TM AUG And A tightbore?

[BLKKROW89]

Right now the gun is shooting around 375-380 with .2's and my hop up broke so tomorrow i am getting one in from gearbox. And i was thinking while i am changing the hop up why not the barrel?

i dont know exactly how accurate the stock barrel is seeing how i have had the gun for about 2 hours before the hop up broke. So i have not had a chance to coextensively fire it.

What is  your thoughts AA?

[Major Buttnuts]

my brother used a TM Aug for almost a year, it was the most accurate gun I have ever seen.  And yes he put a tight bore barrel in.

[corporalred]

If you go to Gearbox tomorrow, talk to Jared, he is a TM AUG master.... any questions about that gun he can answer....

[BATMAN]

I really do appreciate that, corporalred.  Thanks.  Funny thing is, it's my old trusty AUG he's talking about because I sold it to him last week.  

This is some of my experience with tightbores:
The first gun I put a tightbore in was that AUG; it was a 509mm Systema brass 6.04.  The gun was amazingly accurate with the stock TM barrel, but I installed the tightbore, took it out back to shoot it, and I saw pretty much no difference in it's accuracy or velocity... or at least not enough for me to justify spending the money.  I went on later to try barrels from Prometheus, and KM with pretty much the same result.  

This is my OPINION as to why I got those results, and have continued to get those results after years of working on guns:
I don't believe most quality-made guns like TM even need a tightbore barrel at all.  A good quality quality barrel is a good quality barrel, and a consistent hop-up is a consistent hop-up.  Your barrel is only as good as the BBs you put through it.  I tested that gun with AE 0.25g BBs, and they flew perfectly straight.  Why?  Because they were good BBs in a good barrel with a good hop-up.   TM makes good stuff to start with, so it didn't really matter much that the barrel was tighter, it just needed to be smooth and consistent.  The amount of variance from a 6.01 to a 6.03 to a 6.08 is so minute, the wind and deterioration of velocity will change the course of the BB long, long before the lack of a tighter bore ever will.

To sum it up:
Tightbores are just good-quality barrels.  If you already have a good quality barrel, then there's no need to switch.  If you want to ACTUALLY see a big difference in your accuracy, use heavier BBs.  No joke.  I'm sure there are others on here that can vouch for that.

Situations where a tightbore is a really good idea:
-The stock barrel's quality is questionable to start with (ie: Chinese clone)  Tightbore is going to be a smoother, higher quality barrel, and therefore will probably make a big difference.
-Your current barrel is worn or bent.  Go buy a newer, "better" one.
-You're changing the length of your barrel.  If you're changing it anyway, buying a tightbore isn't a bad idea.

I hope that helps.  If you ever want to hear me blab on about this kind of stuff, come down to gearbox and I'll be happy to oblige.  
-BATMAN

[Whiskey11]

Batman I dont mean my following post as a flame but our experiences are intirely different.  The supposed excelent CA barrels really are not that excellent.  In my CA SPR going from their stock 6.08 barrel to the KM 6.04 barrel dropped my groupings at 120ft down from man sized to chest sized which is definetly worth it (means I can hit man sized targets at longer ranges ) In my CA M14 (which uses the AUG hop up mind you) a Madbull 6.03 tightbore was dropping my groupings down from man sized at 150ft to just larger than someones head.  That was using Excel bb's!!!

The thing is, range and accuracy are heavily dependent on way to many things.  Hop Up UNIT, Hop Up Rubber and Nub, BB's, Velocity, barrel, air nozzle, etc etc etc.  A Tighterbarrel does increase accuracy at least it has in all of the guns I've ever installed them in.  One thing to keep in mind is that while you may think your 6mm bb is 6mm it's actually 5.95 +/- .03 ish mm's with some brands (AE) being slightly larger (and thus better for larger barrels)  Try using an Excel BB down a stock barrel and go to a tighter barrel like a 6.03 or a 6.01.  You will notice the difference.  AE's in the tightbores I have have signifgantly increased accuracy in themselves (I use their .25's) and combined with a tightbore have increased it again.  I'm not saying that your results are not true, but our experiences are different.  TM barrels are supposed to be very accurate and still be very loose.  Indeed it is because it is better made, but in the CA's i've dropped tightbores in it has made a huge difference in accuracy and a little bit in range too (higher fps accounts for this).

One other thing to mention, barrel length past about MP5 length does not increase accuracy.  There have been many tests on this on ArniesAirsoft disproving that dropping a huge length barrel in a full M16 is not going to increase accuracy to where it is noticable.  I'll see if I cant dig up the page.  However on an Mp5 it could make the difference provided all the parts are matched up with.  Range is more dependent on FPS and Hop Up application than it is on barrel length (or diameter for that fact).

Found them:  Quoting Hissing Sid

First thing is that a longer, or tighter, barrel will increase power - to a point.

If you take, for example, an MP5, and bung a tighter barrel in it then the power will go up, but only slightly. If you fit a longer barrel on it then you will increase the power proportionally until such time as the cylinder runs out of puff and the BB will then begin to slow down before it exits the barrel.

So, the first thing to understand is that if you take 2 identical guns and bung a tightbore or longer barrel on one you will immediately see a small increase in power compared to the stock gun.

Let's say you have two guns with the same muzzle energy and one has atightbore and the other doesn't. What can you expect?
Well, when you shoot the gun the BB hits the hop-up and flips up and actually scuttles along the top of the barrel as it moves along it. Try this for yourself. Colour a bunch of BBs with felt pen. Fire them. See where the felt pen line is inside the barrel. It'll be along the top.

Now, I'm only guessing but I suspect that the real difference between a normal barrel and a tightbore is simply that the BB can't yaw so much as it travels along it.
Imagine rolling a tennis ball down a drain-pipe and it'll come out rolling in a pretty straight line.
Roll a tennis ball down a 24" diameter pipe and it gets chance to zig-zag as it rolls and it's more likely to come out rolling at an angle to the pipe when it exits.

There's other stuff to consider too.
On a gun with a long barrel you use an unvented cylinder. This has the maximum possible volume to accelerate the BB along the barrel.
The issue is that the piston accelerates from zero and, as it does, the BB moves along the barrel and through the hop up - as soon as the piston starts moving.
On a gun with a shorter barrel the cylinder has vents. This means that the piston travels forward, the BB stays still and the air is pushed out of the vents until the piston passes them. Once that happens the BB can start to move. The piston is already moving at high speed so the BB will accelerate much faster.

You can try this for yourselves too kids. Take an MP5K and chrono it. Now take it apart and cover the cylinder vents with sticky tape. Now try shooting it.
You should find it's shooting about 10fps lower with the unvented cylinder.  
Also, remember this cos it'll be important later (if I remember).

Anyway, point being that the BB is going slower as it passes the hop-up in a long barrelled gun than it is in a short barrelled gun.
So what?
I dunno.
I expect this means that you get a sharper hop-up on guns with vented pistons and a softer hop-up on guns with unvented pistons.
Of course, this is all kind of irrelavent since the user will just adjust the hop to whatever is required to make the BB fly straight.
On some small level I bet that guns with vented cylinders probably use less hop than guns with unvented cylinders.
Never tested that though so it's just speculation.

So what have I checked?

Well, I got myself a stock Marui P90 and tweaked it so it is giving about 1J energy. I used a P90 cos it's very easy to swap the barrels out.
I'd already tweaked it and knew it was shooting at 1J so I had a baseline figure for comparison with future results.
I fitted the gun with an unvented cylinder so that it'd have enough puff to propel the BB through the longest barrel I planned to test.

Remember I said about it being important that the MP5K power decreased when used with an unvented cylinder?

So, after I fitted the unvented cylinder in the P90 I tested it again and found that the power was still 1J.
This is important cos it means that a BB isn't travelling at full speed when it gets shot out of an MP5K barrel but it has reached full speed by the time it gets shot out of a P90 barrel.
Again, this fact will become important later for reasons which will become apparent.

Anyway, on a day when I was bored I gathered up a whole pile of barrels that people had been foolish enough to leave at my house or which I had lying around. I also gathered up 2 mates to do the testing with me, to try to avoid subjective results. I've posted the results of the tests I did elsewhere so, suffice to say, there was no practical difference in accuracy between any of the barrels I tested, ranging from a P90 barrel to an M16 barrel (IIRC).
When I chronoed the gun with each barrel there was a small power increase from the longer barrels, just as you'd expect.
The stock P90 was firing at 325FPS and, when fitted with the longest barrel, it was firing about 10FPS higher thn that.

Next I tested tightbore barrels. I happen to have a whole bunch of 460mm G3 barrels so I was able to test similar barrels. I wasn't testing an MP5K 6.03 barrel against a 6.04 M16 barrel. They were all G3 barrels. I had (again IIRC) a Systema brass 6.04, a KM TN 6.04, a stock Marui Brass 6.08, a TK twist barrel and a Prometheus 6.03.
Everything went as you'd expect. The tighter the barrel the better the groups. The only oddity was the TK twist barrel. That would score some good groups and then just lose it completely for a few shots.
At 20m The 6.03 could shoot almost through the same hole. The 6.04s were shooting 1" groups. The Marui barrel was shooting 3" groups and the TK barrel would put 3 or 4 shots through the same hole then put another 2 into the wall 3ft to the side of the target.
What about power?
The stock barrel was shooting about 330fps. The 6.04s were shooting about 332-333 and the 6.03 was shooting about 333-334. A small difference but a repeatable, definate one. The TK barrel was, alas, shooting way down at about 315.
I suppose it's possible that the TK barrel would have blossomed into a beautiful butterfly if I'd fettled the gun to increase the power back up to 330fps but, pah. Life's too short.

So, you're saying that you tested a bunch of barrels and they were all just as accurate as each other?
Uh huh.

Aha! You're saying that a 5cm barrel is as accurate as a 50cm barrel. That's nonsense!!!
Erm, I didn't say that at all. I said that I tested a bunch of barrels ranging from a stock P90 barrel to an M16 barrel and there was no noticeable difference.

Remember I said it was important the MP5K was affected by different cylinders but the P90 wasn't?
Here's what I think, and it's pure speculation:-
I think that it's important to see that the MP5k barrel was so short that the BB didn't get chance to accelerate fully when the unvented cylinder was fitted.
I think that it's important that the BB did accelerate fully (irrespective of cylinders) in the P90 length barrel.
I think that once you've got a barrel as long as a P90 one then you don't need to worry about any of this stuff cos, at that length, the BB starts to do the same thing inside every barrel.
In short, unless you've got a stupidly short barrel, such as an MP5k, then barrel length makes no difference. Unless you've got a tiny penis.

Anyway, that's how it all works out in my little head.
I try to explain my methods and justify my conclusions. Now watch as a bunch of muppets show up and say "Joo suxx0rz!!! Long barr3lz r00lz!!!"

[edit]
Oh, Sale nailed a couple of points I forgot about but there was one other thing I meant to suggest.
BBs are not exactly marvels of engineering.
I think it'd make an interesting test to shoot 500 BBs (into a foam target) and put all the ones you perceived to be "accurate" in one dish and all the ones you perceived to be "flyers" into another dish.
Having done that, it'd be interesting to take all the "accurate" ones and shoot them again.
I wonder if they would all be accurate or if you'd still end up with some of the supposedly accurate BBs being flyers?
That experiment would show if flyers are poorly made BBs or inconsistancies in the operation of the gun.
Frankly, I've got better things to do.

S'funny but there's loads of BS flying around about what should and shouldn't happen with tightbores and longer barrels but, when I actually got around to reliably, repeatably, testing stuff the results were amazingly close to what the theory suggests.

For example (of how NOT to do it), I once spent a morning buggering about testing different barrels and I found that the results were a bit random. Later on I realised I'd forgotten to leave the hop-up off.
Every time I'd fitted a different barrel in my P90 I'd automatically set the hop back to its usual position before shooting it.
This, of course, meant that the hop was sapping some of the power and messing with accuracy.

In this situation you can do 2 things:-
1) Ignore the mistake and start telling people skewed results.
2) Go back and do it again, properly.

I decided to go back and do it again.

I've now had 5 standard barrels fitted to my P90 from the following guns:-
MP5K
P90
MC51
M4
G3 S/G1

The results were absolutely what you'd expect, theoretically, regarding power. The MP5K barrel was about 5fps lower than stock and the S/G1 barrel increased power by about 8fps. The others were somewhere in between.

No barrel was particularly more accurate.
Theoretically, fitting a longer barrel WILL increase accuracy purely because it increases power by a small amount and, thus, gives the BB a slightly flatter trajectory at the same range.
However, if you consider what a P90 looks like and then imagine a P90 with an extra 12" of barrel poking out the end, THAT is the sort of extension you require to even begin to see a meaningful power increase.
So, you've got your gun with a 2ft long barrel poking out of it. Now you've got another problem. The BB spends a LOT longer in the barrel and any movement you make during this time will totally ruin your aim.

In practice this means that a longer barrel gives you a tiny bit more accuracy purely due to the additional power and then takes that accuracy away again because the gun is harder to shoot accurately.

In practice there was no discernable difference between any of the barrels. Longer barrels din't give tighter groups or make for shots nearer the bullseye.

Then there's tight-bores.

My testing with tight-bores has been restricated to S/G1 barrels in a gun with a 1J spring.
I tested the following barrels:
Marui S/G1 barrel
TK M16 Twist barrel
KM 6.04 TN Barrel
Systema 6.04 barrel
Prometheus 6.03 barrel

The results, again, showed that the tighter barrels increased power by a small amount. Fitting a 6.04 barrel caused a 4fps increase and fitting a 6.03mm barrel caused a 7fps increase.

Again, accuracy is a subjective thing. I would point out, however, that where accuracy provided by longer barrels can be distorted by movement as the BB travels down the barrel, testing tight-bores of the same length means that the results should, at least, be consistant.

I did tests at a range of 20m.
Now, it might be argued that tests at longer ranges would be more useful.
TBH, the longest indoor area I have access to is 20m long and I figured that it'd be better to test thais stuff indoors at 20m than outdoors at 35-40m where variations in wind might create inaccurate results.
I figure that accuracy at greater range can be extrapolated from the results at 20m.
Tests were carried out by 3 people and a concencus was reached. For example, if one of us thought a particular barrel was awful but the other two thought it was good we'd all go back and shoot it again until we were happy with the results. Maybe that's a flaw in the test? Maybe it creates pressure to conform with the majority?
I dunno but on the day I think we were all happy with the results we achieved. I certainly didn't feel I'd been "bullied" into any of my conclusions about any barrel.

There's no point in going into details but, basically, we found that the Marui barrel was ok. The TK barrel was pretty-much the same as the Marui barrel. Sometimes the TK barrel would shoot really tight groups and we'd think it was starting to work. Then we'd shoot with the Marui barrel some more and THAT would shoot some tight groups as well.
Doh!
Fitting the 6.04 barrels was a breath of fresh air. I (we) didn't see much difference between the Systema and KM 6.04s. They were both clearly better than the Marui barrel.
As for the 6.03 barrel, bear in mind that my mate has a 6.04 barrel fitted to the S/G1 I built him and there might be some "penis envy" there cos I got a tighter barrel.
When I shot the 6.03 barrel I was convinced it was a LOT better than the 6.04. When my mate shot it... he was as well!
At 20m you can, literally, watch the BBs fly through the same hole in a target time after time.

It occurs to me that the real benefit of a tight-bore barrel isn't actual "accuracy".
Allow me to explain - The only item that I haven't really examined is the BB itself. When a bag of 5,000 BBs costs £8 you can't really expect them to be precision-engineered.
If a BB isn't spherical or if it's slightly heavier on one side than the other then that's going to affect its accuracy.

I wonder if the real benefit of a tighter barrel is that it helps "control" the BB as it's launched?
If you fire 500 BBs through a stock Marui barrel some of them will go right where you aim them and some will go 12" away from that point. The tests were carried out with AND without hop-up so we got to see what the BBs do by themselves AND what they do when the hop is used to induce a deliberate rotation. The barrel isn't changing from shot to shot so the only thing that can be different is the BB (and the shooter, I guess).

Anyway, my point is that in a tight-bore the BB doesn't have room to pitch, yaw or swerve as it travels so all it can do is fly straight. I wouldn't be surprised to find that is the true benefit of a tight-bore barrel rather than actual "accuracy" per-se.

TBH, I can't really think of a way to prove this though. The only practical way to do it would be to fire a squillion BBs into a soft backstop and collect all the ones you considered to be "accurate". If you then fired them again and found them all to be accurate you might conclude that the other BBs did, indeed, have problems with the way they were constructed.

Geez, I kinda went on a bit there. Back on planet Earth, a light breeze will screw up all the theory and testing you care to do. God bless toy guns!

Sorry for the long posts but thats straight form the horses mouth not edited or anything but in the first he clearly states that even compared to a stock P90 barrel a tightbore will make a difference in accuracy.

The second states the same thing but from an earlier post.

Enjoy the reading!!!

Whiskey

[BLKKROW89]

Lol yeah my AUG used to be Batman's

But i am supposed to bring a package to Ron Today and get my hop up but the package is really late and has not come.

so Batman to Ron I Will probably be coming On Tuesday thanks to all the hours of homework i have lol.

thanks for the read everyone i am kinda shy with tightbores cause i put one in my CM031 and it made the accuracy worse! So i don't know what to do

[BATMAN]

Thanks for the input, Whiskey.  You make some good points, and though I can't honestly say I took the time to carefully read through everything, I do understand what you're talking about.

Just like you, I don't mean to flame.  For the most part, I agree with you.

A few more points:
-My testing was indeed just comparing with stock Marui barrels, not CA, and I have noticed my Marui guns being much more accurate than my CA guns in the past.  I apologize for not clarifying that, I've now edited the post.

-There may be a lot of truth to there not being any accuracy increase in a barrel past 229mm, but understand that might possibly be because the longer a barrel gets, the more the FPS increases.  The velocity difference between a 229mm and a 509mm barrel is quite considerable.  As you mentioned, higher FPS does account for a loss in accuracy, and therefore could "even out" the effect of a longer barrel.  Just a thought.

-You mentioned different BBs are different sizes, and you are absolutely correct that the brand of BB plays a huge role in your guns accuracy.  If an AE BB measures 5.98mm and an excel measures 5.95mm (not entirely sure if that's true, I'm just making a point) then the accuracy of a 6.04 barrel using an AE barrel will be identical to a 6.01 barrel using an Excel.  That's why I say your barrel is only as good as the BBs you put through it.

-My point was, and is, that the QUALITY of barrel is what matters most, not the measurement.  A lot of people like to say that there's a HUGE difference in accuracy between a 6.05 and a 6.03, and I have found that to just not be true.  If you use a different hop-up unit, bucking, or nub, or even just install them differently, your accuracy is going to change.  If the humidity of the air changes that day, your accuracy is going to change.  If the wind is blowing slightly, your accuracy is going to change.  If the elevation is different, your accuracy is going to change.  If your barrel's length or bore changes... your accuracy is most likely going to change.  Point in case: the most you can do to ensure good accuracy is to 1.) depend upon the laws of physics, and use heavy BBs, and 2.) make sure that your BBs and everything the BBs touch are good QUALITY.  Most tightbore barrels happen to be very good quality, and therefore are a good choice if they are better than what you have currently.  For all of my Marui guns, they did next to nothing for me, and that's my experience.

Man, I love airsoft.  I need more hobbies that are this deep.
-BATMAN

[XavierMace]

tl; dr;

Anyways, in my experience the tightbore can minimize the effect of using lesser BB's.  I normally only run AE's (thats what I ran with Sat), but I have some TSD Tac .23's and ICS .20's donated for reviews.  Swapping from an ICS M16 length to a JBU M16 made a noticeable grouping difference even from 60' with a cross wind.  I have an SRC M4 barrel from their HK416 that groups worse than my stock ICS M4 pistol barrel.

Also a related thought.  Jared does a magical shim and seal job on his guns.  Therefore with his guns operating a peak performance, he might get a lesser benefit from a tightbore barrel because his gun was performing better to begin with.

[Whiskey11]

Good Point, for reference my G&P M16 that I'm comparing to the CA M16 i had is shooting 425 with .25's (GASP, yes it's too hot even for LC, It has been downgraded) but it shot within +/-2 FPS which for an AEG is impressive.  The sad part is that is using .25's and all stock internals (bar the Sector Gear and spring) and a KM Tightbore with the King Arms Hop Up unit and Guarder Clear Hop Up bucking.  Everything else stock (Including metal air nozzle)  I must say that is rediculously good compression

I totally Agree though, a better made barrel will provide better accuracy. However I'd like to point out that every tightbore (even the Madbull V2's) have been much better then the stock barrels I've had.

[BATMAN]

Also a related thought.  Jared does a magical shim and seal job on his guns.  Therefore with his guns operating a peak performance, he might get a lesser benefit from a tightbore barrel because his gun was performing better to begin with.

lol!

Good points Whiskey; I'm actually really glad you're giving the other side of the story, because 90% of the guns I've bought over the years have been Marui's, and I also work on a lot of guns every day...  that's certainly not the case for most airsofters.  Go tightbores!!  
-BATMAN

[corporalred]

Hopefully Jared can magically shim my SCAR-L, and I can use it this weekend.....

[Whiskey11]

Good points Whiskey; I'm actually really glad you're giving the other side of the story, because 90% of the guns I've bought over the years have been Marui's, and I also work on a lot of guns every day...  that's certainly not the case for most airsofters.  Go tightbores!!  
-BATMAN

Thats why I hover around these forums still Someone needs to be the sand paper against the grain if you know what I mean  Besides, no one learns anything if everyone agrees on the same thing and doesnt offer a counter story.  Our experiences are very very different which makes our information that much more usefull as we can now have a proper "debate" if you will (I dont like the word, it often means arguing) and come to a general consensus.  

If the TM Aug uses the same 1337 hop up unit that the CA aug and G&G/CA M14's use then it's already a great hop up unit.  new hop up rubber and nub may be enough to improve accuracy dramatically.  but then again so might using a wider bb (like AE's).  I got my numbers from AirsoftMechanics Mega BB Review for the diameters of the BB's, they might be different but I remember AE bb's being slightly bigger but more round then Excel's.

Brand: Airsoft Elite "Extreme Precision" 0.20g White
Average Weight: 0.2069g
Standard Deviation in Weight: 0.0074g
Average Diameter: 5.96mm
Standard Deviation in Diameter: 0.015mm
Average Muzzle Velocity: 427.50fps
Standard Deviation in Muzzle Velocity: 2.304 fps
Standard Deviation in Roundness Test: 1.57cm
Surface: semi-smooth with very minor visual roughness
Color: white
Bag Count: 3750
Cost Per BB: 0.00293 USD

Brand: Airsoft Elite "Extreme Precision" 0.20g Black
Average Weight: 0.1988g
Standard Deviation in Weight: 0.0042g
Average Diameter: 5.96mm
Standard Deviation in Diameter: 0.012mm
Average Muzzle Velocity: 437.05fps
Standard Deviation in Muzzle Velocity: 2.149 fps
Standard Deviation in Roundness Test: 1.93cm
Surface: semi-smooth with minor visual roughness
Color: black
Bag Count: 3750
Cost Per BB: 0.00293 USD

Brand: Excel "New" 0.20g
Average Weight: 0.1972g
Standard Deviation in Weight: 0.0103g
Average Diameter: 5.91mm
Standard Deviation in Diameter: 0.012mm
Average Muzzle Velocity: 420.39fps
Standard Deviation in Muzzle Velocity: 5.513 fps
Standard Deviation in Roundness Test: 2.12cm
Surface: smooth with noticeable casting ridge and injection nipple
Color: off white
Bag Count: 3700
Cost Per BB: 0.00297 USD

As you can see my numbers were off a bit but the premise holds true.  AE's are larger than Excel's and have a slightly higher standard diameter deviation but provide a much more consistent FPS because of the larger diameter.  The rest of the article can be found:
http://www.airsoftmechanics.com/home/content/view/19/29/1/0/

Enjoy the read!

[BLKKROW89]

I use Killer Bees' BBs and they are really accurate for me i just didn't know if maybe a new barrel would help

[corporalred]

I got my madbull v 2 for $5 sooooo I am gonna use the hell outta it!!!!

[Whiskey11]

I use Killer Bees' BBs and they are really accurate for me i just didn't know if maybe a new barrel would help

THe wosrt that can happen is you dont see a signifigant increase in accuracy but you will see a slight increase in FPS which gives you a little bit extra range like, 10-15ft