TECHNICAL
NO TAPPET... NO WORRIES! A.P.A.C.H.E.
AUSTRALIA STILL HAS AN ISSUE WHEN IT COMES TO AIRSOFT AS WE ALL KNOW, AND OUR FELLOW PLAYERS “DOWN UNDER” CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR THEIR GAME! HOWEVER, JUST BECAUSE AIRSOFT GAMES THEMSELVES ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO HOLD DUE TO THE ONGOING LEGAL SITUATION, IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT NEW INNOVATIONS AREN’T FORTHCOMING, AND LEGIONNAIRE IGGY BRINGS US UP TO DATE WITH THE VERY LATEST!
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AHOO!! I have been excited to write this one. For some time in Australia, the forgotten country when it comes to Airsoft, Aztech Innovations has been working hard on something quite spectacular that they have now brought to fruition; they have designed and now sell a tappetless cylinder head! The Air Pressure Activated Cylinder Head Engine, or APACHE as it’s referred to, is the brainchild of the team at Azraels Armoury. The concept came about in December 2020 as a result of Shakka the head technician reaching his wits end with altering tappet plates for high end gel ball DSG builds. After altering a tappet plate for the 50th time to get perfect timing with a respectable FPS he threw the tappet plate through the office divide window at Brent Alderton the business owner whilst shouting, “tappet plates suck, we need a tappetless system.” Together they tried to find an option. Brent mulled over the idea at home over the weekend and by Monday had a few designs to show Shakka. From that point they went through six prototypes
before the initial gel ball APACHE was available to the public in May 2021. After an initial slow release their popularity has boomed in Australia. Gel ball, although shunned as a kids toy in most of the airsoft world, and you could say understandably so, in the last 3 years has evolved astronomically from the woeful blasters that were initially available to people in Australia. Due to the law in Australia, gel ball is the only option for the people in Queensland and South Australia when it comes to anything even vaguely like airsoft, and consequently the demand and drive for better has been the catalyst for improvement. The team at Azraels Armoury have a lot to do with this improvement through innovating and redesigning products from the airsoft world to suit gel ball and up the quality. The in stability of the gel itself will always be the Achilles heel, so with that in mind the playing style puts far greater demand for perfection in the builds. People want extreme rates of fire of 45 rounds per second and higher at varying muzzle velocities from 300 FPS to over 400 FPS. This in turn puts more and more strain and demand on the internals meaning
“THE APACHE ITSELF COMES WITH AN ADJUSTABLE NOZZLE THAT WILL FIT MOST V2 STYLE AEG’S BUT THERE ARE A SELECTION OF FIXED NOZZLES FROM 17.90MM TO 19.90MM ALLOWING PEOPLE TO USE JUST THE FIXED SIZE SPECIFIC TO THEIR AEG.”
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FEBRUARY 2022
