Bolt Action Upgrades?

[Bigload]

I know BA upgrades do not come cheap. As well, cheap does not come with great results. Currently I have some starter BA's to play with. MB01, and MB02. I am aware of some freebies DIY mod's like the barrel spacers, and the shimming of HOP arms. I am here to pick some brains. My goals are to achieve 360-380 fps (M115 spring?), quiet (sorbo pads?), and getting the distance (0.3+ bb's?)
What are some good 'I've done it and it works, AND I didn't have to sell my liver to fund it' mods for the above rifles to achieve those goals? I was looking at the PPS hop chamber for the Type 96, which uses AEG barrels and HOPs.

[ThunderCactus]

Well since nobody seems to want to answer you....

First of all, there's something to be said for quality, but talking about part durability specifically, it's usually the difference between handling 900fps or 500fps. You're not running over 500fps, so you don't really need $200 4140 hardened and tempered sears. You can get away with $40 1018 steel sears.

Speaking of which, you'll probably want new sears. Up to you if you wanna wait and see if yours break first. But many sears aren't usually meant for 400+fps, so you're probably not worried anyway.

Spring strength to fps is highly dependent on what barrel AND PISTON you have. Joule creep is all over the fucking map with bolt actions, so trial and error is required. On a 470 spring, my PDI piston shoots 380 on .20s and 355 on .36s(2.13j). My angel custom piston (it came with the gun, I didn't purposely buy it) does 380 on .20s and 380 on .36s (2.4j). I know you're trying to stay under 400, but if you ever go over 400 and they make you chrono on .20s, just let them know you joule creep like a bastard so they don't think you have no MED.

As far as the cylinder is concerned, if the compression is perfect, then the compression is perfect. Spending $300 on a PDI palsonite cylinder set isn't going to change that.

PDI or laylax/prometheus barrel, 6.01, 6.05, 6.03, doesn't really matter. I'm currently running a 6.01 (again, came with the gun), but you're not usually firing enough rounds to actually foul a BA barrel in one game, so 6.01 is fine. Just don't be one of those idiots that thinks a 650mm barrel somehow increases range or accuracy. If you're putting a suppressor on the end, then USE the suppressor, don't run an inner barrel through it.

Flat hop or Rhop, can't go wrong. Stock chambers sometimes have a left/right bias, you can eliminate that by angling the nub, or just tilt the gun. VSR cut or AEG cut, can rhop either, but probably prefer aeg cut for it.

PDI chamber is overrated, apparently the action army clone chamber is pretty decent with a single hop arm instead of two.
Dunno about the PPS chamber though. Seems like it might be okay, but why in the fuck would you make a hop chamber out of brass O_o
Not that it's a bad thing, but just like.....why.... more expensive for no benefit.

[Bigload]

Thanks ThunderCactus for the insights. Always good to hear from people who have 'tried' and figure things out for the newer BA users like myself.

Also something that annoyed me while plinking. Might be a silly question, but will the pull of the bolt be lighter / heavier with spring change?

If I can ask here, which vendor 'local - North American' vendor has a good supply of parts to source from aside from the ev***.com website?

[ThunderCactus]

Bolt pull will change with the spring, since you're pulling directly against it.
Evike has all the sort of mid range and low end BA parts.
ehobby and redwolf have all the good stuff, spectech airsoft in calgary can handle those orders, he's just waiting on his website to be up and running.
Lots of stores in Canada have BA parts, but it's mostly for VSR

[Zeroroaster]

I have a CNC brass hop up chamber. I got it off of eBay. Took a chance, and it paid off. It's a fantastic unit and also has o-rings that seal the barrel absolutely tight. how efficient you make your compression chamber will greatly affect consistency as well as how light you can go with a spring. My L96 is using a 6.03 steel AEG barrel, the brass hop up chamber and it's r hopped. Our field limit is 500 fps for bolt guns so mine dials in at a conservative 480 fps. Because of the extra fps I popped for the nice silicone barrel spacers and made extra sure everything is nice and solid in the gun.

The piston is some cheapie aluminium thingie that came with the gun, but now that the front end is so efficient, I cut down the softest spring I could find and it still fires 480. Because the spring pull is lighter, I'm running the stock sear two years later, thousands of BB's, and still working fine.

Most of the mods to get a bolt gun working right are in the fitting, as well as the parts. The rifle has gone through a few revisions since I started fooling with it and now I must be on version 5.0, or something like that. Like TC says, a pile of trial and error. I've put a few bucks in it, but nothing astronomical, and having access to machine tools have made or modified anything that needed to be to make it better.

Hang in there, and study the results with every tweak you make to zero in on the prize. Mine is currently shooting accurately to 280 ft. with 0.36's. Certainly good enough for any games around here. I'll keep at it over the winter though as I'd like to hit the elusive 100 yd. mark consistently...that's the key...consistently.

[ThunderCactus]

I had to machine new teflon cylinder guide rings for my M24. Stock ones were like .03" oversize. New ones are .005" oversize, waaaaaaay smoother bolt pull.

[Zeroroaster]

Y'know TC, that's not a bad idea to put on the list for version 5.0. I didn't even think of that, but yeah, makes a pile of sense. The L96 only has one guide ring/spacer/wiper at the front of the bolt housing but we'll give that some attention. I did hone and smooth the bolt housing though. The factory cutting and casting was absolutely awful. First pull of the bolt it scored it. Nice machining job, Well. hahahaha...

As true to form with bolt guns, I now think of it as a kit when I buy a new one. They might as well not even assemble them because it all has to come apart anyways to make it right.

[ThunderCactus]

Yeah it's a real pain in the ass. Next time I'm just gonna go HPA bolt and save a ton of work.

[Zeroroaster]

I would too, except I'm just not a fan of the hose. Strictly personal preference and nothing to do with performance. I was contemplating a gas sniper (or CO2 as field limits allow) solely on the basis of the nice easy bolt action and the mags carry the gas.

Then I got to thinking I get such good range with my long AEG (it's not a DMR...hehehe) why not build a semi auto Druganov? Or something along those lines. Sad part is, I have so much time invested into the bolt, what do I do with it now? It's still a solid rifle, is really accurate...but the bolt...y'know?

[Jamroxorz]

I upgraded my BASR with all Action Army parts and it worked well, but I ended up getting the Mancraft SDiK with the CO2 adapter. I ran the hose through the gun and I have the regulator in a stock pouch. It's really amazing, 4 cm light bolt pull, consistent fps, change of fps if you need to. I use the AA hopup unit which works fantastic, also running an EDGI barrel.

[Zeroroaster]

Well that's a funky option! Better than a scuba tank, I think. How many shots do you get out of a 12G cartridge?

[ThunderCactus]

That was my plan as well, just run it off CO2 cans

[Zeroroaster]

I imagine it wouldn't be much different than a CO2 revolver really. Not a whole lot of moving parts, just enough gas to get it down the barrel. Wow, I'm going to have to rethink the whole deal. Mind you that's another 200 bucks to the pile...meh, maybe I'll stick to the spring.

[Jamroxorz]

I get about 100 shots off of 1 canister.

[Zeroroaster]

Well that's certainly respectable! About the same as my revolver.