Piston Head/Cylinder Scratching Noise

[JLiang]

Hey Forum,

Recently I bought a Magic Box M14 Cylinder for my FAMAS, as well as a Lonex POM Ventilation PH, attached to a Magic Box 8-Steel Tooth POM Piston.

I thought that these parts would fit nicely, but upon testing, I found that inside the cylinder, the piston head (It definitely is the piston head, not the piston) makes small scratching noises. It's also a very tight fit, especially when compared to placing it inside my stock cylinder.

Is there a known incompatibility between these two parts? Have I got a lemon? I'd like to use my new cylinder, seeing as how I paid good money for it, but if it damages both the Piston Head and itself, I'm not sure if I want to put it in a full-speed trial yet.

Does anyone have recommendations on what I could do?

Thanks in advance!

[Doc1990]

To be honest you should have got both magic box or both lonex. Can you post pictures ? Have you used cylinder grease ?

[JLiang]

I hindsight, I probably should have. Whoops. :\

Do you need pictures of the parts themselves, or the piston inside the cylinder?

I haven't used grease, but I doubt that would really help with much if the parts themselves cannot mate.

Unless I'm sorely mistaken.

[ThunderCactus]

How can the piston head be scratching the cylinder when it's made of plastic?
You can try greasing it lightly, but you should always match your cylinder to your piston head.

[JLiang]

Oh, sorry for the confusion.

It's not scratching the cylinder, as in making long scratches of damaged metal, but rather just making a scratching noise, like when you run your nails over those plastic image-changing card things.

Some flakes of the Teflon Coating seem to be coming off, but I'm not sure if that's meant to be like that.

So would you say just see if I can return or exchange the cylinder for a Lonex one?
Is having the Lonex PH on a MB Piston okay?

[Kos-Mos]

All the magic bos items I ever got where crap.
They don't know what tollerence means I guess.

The cylinders where all random size, the cylinder head was not made the right shape/size and the spring guide had to be modified as it was no where near any standard.

Replace with anything (including TM, they are better) and you should be good.
My bet is on a bad cylinder.

[JLiang]

Shoot.

Is the MB POM Piston okay? I don't want to spend more money and replace more than necessary.

Also, I tried the Piston Head in my Stock Cylinder, and it moved better, but was a tight fit. That may be due to a lack of grease, but do you think it's serious?

[JLiang]

Update: I have now experienced first-hand the shattyness of Magic Box Parts.

The piston is also useless.
It has a gap between the Piston's molded teeth and the Steel Teeth of the rack insert, which means the sector gear actually goes over a noticeable bump as it travels along due to it engaging the first metal tooth at a weird angle.

I'm going to try and sand down the front nub of the piston to see if that allows me to move the rack further back and see if that fixes the gap. If I can't get the piston to work, I might have to throw that down too.

This seriously blows. Never buying MB again, after seeing the tolerances on this crap. I'm considering replacing the cylinder with a Lonex M14 Cylinder, just to have compatibility with the Piston Head, but I'm pretty pissed at these parts.

They're simply not worth the money. Not sure why everyone on other forums were so piss-happy about them.

[ThunderCactus]

Because they probably bought a magic box part that happened to be made on a good day and they were like "oh magic box is AMAZING", before they even used the parts for 2 games.

Like those crazy people that have the 1 in 1000 classic army rifle that actually lasts 3 years without breaking and are like "wtf do you mean CA sucks, MY gun went 3 yrs without breaking". Meanwhile 1/25 CA's come broken out of the box, and most of them break as soon as it gets cold out lol

[JLiang]

True dat.

Not to be pushy or anything, but do you know any good pistons/cylinders? I'm fairly certain both parts (The ONLY Magic Box parts I bought out of a pure Lonex order, save for Guarder and G&P Shims; Why didn't I just get Lonex...?!) are done with for me.

[ThunderCactus]

cylinders, you can just stick to stock cylinders, they're usually fine, it's hard to mess up a cylinder lol Lonex, systema, prometheus
pistons; system super core, prometheus, marui nylon, lonex, systema (seems to be still good)
Stay away from polycarbonate pistons

[Rusty Lugnuts]

there must be 1,998 pissed off people out there because i bought a couple used CA guns from Lisa that are at least 7 years old and still going strong

[JLiang]

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

cylinders, you can just stick to stock cylinders, they're usually fine, it's hard to mess up a cylinder lol Lonex,

...Then I think I did something really hard to do. My stock cylinder is done.

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

Stay away from polycarbonate pistons

Got that. I like POM anyway. :P

[coach]

Originally Posted by JLiang

...Then I think I did something really hard to do. My stock cylinder is done.

How the heck do you break a cylinder? Please post a picture because unless you sat on it, there really isn't much a bad or broken mechbox could harm a cylinder.

[ThunderCactus]

Never say never in airsoft.
Amos found an M14 with a cylinder that broke in half around it's diameter.
Extremely difficult, but possible.
Also anytime your O-ring passes over your metal piston head, you definitely need a new cylinder lol