Drilled Air Nozzles!

thegrayson

:mad: Was handed two guns at by a colleague at work yesterday to look over at the weekend.Both are as new, only used for a little backyard plinking. Using his own words "he's all thumbs" so hasn't tried to fiddle with them at all.

Steyr AUG, complaint weak shot, smell of scorching. What I found was drilled air nozzle resulting in 220fps and lower and a broken anti reversal latch. The latch was in place but a the rear of the latch had come away from the pin. It was sitting in the heavy factory grease being rubbed by the gears. Thankfully no gears were damaged. The whole gun was swimming in silicon oil, cylinder, gears, motor. Had to wipe it down to handle it properly. The owner has carried out no maintenance at all.

Marusen SR Sniper Rifle, asked to fit scope and bipod and check it out overall as something seemed loose. Again no work carried out by owner. Found the the two allen bolts holding the receiver on to the stock were rounded out. The screw holding the plate at the front of the mag well was loose because the head of its screw was mashed and therefore not tightened in place. Every other shot the magazine would half pop out.The nozzle on the cylinder head had been drilled four times and two of the hole subsequently filled.

Am still gobsmacked that this is seen as acceptable practice. Need to find out where he bought them and complain to the retailer. Bad enough they were downgraded this way but to ruin screws during the process is a pain in the ass.

Leftyflip

The internal faults of the AUG are nothing to do with whoever carried out the downgrade. Drilling is not a good thing to do and I completely detest it myself, but economically it makes sense. What brand was the AUG? It's not uncommon for JG and CA Sportline AUGs to be laced with silicone oil, it's "default" from the factory, if you like.

I'll agree that the job carried out on the Mauser was not a good one at all, however, who assembled the rifle originally? I'd say it was never assembled by the retailer when being checked as it would take too long. Therefore, it could have been like that straight from the factory, or it could have been your colleague.

Not everything is as it seems either, I've been doing tech work long enough to know that somebody saying they "didn't touch it" or "it came like that", isn't always the truth. I know a few people who are "all thumbs" as your colleague put it, but still attempt to do things themselves.

Mind you, I've only been doing this 2 and a half years or so...

Southern Dandy

If your doing a job, then do it right. Firm believer of this saying.

Its more economical to do it it correctly as you'll build your reputation that you provide a good service and not provide a piss poor one. If you have that more people come to the shop, word of mouth spreads then even more come...

So any retailer that says that it is more "economical" is clearly missing something in the head and has about as much business sense than urinal cake , its just being a cheap arse and laziness that people don't do it.

Leftyflip

"Gun x" costs €150 after delivery, VAT, etc to get it in. "Retailer Y" sells it for €180. They make €30 on that AEG when they sell it. but they have to downgrade it. A spring costs a tenner, the tech's time costs another ten. Now they're down to €10 of profit, now they have to cover other wages, bills, etc, etc. They're down to sweet f-all.

Now imagine "Retailer Y" gets a pallet of "Gun X" in, with 30-40 units on a pallet. Say up to half an hour for each downgrade, that's nearly 20 hours of work on downgrades alone when done by spring. Most shops, to the best of my knowledge now advertise the downgrade technique, or it's well known. So it's up to the customer now to ask for an AEG or whatever to be downgraded by spring in some cases, it's sad but it's the way it is, in having said that, I know very few first time buyers who know or even care about the difference and they're certainly not willing in most cases to shell out another €30 or so for a spring change.

Drilling takes a few minutes, it's not ideal, but it is a practical and efficient way of downgrading a pallet of guns.

It's not laziness or being cheap. Come back to me when you've had over one hundred guns to downgrade in a working week. If you're good you'll get them all done by spring, if you're not you won't.

Southern Dandy

Leftyflip wrote: »

"Gun x" costs €150 after delivery, VAT, etc to get it in. "Retailer Y" sells it for €180. They make €30 on that AEG when they sell it. but they have to downgrade it. A spring costs a tenner, the tech's time costs another ten. Now they're down to €10 of profit, now they have to cover other wages, bills, etc, etc. They're down to sweet f-all.

Now imagine "Retailer Y" gets a pallet of "Gun X" in, with 30-40 units on a pallet. Say up to half an hour for each downgrade, that's nearly 20 hours of work on downgrades alone when done by spring. Most shops, to the best of my knowledge now advertise the downgrade technique, or it's well known. So it's up to the customer now to ask for an AEG or whatever to be downgraded by spring in some cases, it's sad but it's the way it is, in having said that, I know very few first time buyers who know or even care about the difference and they're certainly not willing in most cases to shell out another €30 or so for a spring change.

Drilling takes a few minutes, it's not ideal, but it is a practical and efficient way of downgrading a pallet of guns.

It's not laziness or being cheap. Come back to me when you've had over one hundred guns to downgrade in a working week. If you're good you'll get them all done by spring, if you're not you won't.

I get what your saying, but the only plus to drilling is the speed over a spring change.

As you probably know, more so than me, drilling can cause problems in an aeg, excess stress from having a heavier spring etc. Now if I buy an aeg I want to buy it in confidence knowing that it is in perfect running order I don't want to come back to the shop because my drilled cylinder or nozzle has caused problems with my aeg, if the only correct way to properly downgrade an aeg is to swap out the spring then do it, the customer should not have to ask bout putting in a spring it should already be done for them.

Now a different scenario, a person buys an aeg notices that the nozzle or cylinder has been drilled, he does not like this, wants to swap out the spring but because pieces have been drilled he now incurs the cost of even more new parts, all can be avoided if the retailer just does this and simply adds the price of the spring to aeg.

Zomg Okay

Southern Dandy wrote: »

all can be avoided if the retailer just does this and simply adds the price of the spring to aeg.

I don't think it's that simple. Dishonest retailers don't have the price of the spring added on because they drill, so the AEG is cheaper. The inexperienced buy there and then honest retailers lose sales.

hightower1

Zomg Okay wrote: »

I don't think it's that simple. Dishonest retailers don't have the price of the spring added on because they drill, so the AEG is cheaper. The inexperienced buy there and then honest retailers lose sales.

True, but imo thats why all retailers should offer the downgrade service as drilled (line price) or properly (at an added extra) . It would suit all parties involved. Airsoftguns.ie always offer me a choice on how I would like a gun dgraded. I always go through them for special orders cause of this level of service, giving me the choice alone really shows respect for the buyer and guarantees return custom NOT an irate returning goods customer.

If something goes wrong then I have only myself to blame.

Edit: Also.....this! AGAIN! lol.

gerrowadat

Southern Dandy wrote: »

I get what your saying, but the only plus to drilling is the speed over a spring change.

Not quite true. The other advantage to drilling is that most people who buy AEGs in Irish retailers aren't airsofters and don't care (or will never notice for their purposes).

Leftyflip

gerrowadat wrote: »

Not quite true. The other advantage to drilling is that most people who buy AEGs in Irish retailers aren't airsofters and don't care (or will never notice for their purposes).

What he said, a very large a majority of buyers are plinkers or collectors and thus forth don't give a shite.

Southern Dandy

Still though regardless of whether your a plinker, airsofter, collector its poor practice.

They probably don't care for the simple reason they don't know that it has been drilled and id imagine they would be none too pleased if they know the problems it can cause or that there gearbox has self destructed over a dodgey downgrade when the proper method is a spring change and all can/could have been avoided., then of course you do get people who genuinely don't give a monkeys...

Leftyflip

Southern Dandy wrote: »

Still though regardless of whether your a plinker, airsofter, collector its poor practice.

They probably don't care for the simple reason they don't know that it has been drilled and id imagine they would be none too pleased if they know the problems it can cause or that there gearbox has self destructed over a dodgey downgrade when the proper method is a spring change and all can/could have been avoided., then of course you do get people who genuinely don't give a monkeys...

You're repeating your initial point. The justification is there and the way around it is there. I've told plinkers in the past the complications of the methods and their response was a simple, no frills "Ok grand, I won't be using it much anyway".

TheDoc

hightower1 wrote: »

True, but imo thats why all retailers should offer the downgrade service as drilled (line price) or properly (at an added extra) .

Frustrates me so much

To keep it short, we are years in the sport and industry now. Its no longer an excuse to blame the quality on the manafacturer, or coming up with excuses for downgrading.

If I'm paying a couple of hundred euro for a rifle ( as I normally would, not into clones anymore) then I expect quality, and I expect a proper downgrade, not to be drilled, but with a spring.

And the fact that I'm paying top dollar, there would be some neck on someone to ask for another €15 for a spring.

Poor products reflect on the manafacturer yes, but also on the retailer. And using the age old " a sure its airsoft, sometimes you get a bad batch" isn't good enough. If you don't have the resources to be checking quality of your products before you sell to the public, then you really shouldn't be in business.

thegrayson

Myself and my mates are only ocassional skirmishers so we dont tend to spend big on AEGs. I have no issues with a drilled part so long as the buyer is made aware of it(a notice in store would suffice) and it is done competently.

On the Aug at least it was a tidy job, all be it excessive, 220fps is way too low. On the Mauser the state of the nozzle on the cylinder head is a joke.

As to whether or not my colleague did any work on them himself? He couldn't even fit the scope and the bipod to the Mauser, so I believe him when he said he didn't work on them.

sci-ops

Southern Dandy wrote: »

As you probably know, more so than me, drilling can cause problems in an aeg, excess stress from having a heavier spring etc.

Southern Dandy wrote: »

Now a different scenario, a person buys an aeg notices that the nozzle or cylinder has been drilled, he does not like this, wants to swap out the spring but because pieces have been drilled he now incurs the cost of even more new parts, all can be avoided if the retailer just does this and simply adds the price of the spring to aeg.

Before I start, those who know me are aware of how I feel about drilling, which is not very good. The pro's and con's for this has been debated to death in this forum. A simple search will pull them up, hence I'm not going into that.

My dislike for drilling, believe it or not, has nothing to do with the AEG being drilled, or the "Possible" effects it can have on the rifle, more the annoyance (and cost) of having to replace additional parts "when something goes"...... I want to stress this part as it has been in my experience, regardless of the brand, cost or the model of AEG etc, sooner or later, something gives. Sad, but simply true.

But I digress, back to the point I wish to make. I highlighted 2 things SouthernDandy mentioned above. I find the first comment rather interesting and would like to make the following point in relation to this "The majority of AEG's are manufactured and DESIGNED to fire at a higher fps". I fail to see how keeping the big lug of a spring the AEG was initially designed for, is adding too or creating excess stress. Was the gearbox not designed for this particular spring strength? Yes, replacing the spring with a weaker spring will slightly reduce stress, but excess stress from the original spring, don't see it. Sorry.

As for the second comment, as you can see from the start, I am in agreement. Nothing I hate more than having to replace additional parts unnecessarily.

The_ChiefDUB

Leftyflip wrote: »

"Gun x" costs €150 after delivery, VAT, etc to get it in. "Retailer Y" sells it for €180. They make €30 on that AEG when they sell it. but they have to downgrade it. A spring costs a tenner, the tech's time costs another ten. Now they're down to €10 of profit, now they have to cover other wages, bills, etc, etc. They're down to sweet f-all.

Except these aren't really the types of figures that we're talking about, are they? Even looking at the prices of other European retailers on low to mid range AEGs (I'm purposefully not mentioning models so as not to seem like I'm pointing fingers at any retailers in particular) we're talking about a difference in price of around 60 or 70 euro. Now those European retailers obviously have a mark up so we're looking at an Irish markup which is closer to and most probably well over 100 euro. When you consider that type of profit some time and effort being put in to a proper downgrade and testing of each AEG doesn't seem like such a stretch.

Southern Dandy

sci-ops wrote: »

I find the first comment rather interesting and would like to make the following point in relation to this "The majority of AEG's are manufactured and DESIGNED to fire at a higher fps". I fail to see how keeping the big lug of a spring the AEG was initially designed for, is adding too or creating excess stress. Was the gearbox not designed for this particular spring strength? Yes, replacing the spring with a weaker spring will slightly reduce stress, but excess stress from the original spring, don't see it. Sorry.

Ok so someone please correct me if i am wrong about this, but drilling a cylinder provides an extra place for air to escape, so now you have two exits located relatively close together, if your aeg has for arguments sake an m120 or above it will push everything at that specified power.

The air in a cylinder almost cushions or provides a little resistance (compression) in a regular non drilled aeg until all air is completely expelled from the cylinder, nozzle and barrel etc, if you have that extra hole the air escaped via that will cause a loss of dampening (compression) and slams the piston in to the gearbox shell at the power of what ever spring is present in your drilled aeg and there you have it a cracked gearbox shell.

Then Im going to guess pistons can be stripped by having a heavier spring present, a piston is more likely to strip with heavier springs than lighter ones, well not that it doesn't with light spring but...

Then of course you have swarf in a gearbox from drilling which can effect it, the slightest bit of burr on a cylinder will shred what ever o-ring is in its path, so yeah all the effects of drilling and heavier springs that I can think of.

DeBurca

A drilled cylinder/air-nozzle is a form of controlled air leak allowing some of the air being compressed by the piston the escape and so reduce the flow of air in the barrel and as such expel the BB at a lower velocity then the rating of the spring would normally give
In most cases the BB has left the barrel before the piston has completed its stroke but yes there is still a small cushioning effect
When the cylinder/air-nozzle is drilled this cushioning effect is reduced and the piston will slam into the cylinder head with a bit more force which in turn is transmitted to the gearbox shell not always a good thing

Yes the piston will wear fast with a heavier spring then a lighter one and there is less stress on the teeth of the piston and there is less stress on the motor and it will run a wee bit faster and draw less power from the battery
So a lighter spring is a win win situation, piston lasts longer, greater rate of fire, battery lasts longer etc