I played at crossfire last sunday and with gladiators and my new deadshot accuracy barrel (hpa version) i had the best accuracy and consistency i have ever had.
Interesting, I tried a bulk bag of shrapgels couple years ago and they were garbage. Must have changed it 
So Iām going to be testing Gladiators tomorrow at the field in a few different blasters.
Stock SLR
Double bell HK415a5 with a 27k warhead motor
Cyma Scar L with a green O-ring. (everything else stock)
and a Cyma CQB with a 1.3 spring, green O-ring and 35k warhead motor.
So far, I grown the Gladiators for 3.5 hours to be the same size as the ultra elites that i grow for 2.5 hours.
The gladiators feel harder compared to the ultra elites. So iām hoping they will be more accurate.
I shall update after i get home.
sorry for no update yesterday, i came home and spent about 4 hours working on my HK-416.
The gladiators preformed well. I was very surprised with the accuracy. The tan M4 was able to shoot at long ranges with reliable hits. it had a very tight grouping. I didnt however get a FPS reading due to not having a chrono.
Double bell sadly I couldnāt test due to the tappet plate snapping. (First time i actually took it out to the field)
The SLR CQB with green O-ring ran well even without the hopup adjusted. Great accuracy.
Cyma Scar L preformed well with moderate accuracy. (Hop up on it is trash. same poor accuracy as the ultra elites)
They ran through the Poseidon Orion 3 well with no issues.
I did try in my modded M4 this morning. But a couple blew apart which i suspect was due to being over a day old
1 Like
Which hop-up are you running on the CYMA and what Internal mods in the DB?
The DB was all stock except for the warhead 27k motor.
The hop-up on the cyma scar L is a Double bell birdcage hop-up from X-force when they were selling them
Roger that
Have heard mixed reports on the Birdcage Hops, probably more bad than goodā¦ but never know until you try these things.
Tappet breakage I thought might have been a mix match of parts, but obviously just a standard fault that doesnāt take kindly to bigger motors 
im just going to change to an apache nozzle to avoid that issue, while i have the box open, i will replace the anti-reverse latch just to make it reliable.
I found the best hopup so far is the I-hobby hopup where you can use any 19mm attachment on it. They seem to preform the best
My experience with hop ups was reasonably limited over the years.
A few different DG printed models for the Gen8ās, ARP9 and MP5Kās etc.
A few RIZER hops, and a couple of cheaper brand models.
The tiny little CYMA OOTB hops were pretty decent surprisingly, with a well thought out air flow pattern moulded into them.
Never had the opportunity to use any of the latest technology more expensive stuff since the bans put an end to everything 
I only know of what I keep reading online and from watching Australian Gel/US Airsoft YouTube videos of the latest products and testing.
I found the nylon LDT universal to be the best overall so far. Basically a nylon knock off of the Riser. I have two risers, one was okay, the other just over hops no matter what I have tried, skying every gel. If the LDT is being painfull I just cut off the bottom tongue and it works. TBH I probably donāt spend enough time with hopups.
Mostly print my own with good success now and I can customise it to suit the blasters barrel length protrusion, thread and barrel diameter. All my own only have the top tongue and work well.
Other favorites are the AKA metal hopup, and there is a little DK one that I can hide in the cherry bomb flash hider neatly and it works well.
I think the main thing is keeping it true to the barrel, and stabilised. beyond that it is all the same idea.
All the hopups that i have tried are
Rizer hopup. Decent. accuracy was a little off. but enough to still warrant using it
Rizer low profile. We have that on the SLR and i have it on my cheap shottie. it works well
Aztech CNC range warrior. This is the worst hopup that i have used. it doesnt fit on Inner barrels at all. It over hops to the extreme.
Aztech muzzetek. Good hopup. It works on everything and lets you change the hop on the fly.
I-hobby 14mm hop up unit. I got one of these and ended up getting 3 extra. The hop is great. not a single issue with them. except one has a tendency of making the gels spin up and to the left. Which i fixed by rotating the hop up more to make it spin up.
DB birdcage hopup. as mentioned before. Poor accuracy, i have tried fine tuning it alot but just doesnt work properly.
Oh yeah the range warrior is a steaming pile. On paper it is a great idea, but everything I have tried and tried it on, it will not stay put, and requires tape and other ugly nonsense to keep it in place and in its setting; but then I couldnāt get it working in any predictable nature.
A couple mates have the hellfire, and they are decent, and look sharp too.
So far all I have read from the I-hobby hopups is that I need to try them 
1 Like
Modified self 3d printed bonj hopup for accuracy, ihobby for range.
I have been trying the X-force predator V2 gels. I found they mostly are around the 7.0-7.1 range, and most were 7.1mm for me. I have been mostly using 7.5mm barrels and a couple of 7.3mm, so nothing great other than reliable feeding compared to other gels.
But perfect for me WETechs! I have always liked the wetech glocks, but never had a great time with gels, too big and they donāt always feed, and I hate ācontrolled growā because I prefer to be lazy and just grow to full size. Even a week later after just adding a touch of water they didnāt grow further, and fed in the wetechs reliably, and shot well. Probably will be the goto gel for my wetechs, and if I build something with a tighter barrel could work well.
1 Like
Apologies for necroing this old thread, and apologies for the length of this postā¦ I didnāt see the point of starting up a new one. And things have changed in the gel arena since the last post anyhoo.
Pretty much for the first time, Iām having issues with inconsistent gels that have raised a few questions in my aging cranium. keep in mind that I donāt skirmish or gameplay, so gels tend to last me a long time.
All the hard matt gels I seem to grow these days are all over the place like a madmanās shit for sizeā¦ I know itās a common problem, and Iām not looking for the holy grail of answers, just a bit of clarification.
On controlled growsā¦ gels are made to grow to a pre-determined size which is usually reached after about 4 hours of soaking. I get that reducing the time immersed will affect the sizeā¦ naturally. But yanking them out early means they havenāt absorbed all the water theyāre capable of absorbing. Even well drained, if theyāre stored in a container with any amount of water at all surely some will continue to absorb and grow larger? So is controlled growing really only suitable for same day use? 
On sortingā¦ are there ANY size sorting devices available that work reasonably efficiently? The engineer in me cringes when I think about sitting down to a bowl of 10,000 Ultra Elites with a Vernier caliper and trying to accurately measure a slippery flexible sphere of snot.
On storageā¦ controlled grow or not, all the gels I store seem to be ridiculously inconsistent in size after a week or two. Some look more like 8.5mm diameter than 7.3 -7.5. After about 4 weeks they seem to start degrading and on my higher FPS blasters I get more explosions out of the barrel. I used to be able to store gels for at least a month and theyād be okay.
On regrowingā¦ occasionally I do attempt to resoak older batches, but they never seem to return to original growth size, usually a lot larger, and seem more prone to breaking up. So much so that I donāt bother regrowing anymore, just bin the lot.
For the record, I grow my gels in an open container of tap water for four hours, then strain well, pat dry and store in an airtight bottle in the refrigerator. Lately Iāve been considering growing them in purified de-ionised water to see if that makes any difference, I used to do that every grow but I got tired of paying for water from Supercheap or Autobarn. 
I mostly use Ultra Elites, iHobby hard gels, Riotsā¦ ironically the most consistent gels I grow are WI reds, but theyāre not up to the FPS most of my blasters produce and damn near impossible to see in flight, worse in low light conditions.
I know weāre only talking about $7 bucks per 10K gels here, but Iād welcome any suggestions for a better more consistent hard gel suitable for 300+FPS use.
Yeah, gels should really only be grown/sorted/used only as they are required and avoid storing them for long periods of time.
Because they are a Polymer structure, they are pretty unstable and once they absorb water the molecules/structures of their compounds are broken down and become more unstable the longer they are left sitting around.
Hereās a good explanation if you want some light reading in regards to compounds/structures and how the different types of water effects their growth/hardness.
The new gel sorting gizmos from WAT are getting great reviews as a quick way to get sizing done in the least frustrating and time consuming way possible
I used to just throw a tablespoon of gels into a 2 ltr Coke bottle full of tap water, drain of the excess water by pouring the bottle out through a kitchen sieve and then pour them back into the bottle with the lid on and stored in the crisper in the bottom of the fridge.
I would use them asap, pouring them out into the old Zhenduo sizing strainers, then roll them through a tea towel to remove all major excess water before pouring them into smaller bottles specific for each size.
Days out playing field games, would load the bottles into an esky with my lunch/drinks/ice and fill my mags as required during the day.
Pretty weird and wonderful methods, but we all have our own ways of doing things and this is what worked best for me 
It might be that itās not the hardness of the gels that are causing confetti, itās possibly from the age and inconsistency in sizes instead
Thanks for that feedback, Doc
Iāve been growing them for years, itās really quite recently Iāve been having issuesā¦ dunno why, I must be getting old.
Iāll look into one of those gel sorters from WATā¦ anything to make life easier.
2 Likes
Those sorters from WAT are extremely good. Way better than the old strainer ones.
Absolutely not and why I ALLWAYS recommend NOT to store with water in the air tight bottle. Much to the disagreement of others, if you time grow your gels at 2.5hrs and they work perfect in your blaster. Then store the rest un dried off in a bottle full of air tight water they will continue to grow. Iāve been there tried it and tested it so do not care what others say. Dry your gels off roll around tea towel then in air tight plastic coke bottle and in fridge door and they will not change diameter for at least weeks. Donāt even open it unless using as fresh air does effect them.
Also if using mains tap water the chloride and flouride percentages do fuck around with sizes I found. Rainwater, clean, nothing, no additives = best results
Take it as you will.
1 Like
I agree that maybe I was misleading in my comments about ātap waterā.
Us country folk only have rainwater coming out of our taps, which is something that I didnāt even think to consider in my reply that most people have chemically laden mains water supply! 
1 Like