TECHNICAL ENDEX: TIPS FOR NEW YEAR MAINTENANCE
TIPS FOR NEW YEAR MAINTENANCE
GETTING YOUR GAME ON IS GENERALLY A SIMPLE THING IF YOU KEEP YOUR GEAR SQUARED AWAY AND CLEAN, AND TAKING TIME TO PREP IS ALWAYS A GOOD THING IN OUR OPINION! AS A WHOLE NEW YEAR OF AIRSOFT BECKONS, DAN TAKES A LOOK AT WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING DO KEEP YOUR SHOOTING PLATFORMS AND GEAR IN TIP-TOP, BATTLE-READY CONDITION!
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s the deep cold is settling in here in our northern state of the USA , airsoft similarly grinds to a freezing halt and most of us in this climate shelve our guns till the return of warmer days. In this wintery slow-down period, I always take the opportunity to do some basic year-end maintenance of my guns and gear to keep things in tip-top shape. These basic tips are also helpful throughout the year or whenever you might consider placing your airsoft equipment into storage for any lengthy period of time.
AEGS
Starting with the cool stuff first, lets talk about prepping your airsoft guns for storage conditions. Obviously, it should go without saying, but never store your AEG’s with a battery connected. This advice also applies to any battery powered device, for that matter. For guns outfitted with ETU’s or MOSFET’s, these will often draw a minute charge to keep the FET’ powered on. Over a period of weeks or months, this can draw down your battery to unsafe voltage levels, especially if that battery was previously used and is already at lowered voltage. I’ll cover a bit more on batteries further below.
HOP UP
The second thing to check over is that your hop up is dialed all the way off. I actually do this after the end of every event myself, but anytime you put your gun away for an extended period of time, you should ensure you turn the hop up off. This is to prevent a 62
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“set” from forming on the hop up bucking. Once this takes hold you might find yourself having to apply more and more hop up adjustment just to get a good trajectory. In severe cases, the bucking might be so deformed that you even run out of adjustment on the hop up dial and the bucking will have to be replaced. This is especially critical for guns equipped with flat hops, as those are slightly more prone to deformation and taking on a set than traditional buckings or R-Hops. Incidentally, this is something I encounter frequently when taking in guns for repair that have been sitting unused for extended periods of time or where the owner left the chamber in a permanent “on” condition, and they no longer shoot as well as before.
