everything from your gearbox except the piston and sector gear. And then spin your sector gear counter-clockwise until it touches the piston'south option up molar. Next…

For the total guide on how to right AOE, click here.

iv. New Piston Rack Not Glued in the Piston

This is something that is overlooked by people learning to upgrade or gear up airsoft guns. If you purchase a new piston, beginning place if it has a metal tooth rack. If it does, then you lot need to secure it in place with super glue so it does non shift when you cycle your gun.

Before gluing anything down, however, make sure you have corrected AOE. You don't want to glue it identify and then realize you lot need to shave downward 1 or 1.5 teeth on the rack.

When gluing the rack to the piston, make sure it is in the correct position, and the edge of the rack isn't poking out. Proper alignment is key.

Some techs as well prefer to use epoxy, simply feel free to use what you adopt. Also, it is good to know that cyanoacrylate is the technical chemical name for superglue.

5. Not Using a Lipo Bombardment for Maximum Power

If used correctly and safely, lithium polymer batteries are the best batteries for your AEG. These batteries work at least 5x meliorate than whatever Ni-MH battery ever will. They are significantly smaller when compared to their counterpart and will give your gun a improve trigger response.

If yous don't take a mosfet installed, I highly propose using a 2 cell lipo (these are known as the 7.4-volt lipos). Otherwise, definitely go for the eleven.ane lipo (iii cells) to achieve maximum trigger response every bit far every bit batteries are concerned.

half dozen. Bad Gearbox Lube

Okay, plenty of using that Chinese grade ear-wax in your gearbox every bit a lubricant. Yous should invest $ten into a loftier-quality grease that volition aid your gears terminal longer without making an ugly mess. I really similar to use Super Lube as it works extremely well, and does non create a mess.

When applying the grease, utilise a generous amount, but don't drown your gearbox in information technology. Any excess grease will build up in certain spots, and then you tin can but clean it off the next fourth dimension y'all open upwards your gearbox.

7. Poor Gearbox Shell Quality

There is cypher worse than having your gearbox scissure during a game. Trust me, its happened earlier.

A lot of cheaper guns employ pot-metal for their gearboxes and this is a HUGE problem– especially if y'all employ an M4 manner gun or V2 gearbox. These specific types of gearboxes are a lot more than probable to crevice due to their blueprint, which volition return your gun useless until you replace the beat.

Even if your gearbox crack is pocket-size, it will eventually expand and become worse. This ways that in the futurity, y'all will have to replace the whole gearbox shell, which is terrible news. To extend the life of your stock gearbox shell, meet the side by side indicate.

The gearbox shell that I really similar is the Retro Artillery CNC i. It has a lot of really cool features, similar a quick-change spring guide system, deeper wire channels (and then the motor does not tear them upwardly), too as pre-radiused windows in the cylinder to prevent stress cracks. Here is an image of my most recent build in progress. Airsoft Upgraded Gearbox Tech

8. Non Radiusing Your Gearbox Shell

The best fashion to extend the life of a cheap gearbox vanquish is to radius the gearbox beat window corners. To practise this simply take a cylindrical file and round the corners always then slightly. By doing this you will distribute the piston'south stress more than equally to the gearbox trounce. This modification only takes a few minutes, and so exist sure to complete this if y'all open up your gearbox. Some companies now even include this as a default, and then be sure the examine if your gearbox has this feature.

9. Not Using a Mosfet

What is this nerdy matter that people refer to every bit a mosfet? Well according to my calculations, the appropriate gearbox seismic velocity of the diameter is… Ok, well it's not that complicated. Nerd mode off.

A mosfet stands for a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. In elementary terms, a mosfet is an electrical component that regulates current from the battery to the trigger assembly more efficiently. It is generally agreed that this is considered a crucial element when upgrading your gearbox. Without a mosfet, yous are most probable called-for out your trigger contact switch by electrical arching. Also, you are non providing the nearly efficiency to your electric circuit. This means that you are delaying your trigger response electrically.

In the last five years or and then, at that place have been a lot of advancements to Mosfets, like the Gate Titan. This mosfet is awesome because you can plan different firing controls (like burst mode), equally well every bit reduce the trigger pull (letting you spam semi-auto MUCH easier than before)

10. Using a Weak Motor

For AEG'due south, I take deemed that replacing the motor is one of the most cost-effective upgrades (like the mosfet). Swapping your motor will greatly meliorate your trigger response, and thus help yous go those quick popular shots on the field. If you make up one's mind to upgrade your motor, just exist sure to get a hi-torque motor with neodymium magnets. These magnets are super of import since they help the motor gain the extra torque to cycle your gearbox quicker.

The all-time thing about this upgrade is that it only takes effectually 5-10 minutes and you don't need to open your gearbox. However, exist sure to have this upgrade cautiously if y'all are new to teching. Some common mistakes include: reversing the polarity (wiring-to-motor is reversed), stripping the motor screws, dropping the screws into the gearbox, losing the motor spring, and crunching upwardly your wiring. Don't let these small things forbid you from doing this, just cautiously take your time. I personally recommend the ZCI hi-torque motor as it has very strong neodymium magnets and has a great value for the amount of torque it has.

Regardless, whichever hi-torque motor you decide to purchase, you will definitely have an advantage on the airsoft field. If you are a milsim player, and then I would consider this a must for any AEG.

For more detailed information on airsoft motors, be sure to bank check out this mail service (and notice out why you SHOULDN'T apply Hi-Speed motors).

xi. Using a Full Metal Piston

Because full metal pistons are rare, I wasn't considering putting this on the list. However, an quondam teammate put one in his gun and information technology wreaked havoc, so I thought I should warn y'all.

Metallic pistons are BAD. VERY BAD. They are super heavy and can crusade timing problems when it comes to the timing bike of the gearbox. When this timing gets misaligned, your piston tin get destroyed, your gears can strip, and more harm could occur.

12. Using Low-Quality BB's

As a broke newcomer to airsoft, I e'er idea cheaper ammo was better since you can get more for your cadet. However, this blazon of thinking got me worse functioning on the field, as I always concluded up getting bad BBs.

Cheaper BB'southward tend to have very pocket-size inconsistencies in their diameter and shape, which tin upshot in misfeeds. Autonomously from the standard Walmart ammo, some bio BBs are known to leave residue behind in the barrel. This can build up and mess upward accuracy and reliability.

Ideally, you lot want to observe Bbs which have the highest quality to price ratio, as some BB brands practice run really expensive.

The primal is to effort a bunch of unlike brands and to find the one that works the all-time for your gun and your wallet.

13. Having Lubricant On/In Your Hop-Up Unit / Bucking

I feel like this is widely unknown in the airsoft customs, so I wanted to mention information technology.

Having any type of lubricant around or on your bucking is RUINING your accuracy. How you may ask?

Well, it's quite simple.

A standard hop upwardly unit works past providing friction from the nub onto your bucking and so onto your BB.

And what is the purpose of lubricant? To prevent friction.

And then when you add lubricant to your hop up area, yous are canceling out the effect to a sure extent.

In other words, your hop upwardly nub tin't grip the bucking 100%, which may cause your accuracy to drop.

How to correct information technology:

Soak your bucking in soapy h2o to remove dirt and grease. Then remove whatever grease from the bodily hop-up unit by using a Q-tip or something similar.

xiv. Loose Outer/ Inner Butt

So yous may accept non noticed this on your airsoft gun, but there is a small chance that your inner barrel is wiggling inside of your outer barrel.

This means that every time yous cycle your gun, your inner barrel may slightly "leap" due to the force of the piston'southward bear on. This creates inconsistent shots. If yous desire

How to right it:

Create a wedge, or a "shim" to put in between the front of your inner butt and your outer barrel. This would be on the flashier side of the gun.

To create a shim you tin cut a piece of aluminum from a standard soda can and wedge information technology in place.

15. Using the Incorrect Air Nozzle

In sure guns, just because something fits, does non always mean information technology will work. Take for example the KWA M4. If you were to swap out the standard air nozzle for one that is upgraded with an O ring, y'all will run across air leaks. Although the new nozzle'due south O-band is supposed to prevent leaks, the original air nozzle is not supposed to be changed, due to the design of the gearbox.

Someday you plan on replacing a office, exist sure to thoroughly do your research to prevent yourself problems and headaches.

16. Reversing Your Cylinder Port

This one commonly strikes new techs that are opening up their gearbox. What happens is they remove the cylinder during disassembly without noticing the orientation of the pigsty, or the port in the cylinder.

The reason this is a huge problem is that you volition go from 400 FPS to around fifty FPS due to the meaning amount of air volume y'all lose when the cylinder is reversed.

How to correct/prevent it:

Keep in mind that if your cylinder has no ports, practise not worry about the orientation equally it makes no difference.

Otherwise to preclude this trouble, simply pay attention to the orientation of your cylinder port. A big tip is that the port sits always in the rear and that your piston does not compress the air until it passes the port (since the purpose of the port is to leak air). At that place are many different ports in different airsoft guns. The port size is typically decided upon the length of the inner barrel.

17. Misaligned Barrel

When experiencing accuracy issues, it is important to make sure your inner barrel is aligned properly to the hop-upwards unit. If misaligned, the hop-upwardly window within of the barrel will not align properly with the hop-up nub. This is of import also when you use an R-hop patch.

How to correct it:

Expect for a "lined" groove on the inner butt. Turn the hop-upwards upside down and align both centers together. So push the butt into the hop-up unit slowly, without tearing upward the hop-upwards bucking. Smoothen a calorie-free into the hop-upwardly and make certain information technology is working correctly and aligned.

18. Making Multiple Changes At Once

A keen tip when doing airsoft gun upgrades is to always limit the number of parts that yous supersede at once. This is considering sometimes incompatibility problems may arise and you won't be able to diagnose which role is causing the problem. Of grade y'all however diagnose the issue with critical thinking, however, you lot won't be 100% sure of which function is causing the event.

Ideally, yous would desire to install a new office, reassemble your gun then test to brand sure everything is working as it should.

19. Not Using Ameliorate Battery Connectors

An easy mode to improve the trigger response on your gun is to upgrade your plugs for the battery. This will take about 15 minutes if you have experience with soldering. Y'all will need to solder a new male person connector onto the end of the wiring on your gun, and a female connector on your battery. Nearly people switch from the rubbish Tamiya conector to deans connectors or XT-60 type connectors. Regardless of which route you take, you will reap the benefits of having less electrical resistance.

20. Using An Old O-Ring On Your Piston Head

Okay, as far as upgrades are concerned, this 1 cannot be any easier. To meliorate your air seal, y'all will desire to bandy out the standard O-ring on your piston head. From my experience, these stock piston O-rings are unremarkably terrible and leak air like crazy. The exact size O-ring you want to buy is a #fourteen O-band. It should be available at Abode Depot, merely check the plumbing department.

1 more tip is that you tin slightly stretch out the new O-band for a little ameliorate seal. To practise this, simply stretch it over your cylinder, and heat it up from a distance using a lighter.

21. Using the Wrong Magazines

If your gun is experiencing feeding issues, so try to apply the original magazine that came with your gun. If this mag does not feed fine, and so it means that the feeding issue is either from the hop-up, barrel, bucking, or within the gearbox.

I will post a more in depth-guide here in the future on diagnosing feeding issues.

22. Having a Tear in Your Bucking

One of the easiest places to spot an air leak in your gun is inside your bucking. If whatsoever tears are present, this will crusade small amounts of air to escape, reducing the consistency in your overall air volume. Inconsistencies in air volume will reduce accuracy depending on the size of the air leak.

If you detect your bucking is ripped upwards, so you may have maybe torn it upwardly while inserting the inner butt into the hop upward unit. Or it has fallen apart due to former age.

How to correct information technology:

If your bucking is torn, simply buy a replacement bucking to solve the problem. However, be more careful installing it this time into the hop-upwards unit after putting it on your barrel (plough your hop-upwards off all the manner earlier installing information technology).

23. Getting Tears in Your Wiring

Ahh, a classic mistake that I take fabricated myself many times. Tearing upward your wiring tin can be easily avoided, merely how and when does information technology happen?

For rear-wired V2 gearboxes, the number one spot seems to be where the wire crosses about the bevel-pinion gear contact. This wire needs to exist super snug in society for it to not "spring" up and become chewed up by the gears. Some gearboxes, like the Retro Arms V2, accept a handy, slap-up little groove in which you can tuck your wiring into.

The second way that most people crisis upwardly their wiring is when they are installing their buffer tube. Sometimes the wiring gets in between the tube and the rear of the gun and you lot may non detect information technology until its besides late.

Also for those who use a Spectre mosfet, another trouble area would exist where the external gearbox alignment pin goes into the gearbox shell. Sometimes the thin gauge spectre trigger board wire gets in the way while yous are inserting the pin, and it gets cutting up like butter. This has happened to me twice, so be certain to organize the wiring to preclude this!