I remember trialling/testing just about every make/brand/size spring on the market for a while back before discovering the AUSGEL springs from advice on the old forum from people like yourself and a couple of older members
“Chrome” M springs were jackhammers, “Piano Wire” springs just couldn’t release their windings fast enough and were woeful.
Cheap M 100-130 rated springs gave less FPS than stock 1.12-1.18 factory fitted springs, many uneven types bent like a banana after a single magazine, some were out of the box 2 inches longer than stock but with the same shitty spring sizing…… using nothing more than the stretched out length for FPS “gains” etc etc etc.
It’s a minefield of shitty aftermarket “performance” parts out there that dodgy suppliers are making a big fortune out of crap products
SHS springs are good, the red packet ones seem to punch what they say forever without fading, though they do put a good amount of pressure on the gearbox front. SHS blue packet seem are basically the same.
Element springs always hit harder than they stated by about 20fps, had a nice soft pickup, but they did break after loads of use on me.
Xforce springs are probably SHS oem (as informed by industry insider), and good. basically the same.
Ausgel have a tendency to warp, if you dont have at least one thrust bearing, but in my experience the 1.28 and 1.38 warp anyway. 1.18 are awesome, great for nylon and close to standard 11v rps, soft pickup and cant recommend them enough. Just can’t say the same for 1.28 and 1.38.
Super shooter springs are great, for a period and then fade, dropping in power. It will happen suddenly, but they do last ages so don’t be discouraged. It will take a heap of games and years though! The are softer than shs on pickup, and still get rated power. I like them, and have used tons of them.
ASG springs are wank, they do not make the power the are rated for, ever under any circumstance. Though, if you can look past that, and expect that an m105 is more like an m85, basically drop 20meters per second off the rating and thats what you expect. If you are aware of this, they are decent and have applications, they do have a soft pickup but I personally don’t like them for any higher performance build. They do last well in short stroked setups and have soft and quiet operation, and last, but tbh I prefer almost all other brands.
Stick to a brand, and at least you can know what you are to expect when doing similar builds, and if an m100 is needing to go 30fps up or down, change to m110 or m90, or if you can short stroke, about 15fps off per tooth for those springs is what to expect. go above that and you can probably expect that to change to 10fps per tooth on shorter barrels (220mm or there abouts). It isn’t always a linear scale depending on spring, barrel length, and porting but you can have a good ballpark figure to shoot for.
I use loads of SHS, x-force, and super shooter springs, as I know what I am in for and what the build needs with them. And if its nylon gears, always try for a ausgel 1.18 as they are just perfect for that.
The spring in it was definitely shorter than normal by at least 2cm… I couldn’t even tell you what it came out of.
I did add an extra spring to the IB to make sure it was seating securely to the gearbox, the aftermarket outer barrel adaptor requires longer springs. That might have helped it out a bit.
I also noticed it’s running a ported cylinder, about 80% so when I get around to changing that out for 100% it’ll up the FPS a little more with the improved VE.
Only kinking was the AG 1.28 out of the Gen8, which has a washer on the piston but not on the retainer. I did not measure those. The 1.18’s were out of CYMAs. They were straight but had lost length. The 1.28’s were also from Cymas and there was a drop in FPS over the 1.18’s so they got replaced with SHS M100’s
Was discussed on the old forum with M series any spring did not matter still kinked unless you had thrust bearings both ends. One reduced it, both ends eliminated that problem.
Yeah, that checks out. I didn’t mean to put the question in such a way to make you feel the need to back anything up, you solved the problem well before anyone else got involved after all So that’s my bad.
I hope the new VE works out in your favour, it was night and day for me. That spring against the IB is a good idea, I’ll have to try it out in a build that doesn’t quite have the beans it should on paper. Or if I feel the need to more finely tune the FPS output.
I played with all the 1.18/1.28/1.38 AUSGEL springs through many different builds, but to this day I only recommend to people all over the USA/UK/EU the AUSGEL 1.18 is the ultimate way to go for any builds👌
This is specific to all the new people just getting into the hobby, and we all know that the 1.18 is the perfect balance of performance/smoothness and reliability in basic/mildly modified blasters
Sure thing that everyone wants 11.1V and M110-120 springs in their new stock blasters all chasing 400FPS…….but it’s a lot of work explaining to them that simply sorting out standard air sealing, o-rings and a 1.18 AUSGEL on 7.2V will have them a solid performing blaster hitting 300-320 FPS efficiently and reliably without having to spend stupid money chasing more “performance”.
EDIT forgot to mention the importance of having bearings installed on both the spring retainer and piston head!
No bearing on the retainer end can cause the retainer to unscrew itself under cycle loads, and the same can occur with the piston head screw after a while.
But the most important thing to remember is that coil springs need to rotate at each end for the ultimate performance to allow smooth compression and release twisting forces of the windings to operate at the fastest rate possible.
Early days people used to scoff when fitting a bearing on both ends of the spring, but I always ignored whatever that was about and made sure to fit bearings to both the retainer and piston heads regardless
Awesome, some great information and certainly allot to digest there.
Starting to notice there’s a few similarities between getting a firearm to shoot the way you want and a gel blaster to do the same. Both seem to require some trial and error, trips to the range (or back yard), ammo testing and so on. In saying that sometimes you get lucky and things just work.
RokSolid appreciate your post with the Bradley Phillips YT references.
An M90 spring is in the post which was ordered before reading about the uneqeal springs, I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future. Again appreciate that nugget of knowledge.
Coincidentally I happen to own that hop-up you linked however I believe the wrong tongue is installed. Its the older style with the narrow cut outs. My son has the Aztech Hellfire on his blaster so we can try that on mine too. I cut 8mm off his barrel to get the hellfire to fit properly.
When the M90 spring arrives I’ll swap that out, fix the hop-up to the correct Tongue and see how I go.
Yeah, can associate with @Maiphut about these de-burring tools.
Wasn’t life great back in the old days when we could spend good money on buying British/Japanese quality equipment
Nowadays the same original old school tool makers are all getting their products made in China……… and there’s very little industrial quality stuff available on the market anymore
So that’s my bad.
