Upgrade Guide:
Gents, I'm posting this to help you guys decide the correct way to go about upgrading guns. I see more and more players who emphasize the desire for more FPS thinking that FPS = Range = Accuracy = Kills = ? = profit kind of deal which simply isnt the case. The other thing I'm trying to do here is stem the feeling that the FPS limit should go up, and by following this guide that wont be necessary if we all keep our guns under the limit while still maintaing accuracy. In a way, I'm trying to save you guys some money when purchasing upgrades... cool right?
Maybe this could be stickied???
Here we go!
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Accuracy and Consistency
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These are the FIRST upgrades that should be done to any airsoft gun. These upgrades are simple, and usually are capable of being done by YOU and dont require much in the ways of gearbox knowledge. These upgrades are what I call the "Barrel Forward" upgrades, meaning that it pertains to the hop up unit, hop up rubber, barrel and hop up nub. The only internal gearbox work would be replacing the Piston Head O-ring to help consistency and replacing all of the greases.
Here is the summary of the parts this pertains to:
Tightbore barrels
Hop Up Rubbers
Hop Up Nub
Hop Up Unit
Piston Head O-ring (Recommend Size #14 O-rings)
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Power
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This is the FPS department. Usually parts in this category carry over into others. I'll explain for each of the parts. Here is the list of parts that are in this category:
Spring
Piston Head
Tightbores
Hop Up Units (Maybe)
Hop Up Rubbers (Also maybe)
Bearing Spring Guides
Springs are the heart of an AEG and spring driven sniper rifles. The spring determines the FPS range, it determines the consistency of the FPS, and it determines the amount of wear and tear on other parts. A quality spring will be very consistent in terms of FPS output and it will be durable as well.
Piston Heads are primarily an O-ring holder. They allow the gun to "compress" air in the cylinder and give you consistent FPS. A quality piston head is ported. Porting allows for the air that is being compressed to push the O-ring out against the cylinder walls. This not only ensures a slightly better FPS (because of ideal compression) but is also considerably more consistent in it's sealing with the Cylinder walls. When purchasing a Piston head it is best to AVOID ones with bearings, or simply not use the bearings. These MUST be loctited on with medium preferably high strength thread lockers to prevent it from working loose.
Tightbores are self explanatory. The bore of the barrel is smaller than stock (usually 6.08 or 6.12) which increases accuracy and will increase FPS slightly. The most common TBB diameter is 6.03mm although 6.04 and 6.01 are also easy to get a hold of. The differences in accuracy between them is subjective and depends on your set up but the FPS gains are noticable. Part of the reason TBB's are in the Accuracy stage as well is because they DO increase the FPS noticably. Enough that they warrant purchasing before a spring as accuracy is more important than FPS.
Hop Up units and Hop Up rubbers do play some into the whole FPS category. Certain hop up units just seal better in your guns. A better seal means that the FPS can raise and overall improve FPS consistency.
Bearing spring guides replace a standard spring guide and serves a durability function as well as effiency and FPS upgrades. In terms of FPS the bearings on the spring guide pre-compress the spring a little bit more, this increases FPS slightly.
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Durability
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Durability Upgrades are upgrades done to make the gun last longer. These upgrades, while not essential, do give peace of mind and can increase overall performance as well. The parts associated with Durability are:
Piston
Metal Cylinder Head
Gears
Bearing Spring Guide
Tappet Plate
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Efficiency
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Efficiency upgrades focus on making a gun more efficient. These parts help ensure the entire process runs as smoothly as possible. They are:
Gears
Piston
O-ring Airnozzles
Cylinder Heads
Ported Piston Heads
Bearing Spring Guides
Shimming
Motor Height
Shimming is a very specific efficiency upgrade. Shimming is the placement of small thin metal washers between the gear and the sides of the gearbox to remove any side to side play in the gears. Proper shimming can decrease wear and tear drastically, it can also increase ROF. The Concept of shimming should be left to experts. There are many generic guides out there that "teach" shimming but they dont do it very well and can teach you bad habbits. This concept is too hard to explain with just pictures or just text.
Motor Height adjustment is done two ways... visually and then through measurements of current draw later. This concept is also difficult to understand and pictures and text will not convey the proper way to adjust it. If you've ever wonder what the middle screw on the bottom of an M4 Pistol grip is,thats the motor height screw, DONT MESS WITH IT. Moving your motor height in too far can cause serious damage to your pinion gear (gear on the end of the motor) and it can cause the motor to burn out as well as cause you to potentially damage your electricals.
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Electrical
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Electrical upgrades are pretty limited. The most common upgrades are MOSFETS and low resistance wiring. Both of these will result in a more efficient trigger system. Another common Electrical swap is DEANS connectors. DEANS connectors are friction fit plugs that are small and can be used to replace all of your connectors. The lower resistance of a Deans Connector also increases your ROF slightly and it makes all of your batteries "universal" to all of your guns and means you only need one charger. Deans connectors can be had at most RC Car/Hobby stores for about 2.50$ a pair, maybe more.
Electrical can go anywhere in the order: I generally tend to put the Electrical components in third above durability as most of the guns I purchase have quality stock internals that are durable enough.
Just because I put something in this list does NOT mean you should upgrade them. There are many instances in which a gun's stock internals are more than capable of doing the job at which I recommend NOT changing them.
