When is cold too cold?

[KillerUnleashed]

I live in Calgary and I'm wondering (In celsius) when it becomes cold enough to damage your gun. I have $500 TR4-18 and I'd like to keep playing as much as possible but I don't wanna go out and start busting pistons and teeth and such. I was hoping for some fall gameplay in the leaves.

[pestobanana]

G&G blowback guns should never be used in the cold. Their gearbox shells are horrible enough as is, playing with one in the cold is just asking for the shell to shear.

[KillerUnleashed]

Originally Posted by pestobanana

G&G blowback guns should never be used in the cold. Their gearbox shells are horrible enough as is, playing with one in the cold is just asking for the shell to shear.

Any gun you could recommend for cold play? Id be game to get a seperate gun for the late fall/winter. Still wondering what constitutes as cold... like below 10C?

[pestobanana]

Almost any brand except G&G will be fine. I'd recommend VFC or Krytac. G&G mechbox shells are quite literally the shittiest on the market. They also require extremely heavy springs because the terrible pneumatic blowback design drops FPS by about 100. You're using a 500 FPS spring to get 400 FPS. On top of that, their cylinder head padding is useless, and absorbs very little shock. G&G is notorious for the fronts of their mechboxes blowing off.

[lurkingknight]

sorbo pad goes a long way to protecting the front of the gearbox.... but pot metal is pretty brittle when temperatures drop near freezing.

[Hectic]

Something with a ver.3 box would likely be more durable for the cold. I've broken many a boxes in the cold. Echo1, JG, TM. All things will be more likely to break in the cold. Easiest way to avoid it is to build a gun for the cold.
Thick and soft sorbo pad
Lightened piston assembly
Pom piston head.
350-400fps (try for closer to 350 on a ver. 2 shell)
A good cnc quality metal shell especially if yer running a v2

[Ricochet]

AEGs, springers and/or GBBRs are unreliable in cold, even temperatures of 5• or colder are not advised, however, there are exceptions with certain parts and upgrades. PTWs will run in some colder temperatures, but you'll need lipo batteries, cold weather will kill your batteries. I have no personal experience with them, but I'd imagine platforms like Polar stars may also do okay in colder weather.

One thing I have seen several times is AEGs crater, crack, blowup, etc, and GBBRs spitting out all of their gas and not cycling quickly.

[pestobanana]

Originally Posted by Ricochet

AEGs, springers and/or GBBRs are unreliable in cold, even temperatures of 5• or colder are not advised, however, there are exceptions with certain parts and upgrades. PTWs will run in some colder temperatures, but you'll need lipo batteries, cold weather will kill your batteries. I have no personal experience with them, but I'd imagine platforms like Polar stars may also do okay in colder weather.

One thing I have seen several times is AEGs crater, crack, blowup, etc, and GBBRs spitting out all of their gas and not cycling quickly.

AEGs work fine in the cold as long as it isn't a piece of shit.

[_Whiskey_]

I'm Guessing in colder weather A lower FPS would be good? 350-360? To ensure not totally wrecking your gun?

[Chairs]

Anyone use hpa in cold weather?

[ThunderCactus]

The golden temperature is around -5
The reason for this is most stock seals and O-rings and greases become too stiff around -5 and stop compressing properly. The hop rubber also tends to get too hard, reducing the amount of hop applied, leading to you cranking the hop up more, combined with the gun probably not getting full compression in the first place, leads to jams and stripped pistons.
Plastic also becomes more brittle as it gets colder, for example some CA tappet plates can break in the first mag at -5. But just like any other time of year, the rule of thumb is just play till it breaks, then fix it, then play till it breaks again.
Your gun WILL break at some point, that much is guaranteed. So don't worry about babying it lol

Propane/green gas tends to be ineffective in most guns below about 15 degrees. And down at the 5 degree mark is where even the best pistols suffer greatly.
10 degrees is where i switch to MAP gas. It's got a bit higher pressure, but is more stable in the cold. I'll usually get good performance down to 0, and it drops off from there, but I can still get quite a few shots off at -10.

HPA is usually fine at -5

In general, the more moving parts you have, the higher the chance of something breaking. That's why EBB and PBB is such a bad idea in the cold.

AEG's are fine to even -15 so long as you use silicone grease, O-rings, and a hop rubber that can function well at that temperature.
LiPo is a must. Any 1500mah NiMH/NiCd batteries won't last very long at all in the cold, they'll drain 40-60% faster, whereas a lipo will only drain around 8% faster.

You don't need to lower the fps or anything provided you have a good mechbox shell to start with. We used to play down to -10 before anyone even though of using sorbo or putting rads on the shell to reduce the chance of the front blowing off. Blowing off the front of a mechbox is a fairly rare thing even in summer, as long as you have a good shell it shouldn't break. Much more common was pistons stripping due to jams, so just make sure you have a real soft silicone hop rubber.

Originally Posted by Hectic

Thick and soft sorbo pad
Lightened piston assembly
Pom piston head.
350-400fps (try for closer to 350 on a ver. 2 shell)
A good cnc quality metal shell especially if yer running a v2

This is overkill. You can get away with either just installing or sorbo, OR getting a tougher mechbox shell (like a G&P V2 shell, no need to spend $100+ on a shell)

[BobbyDangerous]

I used to run a G&G Gr16 R4 Commando in the cold and no issues.