23 replies to this topic

[GnGArmament]

Not sure if this was posted before, but I think it is newsworthy.








There supposedly really cheap, too. Only $13.50

[magaz]

that's fantastic... it makes me want to buy one just to see if I can break it!

[TwinTurboCH]

Any idea where and when they will be available. That's a pretty mpressive strength test

[ndfirespider]

So instead of my $10 piston breaking/losing a tooth, my $60+ gear set will break/throw a tooth instead? Awesome!

/fail

[thartwig]

So instead of my $10 piston breaking/losing a tooth, my $60+ gear set will break/throw a tooth instead? Awesome!

/fail

Ya i dont think lateral pressure on the piston is ever a problem in a gear box. And i dont think ive ever heard of an entire piston just shattering inside a gearbox... So this is just a display of its reinforced uselessness. Now, if they showed tests regarding the pistons teeth then that would be something worth investing in.

[GnGArmament]

Ya i dont think lateral pressure on the piston is ever a problem in a gear box. And i dont think ive ever heard of an entire piston just shattering inside a gearbox... So this is just a display of its reinforced uselessness. Now, if they showed tests regarding the pistons teeth then that would be something worth investing in.

Agreed, I would like to see a test comparing it to a supercore, or putting it a gearbox with M150 and running a li-po.

As for knowing where it is sold, I do not know yet sorry.

[fiddlesticks4220]

wgc has them

[Stealthbomber]

As others have said, I'd be more interested to see how the teeth hold up to an extended period of use rather than the sort of nonsense in that video.

As a rule, when things are bendy they're also soft and that means the teeth are likely to wear out pretty quick.

The other important thing is the quality of the metal teeth.
I bought one of those Element polycarbonate pistons that had summat like 6 metal teeth.
To be fair, it didn't actually "break" but, when I took the piston out to do some other work, I discovered that the rack of metal teeth had split between EVERY tooth.
Instead of one lump of metal there was six seperate bits, all wedged together.
Not good.

[thartwig]

As others have said, I'd be more interested to see how the teeth hold up to an extended period of use rather than the sort of nonsense in that video.

As a rule, when things are bendy they're also soft and that means the teeth are likely to wear out pretty quick.

The other important thing is the quality of the metal teeth.
I bought one of those Element polycarbonate pistons that had summat like 6 metal teeth.
To be fair, it didn't actually "break" but, when I took the piston out to do some other work, I discovered that the rack of metal teeth had split between EVERY tooth.
Instead of one lump of metal there was six seperate bits, all wedged together.
Not good.

I dont think it had metal teeth...or is their more than 1 version?

[Rob15]

Yes, there is one version with a full set of steel teeth.

http://www.wgcshop.com/wgc2008/main/produc...s=New%20Release
http://www.wgcshop.com/wgc2008/main/produc...s=New%20Release

[Azulsky]

Ohhh pretty

On the metal version it simply comes down to whether the teeth are sintered or machined from a nice bit of metal

On the plastic tooth version will be interesting to see. I think for $14 bucks its worth trying out on a gun though

[morugatu]

Yeah, I've done those strength tests before to CA, Deepfire, and even some chinese pistons. Some showed 'wear' from being compressed while the CA was bent out of shape. All of them survived the 'hammer' stress test.

Now the stress test that matters to me is if they took a pair of pliers and individually clamped each tooth on that piston. Of course, since it is just a video, we'd have no true way of knowing if they kept the pressure the same between the piston displayed and some off-brand piston.

From practice though, using pliers to rip off a deepfire tooth is super hard, TM's pop right off, CA's mush like they're nothing, and most stock Chinese pistons mush a bit before coming off.

Basically I got bored one day repairing guns and decided to mess around with my pistons that were already missing teeth or needed some pulled off for AOE.

[Utty]

morugatu, AKA The Dentist.

Most often heard saying: is it safe? 8(

I concur about the video test being pointless.

[fyurian]

are they making pistonheads aswell??
then i can run a lipo all the time, it wontwear down so fast then

[Robinio]

really cool

[Abelius]

The plastic tooth one is so cheap, I might just get some when they are available here. I've had great success with the transparent 7€ Element one compared to CA pistons for instance, that it won't definately hurt.

[chownsy]

The plastic tooth one is so cheap, I might just get some when they are available here. I've had great success with the transparent 7€ Element one compared to CA pistons for instance, that it won't definately hurt.

look at 0.50secs on the vid, looks like there is a crak in ths piston:

[SlickAxe]

Mmm most stress on the piston are on the teeth right? They look kinda cheap/weak...

[StarMonkee]

look at 0.50secs on the vid, looks like there is a crak in ths piston:

Looks can be deceiving though Chownsy. Watch the vid in HD and you can see its just a scuff from where the pliers held onto the piston.

[3vi1-D4n]

In my 12 years in airsoft, I have worked on and tuned more than thousands of GBBs, AEGs, rifles, professionally and personally.

While this is not a discussion on the new Azimuth piston, there are a few observations I would like to make re: piston and gear wear.

So far that I have observed, there are 5 kinds of piston wear and breakage.

1) The wear occurs teeth to the rear of the piston, this is caused by 3 factors:
- Incorrect slope of the rearmost tooth (as seen on the G&G L85s)
- Piston head is too thick or too thin, means that the first sector tooth engages with the 2nd rearmost tooth or it eats into the rearmost tooth (hence why many pistons have the 2nd rearmost tooth trimmed down)

2) The wear occurs throughout the piston, caused by:
- Soft material used on the piston (King Arms grey pistons, G&P blue POM, Element clear Red pistons, systema red pistons)

3) The wear occurs at the front teeth of the piston, caused by:
- Worn last tooth of the sector gear (if the gears are non hardened steel or sintered powder steel like G&P or old Systema TU/STU/ITU gears, use of deepfire full steel pistons)
- Worn frontmost steel tooth plate of the piston (G&P, Guarder)
- Broken frontmost steel tooth plate of the piston (Guarder, unmodified CA)

4) The rear most tooth breaks off, caused by:
- a thin piston head, forcing the sector gear tooth to apply directly onto the rearmost tooth.
- material of the piston is brittle (Element Red, Systema Red, G&P POM Blue, Arear 1000 Black)

5) The gears experiences a failure:
- Worn, from the use of over hardened steel piston teeth (Marui zinc gears, and any non hardened steel or sintered steel powder gear sets like Systema or G&P)
- Sheared (Marui gears)
- Fracture (usually occurs more bevel gears than sector gears, can occur with any gearset)

----------------------------------------

From since the airsoft article on piston strength on airsoftmechanics were published, there has been an impression that CA pistons (along with marui pistons) are weak pistons.

In stock form coupled with moderate spring upgrade they do not seem to last a long time on tests. I agree.

However the tests cannot conclude that these pistons are weak. In fact they are very much some of the best pistons I have seen in terms of materials.

The thing is finding out WHY the pistons break. With the list of 5 types of piston wear and breakages, one can determine what makes the CA and Marui pistons break.

The CA piston has 2 issues:
1) the frontmost steel tooth plate is moulded to sit too far forward of the piston, and that causes the sector gear tooth AND the front tooth to wear. Modifying the piston to let the steel plate to sit back a little will decrease that wear.
2) the 2nd rearmost tooth engages with the sector gear. Sanding down the 2nd rearmost tooth to half height eliminate the wear.

The marui piston also has the 2nd rearmost tooth issue.

After those modifications, both the CA pistons and Marui pistons can take M150 springs, having both tested them on a CA249 with 3 box mag worth of rounds within a week. Most of the CA guns I have tuned with the modified piston are still functioning with M120-M140 springs.

Edited by 3vi1-D4n, 01 November 2009 - 09:33 PM.