magazine gas emptying

[wind953]

My plastic slide on my KSC USP .45 broke recently so I had to order a replacement. I was using propane (oh me..), so now I have a problem. I need to empty the magazine of the remaining propane before I can fill it with duster, but if I install the new slide and shoot off the remaining gas I risk breaking the slide again. I heard manually thumbing the gas valve on the mag to release gas is a no-no.

What can I do?

[ujiro]

I just press down the valve. I can't see how thats a no-no, that is all it is doing when you are firing the gun anyways.

There is no other way. You either fire the gun or press down the valve. I would press down the valve lol.

[Geoffrey B.]

Heres some more info if you want

http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=18793

[venture]

Holding the valve down to empty all gas is not exactly the same as firing the gun. The gun uses only a small shot of gas to expel the bb. Using it as a dump valve on a regular basis risks destroying the oring by repeated freezing. Rapid cycling while firing is practically the same thing however.


When and if liquid gas touches the oring it will freeze it. Do it enough times and it will lose its elasticity. I think in the real world this theoretical problem is actually less onerous than it would appear. It is a good idea to leave your gas in the mag during storage. So in most cases dumping gas would not have to be done. When switching gas, wind953, you probably can safely dump the gas with a couple of quick pushes. Leave whatever gas you have in it for storage, and come up with a system (color tag or something) to tell you later which gas is in the mag.

[wind953]

Awesome thanks for the inputs, guys!

[L473ncy]

Just don't keep using the dump button.

A few times won't hurt it just it's not recommended. Just like going past or very close to the redline. Sure you *could* do it but it's not recommended because it puts strain on the engine and you risk overheating and blowing it.

Something you can do is press it lightly and let a little bit of gas escape and then letting go and letting it sit (so the o-rings can unfreeze) and repeating until all the gas is out. Now I'm not sure if this will exactly preserve the o-ring however it makes sense that if you meter it out and do it slowly it shouldn't be as bad.

In aviation actually, the crappy sewage water/avgas/oil stuff is actually collected and metered out slowly so that it doesn't adversely affect the environment so I don't see why metering out your gas slowly using the dump valve should hurt it.