New Airsoft Innovations Grenade "Cyclone"

[BioRage]

Originally Posted by MadMax

Unfortunately no. While the body is a touch under 40mm, the big lug ring near the bottom is considerably larger in diameter. I tried, but I couldn't develop an impact tough coupling that stayed small in diameter. I could have welded the genade shut at that end and do away with the coupling, but then no dump reload.

Is ok, we are happy to give you our money regardless. No one has made grenades with backed up warranty like AI .

In anycase, I'll be getting two of mine Kydex'ed ASAP when I can.. review imminent.

NOW TO WAIT FOR AI'S FAMOUS SHOTGUN * COUGH COUGH *

[MadMax]

I can't wait to work on another project. I've been staring at this damn grenade for the last six years.

I love the shotgun. Can't wait to dive into another damn opus project that goes to exhaustion.

[shinobii]

Hey MadMax,

We received a sample grenade today - thank you to the team at AI for sending it. We appreciate it. If anyone wants to check it out, we have it on display here at Mach 1 Airsoft, and we're more than happy to show it off to anyone who's interested.

[BioRage]

Originally Posted by MadMax

I can't wait to work on another project. I've been staring at this damn grenade for the last six years.

I love the shotgun. Can't wait to dive into another damn opus project that goes to exhaustion.

Hope it goes well.

You have my cash when you get those shotguns out.

[Warderp]

I am Defiantly going to pick a couple of these grenades up to try out, the video made reference to loosing the stacking bits, but, I have never lost any of them, I have lost a couple pins, but never the bits.

That being said I would reiterate what some others have said about loosing the spoon. Max said there is a tie off option for the spoon, as well as the video saying there was different spoon options. maybe I missed it in the previous answer but would there be a way to make a "spoonless" spoon option? - something that would attach on the safety and pop up but not off?

I was going to buy yet another tornado grenade, as the ones I bought, have been through the wringer and after... I don't even want to think about how many throws only 1 has failed (outer body shell separating from the center tube when thrown) but if these last half as well as the tornados I would say I got my monies worth out of them.

Also does this mean that the tornados will be phased out and replaced? or will both product lines still be supported?

[AnthonyG]

So, is this something I should be putting on my Christmas list?

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by Warderp

maybe I missed it in the previous answer but would there be a way to make a "spoonless" spoon option? - something that would attach on the safety and pop up but not off?

Also does this mean that the tornados will be phased out and replaced? or will both product lines still be supported?

I live in a wierd product space by making grenades. With airsoft guns, pretty much anything that goes towards making our stuff closer to the real thing is a good thing. We don't want to have to chase brass cartridges, but the sky's the limit in terms of improvements that make things more realistic without being dangerous to others.

With grenades I face a funny dichotomy where we initially want "realism" but we are faced with practical issues like economical reuse.

I have pursued retained spoon designs that didn't fully hinge off of the fuze head, but they somewhat frequently got bashed in the spinning cycle and cracked. A lanyarded spoon almost always comes off in a way that doesn't interfere with spin very much and doesn't get bashed, but a hinged spoon gets clipped against the ground a lot. I could go with a more robust sheet metal spoon, but that raises cost when I am trying to provide something more cost effective to the player.

I have concepts for button actuated fuze heads, but they don't give the same generally similar ergonomic behavior of a grenade with a full length spoon arm. I could make things with pushbutton fuzes like the the things Vasquez deployed in Aliens, but I get punished in the realism aspect that a lot of airsofters desire.

I'm basically making a bet with my product design to see if it flies. It is impossible to make everyone happy so I try to stay pertinent to the major market and make my products easily adaptable for the next circle of players wanting something a little different. About the only thing I reserve for my own selfish pursuit is ballistic performance.

My competition has the advantage of cheap labor, manufacturing, and labor costs. I direct AI to ply our advantages of ballistic design, reliability, and durability against our competition. My mentor in product design often reminded me: "you can have it good, fast, or cheap. Pick two..."

This design process and manufacturing start up has been fucking long. I think the Cyclone is damn good. It has better ballistics than Tornado and it's faster to reload. While it's got a somewhat smaller pellet load, it discharges far more higher velocity pellets which says more effective pellets to me. It's much easier to reload too. I think I have targeted Cyclone to be "good".

The design concept is cheaper for us to manufacture which has resulted in a drastic price drop from Tornado so I think we've entered a totally different price point at nearly half the price of Tornado. I think we have targeted Cyclone to be "cheap".

From beginning to end, Cyclone has taken about 6 years to develop and launch. There were a couple years prior chasing other goofy concepts that didn't pan out, but I don't really count them because I was still having fun. The design and deployment cycle for Cyclone has been quite long. It's consumed about 15% of my lifespan and a commensurate proportion of my liver function by now. I am very fortunate to have a profit model driven by others of skill and desire to pursue my selfish R&D interests, but it has been a long time. Cyclone hasn't been "fast".

To be honest, I hate saying this. ASC is my first forum for airsoft. I discovered it here. I used to be 50% owner of this site years ago when Miles and I launched the Armory which eventually dissolved and HoJo passed it onto better hands.

The Cyclone is head and shoulders above the ballistic performance over Tornado. No contest. Our grenades, from a ballistic standpoint, outperform everything out there because we employ barrels of significant length. Even devices employing pyrotechnic charges don't fling bbs as fast because they have no barrel. You can make a thing with barrels pointing in every direction, but they tend to be very short barrels which have no thrust length. I wanted 3d spherical spread and good ballistics as primary objectives and started our foray into grenades with that premise.

I'm going to have to make it up to my retail and distribution partners who are sitting on lots of Tornados. We consider ALL inventory not yet in end user hands our responsibility to some degree. Even once sold, we support our doodads bought by end users as best we can afford.

[Grudge]

I love my tornado grenades. With that said I can't wait to get my hands on a couple of the cyclones.

[Rossco66]

The Cyclone made an appearance in Monday's Airsoftology video with Jonathan Higgs and his guest Desert Fox. They looked at it very favourably.

[BioRage]

@Mr. Carl

Any plans for the Shotgun - Assuming there won't be a release any time soon?

[MadMax]

Sigh, not coming soon. I expect the shotgun to be a bit of an opus project. Not as difficult as the Cyclone though as the technical requrements are a fair bit easier.

Cyclone has a lot of features shoehorned into it's small form factor. It also has to be impact tough.

Still, I think it'll take me some time to get things ironed out to my satisfaction before I can turn it into a product. I also have to work out a vendor relationship and work out communications issues getting things right. Even with very literal solid model files I have issues to work out with injection mould makers. Tack on an assembly team that is outside of my direct control and probably halfway around the world. If I lose control over assembly, I need to simplify things further.

An approach that I find myself leaning towards is to basically design a pneumatic mechbox for a shotgun that I can manufacture here in Canada. Some generic compact doohickey that could be fitted into many shotgun bodies. If I can pull such a thing off, I could maintain control over the manufacturing and assembly of the important worky bits and publish a hardpoint specification to tell model builders (the vendors that make airsoft guns) where to bolt to and what things to push on to cycle shells. Basically we become engine manufacturers and other companies wrap a car around our product.

[:^)]

Thank you for your hard work, Madmax. I'm really looking forward on your next work.

[BioRage]

Originally Posted by MadMax

Sigh, not coming soon. I expect the shotgun to be a bit of an opus project. Not as difficult as the Cyclone though as the technical requrements are a fair bit easier.

Cyclone has a lot of features shoehorned into it's small form factor. It also has to be impact tough.

Still, I think it'll take me some time to get things ironed out to my satisfaction before I can turn it into a product. I also have to work out a vendor relationship and work out communications issues getting things right. Even with very literal solid model files I have issues to work out with injection mould makers. Tack on an assembly team that is outside of my direct control and probably halfway around the world. If I lose control over assembly, I need to simplify things further.

An approach that I find myself leaning towards is to basically design a pneumatic mechbox for a shotgun that I can manufacture here in Canada. Some generic compact doohickey that could be fitted into many shotgun bodies. If I can pull such a thing off, I could maintain control over the manufacturing and assembly of the important worky bits and publish a hardpoint specification to tell model builders (the vendors that make airsoft guns) where to bolt to and what things to push on to cycle shells. Basically we become engine manufacturers and other companies wrap a car around our product.

I sha'll wait