Q: What is the difference between the Automag Classic, Minimag, RT and RT Pro?
Automag Classic: basic Automag, comes in standard feed and powerfeed. Standard A.I.R. valve, has one "free repair" star. Can run off co2 or HPA.
Minimag: Basically the same as an Automag. The body has been machined to give it an "assault pistol" look. Standard A.I.R. valve, with 4 repair stars. Comes with vertical tank adapter. Can run off co2 or HPA.
RT: Reactive Trigger Automag. Comes in powerfeed and vertical feed models. RT valve can only be run off HPA. Has hardline built to run air through the frame.
RT Pro: This is the cut down model of the RT. While different than the RT, it is still basically the same gun. It has no hardline and uses standard fittings to transport air.
CARBON DIOXIDE
HERE IS A GUIDE FOR CO2 SHOTS PER OZ. AT 80º F.
65 TO 70 SHOTS PER OUNCE
7oz TANK = 466 SHOTS
9oz TANK = 600 SHOTS
12oz TANK = 800 SHOTS
20oz TANK = 1333 SHOTS
COMPRESSED AIR
HERE IS A GUIDE FOR HPA SHOTS PER CUBIC INCH.
3000psi 4500psi
10 SHOTS PER ci. 15 SHOTS PER ci.
47ci = 470 SHOTS 68ci = 1020 SHOTS
68ci = 680 SHOTS 88ci = 1320 SHOTS
88ci = 880 SHOTS 114ci = 1720 SHOTS
114ci = 1140 SHOTS
Barrels are only there to accelerate the ball from a standstill to 300 fps. In theory they also help with accuracy but that's another post. The ball goes through incredible acceleration on its way down the barrel. The balls acceleration rate is approx. 50,000 feet per second to get to 300 feet per second in 10 inches. The entire barrel travel time is about 6 thousandths of a second and this means the ball is seeing about 1500 G's when its getting pushed out the gun. Although this may sound incredible if someone out there would like to do the math you will see that I'm close.
Air pressure behind the ball is what causes this acceleration to happen. This pressure varies between the different guns but is generally between 50 to 125 pounds per square inch at its peak. The air pressure peaks right when the ball starts moving down the barrel, after that, the ball moving down the barrel creates a bigger chamber so the pressure drops. This is why low pressure guns are a myth, in reality all guns shoot at considerably lower pressure than 200 psi.
Peak pressures above 150 psi tends to break balls down the barrel due to really high acceleration and G forces. If you don't have any way to control the peak pressure behind the ball, the only way you can change it is to go with lower pressure in the air chamber, hence low pressure guns. AGD uses the precise contour of the power tube tip to release air in a controlled manner behind the ball to limit peak pressures to around 60-80 psi..
It is simple to understand that the harder you push something the faster it will accelerate and get up to speed in a shorter distance. So what distance do we have to get the ball up to speed? The effective length of the barrel is from the balls position before it's fired, to the place in the barrel where the pressure gets released, This is usually at the first porting holes or the step in the barrel. Porting is there to release gas pressure!! You are effectively stopping the acceleration at the ports so your 14" barrel that is half full of holes only has an effective length of 7".
Now we understand that we need to limit the peak pressure behind the ball to keep it from blowing up, and that the pressure drops as the ball moves down the barrel. The next question we need to ask is, how far down the barrel does the ball have to go before the pressure gets to low to do anything useful? That answer is 8-10 inches. We know this from looking at the graphs that our gun dyno puts out. If your peak pressure is higher, say over 100 psi you can get away with a shorter barrel, if it's lower then you need a longer barrel. Since AGD is the only gun manufacturer to actually test their pressures behind the ball you might have a hard time getting this info for other guns.
So as far as our guns are concerned, the best efficiency would be had with an 8-10" effective length barrel. Since two piece ported barrels with an effective length of about 5-6" are the rage right now you hear a lot of complaints about gas efficiency. Under some circumstances there is a good reason to use a short effective length barrel. Short barrels cut off the acceleration abruptly by venting and this has the effect of tightening up the shot to shot velocity variation. If you need this at the expense of efficiency then go ahead. Tighter velocity control usually translates into some improvement in accuracy due to better consistency.
So if you want the best of all worlds, limit your peak pressure, let your ball accelerate all it wants, don't follow the crowd and keep asking questions.
Q: What is the Retro valve?
A: It is a replacement valve for the stock valve. Lighter weight with hyper fast recharge makes this a popular upgrade! The reactive trigger actually pushes your finger back after firing each shot! Shootdown is gone forever and the gas flows into the chamber so fast you can feel the valve heat up after a long string. Slide it right in and go to town!
Q: What is the difference between the Minimag and the Automag?
A: The automag has a short body in either standard feed, powerfeed, or the rare and no longer produced vertical feed. The "68 Classic Automag" has a 1 star valve. It comes alone with stock grips, body rail, body and valve (unless it is built up, like the popular TKO package). The standard feed and the powerfeed automag both weigh 1.8 pounds, and is 8.5 inches in length. It is available in either hopper left or hopper right models.
The minimag has holes cut out of the front of the body to give it the "assault weapon cooling" look. The minimag body is not available in standard feed. It is 13.5 inches in length, and weighs a bit more at 2.65 pounds (complete). The minimag valve is the same as the automag valve, only it has "minimag" printed on the valve and 4 repair stars instead of 1. The minimag also comes with a vertical adapter, stainless steel hose, quick disconnect and an 8 inch aluminum barrel.
Both bodies are available in standard grey finish (blast), black teflon, and hand polished stainless steel finish.
__________________
For those of you who will do something stupid, here is my AIM name ahead of time: vaypourus
Q. If im running a co2 tank on a vertical adapter, do i need anti-syphon?
A. NO! You need a standard tank, neither syphon or anti-syphon. An anti-syphon tank in a vertical position will be a syphon tank, and draw liquid co2 into your Mag.
Originally posted by Shadow221 I have to correct the 2 posts above. There's no such thing as a standard tank. there's either a CO2 siphon tank a CO2 anti-siphon tank(both screw in) a screw in nitro tank, and a railmount nitro tank. Anything can be used on a vertical adapter except railmount nitro. It's just not recommended to use anti-siphon.
From page 13 of the AGD 68 Automag/ Minimag Level 7 Manual, 1998:
"For vertical tank and remote vertical tank setups, always use standard tanks that have been weight checked to ensure proper fills."
also
"Remote tanks should be standard (Neither siphon nor anit-siphon)"
Originally posted by Shadow221 What most people call a standard tank is really a siphon tank
Where did you get that information? The only "siphon" tanks I know of are the bulk co2 tanks I use for fills at the field. There are siphon tanks (with the tube down to draw up liquid co2), anti-siphon (with the tube up so to not draw in liquid co2) and standard (that draw whatever they can, gas or liquid based on gravity, placement and temperture.)
Q: Are the Hyperframe and Intelliframe tournament legal, I mean, they are electric triggers.? Many tournament don't allow electric guns.
A: Overall, they are legal. The Intelliframe is not an electro frame. Yes, some tourneys do not allow electro markers. The Hyperframe does have a tourney lock switch.
Q:Which is better: Hyperframe or Intelliframe?
A: They both are very different and cannot be easily compared.
Q. Are the Intelleframes and Hyperframes electronic trigger frames, and are they tournament legal?
A. The Intelleframe is not an electronic trigger frame. It is a mechanical trigger frame, with the option to put a simple switch on the inside of it. It is perfectly tournament legal.
The Hyperframe is a fully electronic trigger frame made by Centerflag. It is tourny legal as long as it is locked in semi-mode only (as long as the tournament allows electronic guns to start with).
__________________
For those of you who will do something stupid, here is my AIM name ahead of time: vaypourus
1: Airtank supplies air to regulator at 800-1000 psi
2: Regulator takes pressure to 375 psi
3: Air flows through on/off valve and fills air chamber
4: Trigger is pulled first closing on/off valve and then releasing bolt
5: Bolt moves foward against spring pressure until power piston exits power tube
6: Air is released into bolt cavity and fires ball
7: Main spring returns to cocked position
8: Trigger is releaced, bolt is latched, and on/off valve pressurizes air chamber.
(all of that is directly from the automag manual found at: http://www.airgun.com/manual.shtml )
or an animation of the workins recently brought to you by: Lothain
A: Halliday already answered on what length you should get (if you scroll up)... I will answer the rest of the question keep in mind i'm going for accuracy... (from: Tom's Tech Tips, #2 )
By popular request I will divulge the inner secrets of bore/paint match ( is was 101 degrees out in the field today so I came in early) [Tom was looking for dinosaur bones in Wyoming, Ed.]
Does having a good paint barrel match improve your accuracy??? YES. How does it do it? Very simple, if your gun shoots with a consistent velocity the paintballs will tend to follow the same arc, thereby improving accuracy. It technically is making your gun more consistent which is a better term than accuracy.
Historically there were many theories about paintball barrel matches. First there was the Tippman theory where they used a very large bore barrel and claimed that the air escaped evenly around the ball and it floated down the barrel without touching anything. They claimed this was the "air bearing effect". Next there was the tight barrel theory that said if the ball seals all the way around the shot will be more accurate. Actual testing has proven both these theories false.
Why match paint to barrel? Going back in time the paintballs were much more inconsistent than they are now, in fact now they are really, REALLY round and half the price. Players found that their consistency/accuracy improved when they used certain size barrels. Unfortunately paint is constantly changing size and this requires different barrel id's to work well.
The technique used to research paint/barrel match is simple and doable by anyone. Testing is performed by blowing a thin powder down the barrel to coat the inside. We used to use Desenex Foot Powder that sprayed on dry. Todays Desenex is a different formulation and doesn't make a powder. Once you have coated the barrel you dry fire the gun once to clear out any extra powder. Lastly shoot one paintball out the gun and inspect the inside of the barrel. The powder will be stripped away everywhere the ball touched. This allows you to see exactly what happened to the ball down the barrel.
If the barrel is too big, the ball ricochets back and forth down the tube. We used to say it looked like Zebra stripes in there. Hence big barrels do NOT create an "air bearing". Barrels that are too small scrape most of the powder off and this creates excessive FRICTION. Tighter barrels that were too long were found to slow the balls down due to this friction. In other words, when you cut these barrels down, velocity went up. Remember the 8-10" acceleration distance, these barrels were 14" long and unported.
The best paint barrel match left two 1/8" wide streaks opposite each other down the barrel. The widest part of a paintball is usually the seam which is also called the equator. With a proper size match only the balls equator touches the barrel snugly on two points. The equator tends not to align itself so the entire seam touches the barrel hence you only get two points touching. So what is happening here that makes this so desirable? We all know paintballs vary in size, this means that there will be slightly more or less friction on the ball depending on how tightly it fits in the barrel. If you use too tight a bore that touches the ball all around, trying to squeeze a bigger ball in greatly increases the friction and changes your velocity. By having the barrel sized to only touch two points, bigger or smaller balls only increase the contact patch a small amount and this gives you better shot to shot CONSISTENCY. To large a bore solves the friction problem but you get back to the ricochet effect.
So this is the story behind proper paint/barrel match. Many of you have commented that the stock barrels seem to work about as good as custom barrels. This is because todays paint is so much more consistent than 10 years ago that the difference between barrels is much diminished. Even the biggest to the smallest barrels don't product that much difference in accuracy IF YOU ONLY COUNT THE SHOTS AT THE SAME VELOCITY. So there you have it, I should mention these studies were done in the early to mid nineties, we have not done any testing lately on two piece barrels etc.
..... In conclusion you should go for the best paint/barrel match... try different paint with your barrel. If you can't try different paint... and don't wanna buy a barrel to only see if your brand of paint works with it, go here , so you can match up your paint to a barrel easily, and eliminate a lot of the guess-work.
oes anyone else think the warpfeed is cool?
Linear Mode
