[Dracheous]

Originally Posted by Drake

That statement has always baffled me.

Will an aluminum piston head increase the spring/gun's power? Haven't compared weights, but for the sake of argument we could suggest the aluminum piston head is lighter than the polycarb one thereby having less inertia and permitting the spring to uncompress more quickly. The difference would be insignificant in terms of having a real impact on the mechbox's integrity.

Some people have also suggested it's the "metal on metal" impact that's damaging. Given equal amounts of energy and the soft nature of aluminum, I think it'd have to be tested. But even if that were true, the piston head never comes in contact with the mechbox: it impacts the cylinder head. So if there really is more wear from metal-on-metal impacts vs plastic-on-metal of equal force, the real part that should be avoided would be the upgraded metal cylinder heads, since they're what's pressed up to the mechbox and transferring the force of the impact from the spring/piston to the mechbox shell.

Long live good ol' Marui plastic cylinder heads.

Well, I believe you forget that when you install a silent piston head, you need the corresponding silent cylinder head for the unit. Even the Angel Silent heads have a unique cylinder head IIRC.

There HAVE been tests done, I'll have to badger LUTNIT for the links again, where there has been shown up to 40% reduction in stress impact using the Angel Silent head ((I might be off on the figures here, recalling from reading this a year ago but it was significant)). The reason lies with material densities and how it all absorbs impact.



My question here is wether or not a pro-win's C&C shell would not be a better solution, if he REALLY needs such a high velocity that he's trying to get with this PDI170. IIRC that'd place him over 400FPS bending barrel. And with the better hop-up/mechbox seal of the pro-win, would he not be able to lighten the spring and get the same FPS he was shooting before?

Anyway, Drake an easy example as to why aluminum heads WILL hit harder and cause more damage, just think of a rubber mallet. If you're banging away at something that you don't want to "mark" but still need to hit the thing you use a rubber mallet. It weighs in at the same that its metal cousin does, but does not cause any surface damage. You're throwing both mallets at the same weight, same speed, same distance, and yet the rubber mallet does its job and does not leave marks, where the metal one will have clobbered the HELL out of what ever you threw it at.