If you’re like me, you probably want to crank out as much performance out of your AEG as possible. Most internet advice points immediately to swapping out both the barrel and hop-up as your first step. I think this is only partly true in most cases.

It is probably true that you should at least swap out the hop up bucking and nub. Stock hop up rubbers are almost

all universally junk. There are very few manufacturers that install decent buckings in their guns. So swapping out the barrel would seem to be the next logical step in one’s desire to achieve utmost accuracy, right?

Not quite . . . I would recommend that you swap out your bucking first, and then test it with your stock barrel. While AEG
manufactures excel at installing crappy buckings in their guns, they usually manage to get a pretty decent barrel in their setups. Typically these will often have a barrel diameter of 6.05mm (most common) to 6.03mm (not as common) to 6.01mm (very rare.) You may be pleasantly surprised by the performance the stock barrel coupled with a good hop up
upgrade will do for you. For the budget minded airsofter, this is a more cost effective route to experiment with as well.

Realize too, that there are a lot more factors affecting accuracy and range than just the barrel and hop up. Any of the following affect accuracy and range – listed in the most likely order:

• Crappy BB’s (always buy high quality BB’s)
• Crappy hop up bucking / ripped or torn bucking
• Bad compression
• Crappy barrel
• Bad interface between hop up chamber and air nozzle (massive FPS loss here)
• Bent, damaged, or scratched barrel
• Cracked nozzle
• Cracked piston head
• Cracked cylinder head
• Poor support for the inner barrel within the outer barrel (too much barrel flex will cause accuracy issues, such as poor grouping)
• Your BB’s are hitting an obstruction, such as a suppressor or muzzle device (always ensure that your barrel is long enough to pass through a suppressor or that the hole diameter is large enough)
• Cracked gear box (extreme worst case scenario – everything starts falling apart at this point)

Personally if it was me, I would tackle accuracy and range in this order:

1) Shoot high quality BB’s FIRST. No your .12g Crossmans’ in the 50,000 round “Battle Pack” you purchased at Wal-Mart for $10 don’t count.
2) I would replace the stock bucking with a quality aftermarket one
3) Then I would crack open the gearbox and check for proper compression, and while it was open, examine all parts for damage and check the shimming.

If all that checks out, and the gun still isn’t quite performing to my standards . . . then I would consider looking into a barrel upgrade.

On an aside: one of the first things you should do with any new AEG is swab the barrel out. Some of these guns have been sitting on shelves or store racks for months or years. The barrels are often times full of dust, grime, or dried up silicone oil, all of which can impact your accuracy. I bought a KWA SR-12 a few years ago – while it was brand new, it produced some pretty grimy patches when I swabbed the barrel out. Just sitting on the shelf in the open air market produced that

I just received a few new presents in the mail today, so I thought I’d post a review for anyone who’s interested.

First up, I ordered a PK-A Red Dot Sight, an AK MTK-03 side rail for an AK from www.kalinkaoptics.com/.
I placed this order on Friday 6/18/10, and it arrived pleasantly fast
and straight from Florida to Newport Washington on Monday 6/21/10.
Everything was packed decently well in the box, which is to be expected
when shipping optics. So they get an A+ for a quick and easy
transaction.

The PK-A sight is a tubular type affair with an integral side mount that
is quite a beast. I bought this specifically to mount it on my Real
Sword Type 56-1 and to keep it within Com-Bloc appearances, so to speak.
Mounting an Eotech or an Aimpoint on a railed handguard would have been
sacrilegious to say the least.

Total weight of the sight is approximately 1.3lbs. It features 8
brightness settings (there is even a model that features an infrared dot
for NVG users), with a battery run time of 50 hours on the highest
setting. One of the cool things about this red dot is that instead of
like the Aimpoint or Eotech red dots, where you have to click or push a
button repeatedly to get to the brightest setting (which is usually
necessary in direct sunlight), the PK-A sight has a single click setting
that automatically ramps it up to the brightest dot setting. Going past
that first click will drop the brightness to the lowest level, and it
goes up from there. Unfortunately it does not come with batteries from
Kalinka Optics. It uses two 3V D-357 type batteries that can be found
relatively cheap at any grocery store or radio shack.

The dot itself is a 1MOA dot, and readily visible in bright sunlight and
darkness. I tried it out with my PVS-14’s and on the lowest setting the
dot is visible, but not too bright to create a giant halo – so it will
work with NVD’s just fine. Construction wise, the PK-A is quite well
built and looks like it could take a serious beating. The windage and
elevation knobs make a positive click when adjusted and don’t have any
slop in them at all. Most of the lettering on the PK-5 is in Russian,
and so is the manual for that matter too, so you’ll have to figure out
what up and down, left and right are on your own. The tube itself is
nitrogen purged and is crystal clear. The sight is tall enough to allow
use of the iron sights underneath. The rail mount is actually removable,
and one could swap it out with an SVD attachment if they wanted to rock
a red dot sight on a Dragunov. It is easy to operate and has an
adjustable throw-lever on it.

The sight requires the use an an AK side rail mount. Kalinka Optics
offers a variety of side rail mounts that are designed to fit the AK,
SVD, Tigr, SKS, Mosin Nagant, and a Universal mount that can be adapted
to whatever you wish. Due to the specific design of the underfolder, I
had to move the rail mount farther forward than it would have typically
been mounted on the real steel rifles. This allowed me to have enough
clearance to install the optic, which only mounts one way and has to be
slid on from the rear of the side rail. Because it is a red dot, eye
relief is not an issue so this worked out quite well. I had to machine
the back of the MTK-03 side rail a bit to clear some rivets on my AK’s
receiver. The hardest part was actually drilling the receiver on the
Real Sword – it’s some seriously tough steel!

As we head into a thus-far wet fall this year, an often asked question is: “Will my AEG work in the rain?”

The quick and short answer? “Yes!”

Unless you’re a fair-weather airsofter who’s afraid to get a little dirty, there is absolutely no reason (or excuses) why you can’t play in the rain. Generally speaking, the body construction of most AEG’s lends itself pretty well to keeping rain water out. Some individuals have been known to go the extra mile and coat everything in hot glue or silicone in efforts to keep water out, but I think this is a lot of extra work for limited return, and in some cases could impede disassembly or function.

In truth, one can actually SUBMERGE their AEG and it will still be fully operational. There are numerous
YouTube videos and articles covering this topic. I have done this myself (accidentally) with a Real Sword SVD that took a dunk in a deeper-than-realized creek, and intentionally (for science!) with a Real Sword Type 56-2. In both cases, despite being fully submerged and having full water penetration inside and out, once I cleaned the water out of the barrel it was good to go for the rest of the day. In fact, the gearboxes showed very little water penetration themselves, just a few drops from the obvious entry points: the motor mount area and nozzle.

Which brings me to the important point: perhaps the biggest issue with water is within the barrel itself. Unless you take the time to clean out the water and dry the hop up chamber too, it will have seriously detrimental effects on your accuracy. AEG barrels like to be run dry. This also follows that your BB’s like to be kept dry too. If your BB’s get submerged (even if they are in magazines) then every single one of them will be contributing to poor accuracy and can’t be used. Bottom line, I recommend having a cleaning rod, spare magazines and BB’s on hand if  you dunk your rifle. Otherwise, you might consider shelving it for the remainder of the day or plan on engaging at rubber-band-gun distances.

“What about rust?!?”

What about it? 99% of AEG’s are constructed of aluminum, plastic, or cheap mystery-metal amalgamations. It doesn’t led itself well to rusting in first place. There are very few parts (if any) that are constructed out of genuine rust-worthy steel on most AEG’s. Notable exceptions being Real Sword, LCT, and E&L AEG’s which are comprised entirely of many steel parts externally. If you want to find which parts are made of steel, take a magnet to your areas on interest to determine this.

In any case, treat your wet AEG the same as you would with any real firearm: don’t put it away wet.
Wipe all the excess water off, clean out anything on the inside if necessary, dry, re-lube, and reassemble. Check it in a day or two to make sure you didn’t miss anything, and you’ll be good to go.

Tech myths:

1. A FPS loss is a worn spring.

No, after 800,000 rounds and being stored in a compressed state a modify AEG spring will lose 7% of its charge in two years. Not enough to lose any significant FPS.
Some brands wear faster but a FPS loss is a compression issue. Unless your spring broke in half.

2. High speed gears always make your AEG gain RPS.

Nope, only by dropping spring load A LOT or increasing motor cycle rate will you gain any RPS with high speed gears.

3. More lube is better!

You can always tell when a new guy teched a gun by the amount of lube in the gearbox

4. Higher FPS is just a spring change away.

This is where techs make a lot of money. The do-it-yourselfer that attempted an upgrade and failed. You must be aware of all the subtle things and a perfect ability to tune the gear box. Some things need replacement, some can stay.

5. You can study to be a tech.

YouTube is a great starting point but the only way to learn is to do. Airsoft teching is not a technical science – IT IS AN ART. It takes time, a lot of it.

High speed motor vs. high torque motor. What does it mean to you? It’s all about armatures per turn. But I will spare you all the tech babble and get down to what matters. Lets start with questions that will help…..

1. Your spring- how big is it? Is it over a M120? Or is it under? A good high speed motor like SHS or “Matrix” will handle
a M130 even with low voltage but a high torque will do it with no trigger lag and no “wind up”.

2. Power source – If you have or use a 11.1V lipo, NO high speed motor! It will sound awesome and throw bullets out that will scare all your friends. But alas your AEG will eat gears and pistons every time you use it unless you have deep pockets and and no girlfriend. I recommend a 9.6V NiMih MAX with a high speed motor and if your spring is under a M120. High torque motors are amp hogs but the only way to go with a LiPo. Even low tension springs work well with a LiPo in the 11.1V camp or really any voltage.

3. Semi-auto or mostly full-auto? A high speed motor is very efficient with juice on the O-scope compared to a high torque. The cost? It’s an inductive phase that lasts 4 times longer than a high torque on average. That means semi-auto will burn it up very fast. Often in one game too. If you do not shoot full auto all the
time stay away from a high speed motor. A high torque has little problem on semi all the time. It will get hot, but not hot enough to hurt it.

4. Why do I need a high anything motor? Often for the average Airsofter a stock motor is a great mid-level motor. It can do a little of both, and just like most stock motors they are good enough to pass muster. However a good high torque motor will breath new life into any AEG. It’s the soul of your gun really. It’s not a purchase you will regret ( unless you get a Guarder high speed).