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Army Armament R85 (L85A1)


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So ..today i try a shot from a gun and i forgot my stuck bolt in back position. Now its a broken B) but i expected it and i was look out for it. But what i saw inside? jeezs that piston was like a cake. I do scratch in to a body piston by my nail... Lucky is, that all internal parts are much better than piston.

Tomorrow ill go buy a new piston with metal teeth and i put inside new spacer and of course middle gear. Cylinder head looks like from M14 but must be there some modifications, air seal nozzle looks like from M4 but its about 1mm longer. When i will do some upgrade...ill try post some details...

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So ..today i try a shot from a gun and i forgot my stuck bolt in back position. Now its a broken B) but i expected it and i was look out for it. But what i saw inside? jeezs that piston was like a cake. I do scratch in to a body piston by my nail... Lucky is, that all internal parts are much better than piston.

Tomorrow ill go buy a new piston with metal teeth and i put inside new spacer and of course middle gear. Cylinder head looks like from M14 but must be there some modifications, air seal nozzle looks like from M4 but its about 1mm longer. When i will do some upgrade...ill try post some details...

 

WARNING:

 

DO NOT BUY METAL PISTON FOR YOUR GUN. you will run the risk of stripping all the other gears at the bottom of your mechbox because it is steel on steel shredding it. it is common for pistons/piston heads to somehow break inside a mechbox and is an acceptable price to pay for aggressive play.

 

think of it this way, friend. pay $15 USD for a POLYCARBONATE (stronger plastic piston) piston to replace the cheapo plastic piston for replacement OR pay upwards of $65 USD to replace piston and gearset because metal has shredded metal.

 

if your piston head came off, buy an aluminum piston head as they last longer, but please keep the piston plastic because if you shred it again in the future, it is only $15 to replace.

 

:)

 

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WARNING:

 

DO NOT BUY METAL PISTON FOR YOUR GUN. you will run the risk of stripping all the other gears at the bottom of your mechbox because it is steel on steel shredding it. it is common for pistons/piston heads to somehow break inside a mechbox and is an acceptable price to pay for aggressive play.

 

think of it this way, friend. pay $15 USD for a POLYCARBONATE (stronger plastic piston) piston to replace the cheapo plastic piston for replacement OR pay upwards of $65 USD to replace piston and gearset because metal has shredded metal.

 

if your piston head came off, buy an aluminum piston head as they last longer, but please keep the piston plastic because if you shred it again in the future, it is only $15 to replace.

 

:)

thank u for your sugestion :)....i will do it as you said me ....do you know any other good ideas? thank a lot for your experience

 

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thank u for your sugestion :)....i will do it as you said me ....do you know any other good ideas? thank a lot for your experience

 

there are many, many, many ideas for modification of pistons, etc... on airsoft guns. use the search engine on this site to find some tips.

 

one thing i can relate to you is this combination of upgrades because you are doing it anyway:

 

POLYCARBONATE PISTON

METAL SPRING GUIDE

UPGRADE THE SPRING TO A HIGHER RATING

ALUMINUM PISTON HEAD

METAL OR ALUMINUM CYLINDER HEAD

 

this entire upgrade will be roughly $75 USD and can be done by anyone. this is true for the R85 because of the two piece mechbox design. this is a very easy upgrade and will do the following:

 

higher FPS (depending on the spring level)

smoother cycling action (because of the spring guide)

no loss of high compression (because of the metal piston head and cylinder head)

 

this will be the only upgrade you can do to your upper mechbox and will last a LONG time even if you play aggressively. the only thing that may fail is the polycarbonate piston once again but remember that it is the only piece on the upgrade that could fail again but is easily replaceable. fyi, piston replacement are the #1 replacement issue in airsoft because of many factors (aggressive play, dry parts, loss of synchronization with other parts in mechbox). however, it is literally a $15 part that you can replace in less than 10 minutes. polycarbonate is a stronger polymer part than plastic and should last you a long time before you replace again.

 

with this R85, i would go only as far as a M140 strength (roughly 425 fps MAX with .25 bbs). however, this upgrade should be able to carry a 9.6V 2200 and higher battery with no problem. this is what i have in my R85 and it works great: 395 fps, 28 rps and lasts a long time. my only problem now is the semi/auto function not working at all. once i have that resolved. i should have a kick *albatross* gun.

 

btw...this upgrade is the same for any gun that you want to replace the spring or piston. i would just spend the money and upgrade to it and you will have a pretty damn good gun that runs for a while.

 

happy holidays and good luck.

 

:D

 

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Depends really but probably not. I'd get a G&G battery which should fit. STAR seems to be slightly different so it might or might not. STAR seems to have more in the front half, G&G (should be same as ARMY) usually only 1 forwards...

http://www.onlybatterypacks.com/showitem.asp?ItemID=11056.25

Is a G&G

 

http://www.onlybatterypacks.com/showitem.asp?ItemID=11539.25

STAR config

 

Haven't tried though.

8.4? If 7.2 it might be OK.

Edited by Domz
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Hi all,

I haven't been here for a while.

My L85 works fine - I replaced the piston, piston head (+spacer),TM sector gear, M110 spring and hop-up bucking.

Semi isn't working for the most time, so I don't use it all.

 

Things I found out - the remaining two gears are not TM standard. Anyone knows a gun that uses the same gears?

Can someone tell me what type is the nozzle and cylinder head?

 

Thanks.

Edited by Killian
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Yeah hope they get them again soon!

Haven't seen or really heard anywhere else with them and Ive looked in a fair few sites.

 

If you can't wait though theres a guide for using the weight inside the piston as the spacer (using Tm in the guide) but you'll need to widen the hole and maybe add another washer or something... Ask Stealthbomber maybe.

 

 

Also collecting advice to fix the R85!

here

Edited by Domz
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I've got some got news for you, custom parts for Army L85A1 are coming ;) ...

I asked at a Czech custom shop (http://www.powerupgrade.cz) and they made a spacer for me, exactly the lenght I needed, made out of some durable plastic. And it was much cheaper than from redwolf. They told me that they are going to produce all the parts for the G&G and Army L85a1, mainly for the UK market.

 

They are going to make the cylinder head, which is a non-standard part (I couldn't find it anywhere) with a new cylinder, the piston head will be made a little wider than standard, because the cylinder in the Army model is a bit wider than normal cylinders (don't know why). Different pistons (the newest version has titanium coating on the teeth), nozzles, tappet plates will be also made. Don't know how much they are going to cost, but they have VERY reasonable prices on the parts they are selling now.

 

(check out the piston heads, cylinder heads, or a sector gear made of steel on a CNC machine. This is some serious high quality stuff, made to last. These are not parts for L85 but they will have similar items for the L85 soon in stock).

Edited by Killian
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Hi just got this gun today for the holidays. is there a sight with an indepth guide to taking this gun apart. I have it siting out in front of me "feild stripped" but I want to take the piston out so I can clean off some of the gears and see what I can do about reshimming them too. is there a link to an upgraded spring I could get? thanks very much.

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I've got some got news for you, custom parts for Army L85A1 are coming ;) ...

I asked at a Czech custom shop (http://www.powerupgrade.cz) and they made a spacer for me, exactly the lenght I needed, made out of some durable plastic. And it was much cheaper than from redwolf. They told me that they are going to produce all the parts for the G&G and Army L85a1, mainly for the UK market.

 

They are going to make the cylinder head, which is a non-standard part (I couldn't find it anywhere) with a new cylinder, the piston head will be made a little wider than standard, because the cylinder in the Army model is a bit wider than normal cylinders (don't know why). Different pistons (the newest version has titanium coating on the teeth), nozzles, tappet plates will be also made. Don't know how much they are going to cost, but they have VERY reasonable prices on the parts they are selling now.

 

(check out the piston heads, cylinder heads, or a sector gear made of steel on a CNC machine. This is some serious high quality stuff, made to last. These are not parts for L85 but they will have similar items for the L85 soon in stock).

 

 

this is good news. any chance on a price list for this?

 

also...please help me on this. i've taken apart the lower gearbox assembly many times and have tried to straighten out the trigger switch to try and fix the semi/auto malfunction. i can't do it. no matter what, the switch will not change to single shot. it's very frustrating.

 

i need to know what kind of switch this thing takes. there are a few available for generic m4 and m16's and ICS makes a switch assembly for the m4 series that is on sale for $21USD. would these things fit? if not, would your friends be able to make a switch for this based on the current R85 design and make it better so that it will consistently go from semi to auto?

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Hi just got this gun today for the holidays. is there a sight with an indepth guide to taking this gun apart. I have it siting out in front of me "feild stripped" but I want to take the piston out so I can clean off some of the gears and see what I can do about reshimming them too. is there a link to an upgraded spring I could get? thanks very much.

 

hi,

 

as far as i know (and i am on the web monitoring for R85 all the time) this is the only thread that addresses the Army R85 problems and the members have kindly shared all of their problems and solutions. there is not one site for it, although in the very near future, i may have a go at it because i have all the problems fixed except two. when i've got them all, perhaps i will post.

 

for reshimming ANY AEG, follow this chart: 21cashimguide.jpg

 

this chart is from 21st Century airsoft and is a must for anyone upgrading/reshimming their AEG. i have used it to with great results for quite a few of my AEGs -- now they fire more efficiently and handle high ROF extremely well. note: mind well the sizes of the shims and the order that they fit on the axles. this is very important. you can buy shim kits at any online store but make sure that they include the different sizes (2mm, 3mm, 5mm) or else this upgrade will not be possible.

 

for upgrading the spring: i strongly suggest that you downgrade the piston from the 19teeth to the 16teeth with the spacer (the upgrade is available on an earlier post of this thread). the reason is that if you want to upgrade the spring from it's current M100 to something higher like an M120, you will need a higher voltage battery, typically a 9.6V and the longer piston and sector gear simply will not handle the fast cycle rate given by that battery.

as a matter of fact, a few members have mentioned that a non-Army Armament battery that is 8.4V may be too strong for the stock piston. this means that the piston will get stripped and lose teeth and stops working.

 

my R85 blew up 15 minutes after i received it in the mail because i assumed that the stock piston/gear will handle a hotter battery. so then, after trying a replacement 19teeth piston with a non-Army Armament battery and seeing that explode, i decided to do the downgrade and now i have a high ROF with no problems using a 9.6V battery and an M120 spring.

 

 

 

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Still having issues with mine although unique to any i have read here.

 

Fires fine on semi auto, switch to full auto and it seems as though it is "over" selecting auto and will not fire properly. Repeated trigger pulls are required until it finaly gets off one full cycle and from then on it will work until i switch back to semi.

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Hi just got this gun today for the holidays. is there a sight with an indepth guide to taking this gun apart. I have it siting out in front of me "feild stripped" but I want to take the piston out so I can clean off some of the gears and see what I can do about reshimming them too. is there a link to an upgraded spring I could get? thanks very much.

 

 

Hi Adam

 

as this is a clone of the G&G SA80, Stealthbomber's guide for that weapon is probably a good source, here:

 

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/inde...st&id=25713

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I've found out something interesting today, it seems that Army made some changes to the latest batch of R85A1?

Someone posted this pictures of the internals of a stock R85A1 which he bought recently.

 

hlavapstu01br4rn7.th.jpg

:huh: Improved design, black plastic instead of white, added metal bushings.

 

The piston is also made of black plastic, but it broke anyway after few shots...

 

The spring guide is now made of black plastic instead of metal, but at least they kept the metal bushings...

trnpruinymm1jp6.th.jpg

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I am worried about the production of the spacer kit from redwolf. I sent them an email to find out the lead time to get the kits back in stock and was advised that they do not have an order for them. I really want this gun but if I can't get the spacer kit, I dont want to have to deal with stripped gears. Any additional info about the Czech source?

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Dunno site seems to be empty as yet, they're still starting up?

http://www.powerupgrade.cz/en/vzduchotechnika

 

As for Redwolf, they don't "have orders" because they're OUT OF STOCK!

We've got like 4 people on here alone complaining about them....

Edited by Domz
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Dunno site seems to be empty as yet, they're still starting up?

http://www.powerupgrade.cz/en/vzduchotechnika

 

As for Redwolf, they don't "have orders" because they're OUT OF STOCK!

We've got like 4 people on here alone complaining about them....

 

Hi Domz,

I am in contact with the owner of Powerupgrade.cz, the Czech version is fully updated but they are working on the English translation. It should be ready very soon.

 

They are going to sell whole "upgrade-sets" for the Army R85A1. The set will probably consist of precision made nozzle, cylinder head, cylinder, piston head, spacer, piston. It's almost ready. Of course, if you just need the spacer (along with a longer screw), you can just order the single part. The set might look like this one (this is for a M4), all parts are matched for perfect fit. Different pistons are avaiable (steel teeth, titanium teeth, polycarbonate..).

 

This stuff is something worth to look forward to ;) . I'll stay in contact with the manufacturer and I'll post updates soon.

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Ah good stuff ^_^

Hope it doesn't cost a bundle, where are they manufacturing/any guess as to cost?

 

Oh and yeah, asap, my L85 piston broke and I don't want to fix it then fix it again when better stuff comes out, plus firesupport is out of spacers so it's have to be a spare 19 tooth...

Edited by Domz
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I don't know the pricing of L85 parts yet, but the spacer with screw costs 4-5£, the whole set on the picture is about 41£ (I don't think you get cheaper parts made by a custom shop). I hope I did the currency conversion right :) . I asked and they told me that PayPal should be ready by the end of this week, so you might be maybe able to order it quite soon...

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I don't know the pricing of L85 parts yet, but the spacer with screw costs 4-5£, the whole set on the picture is about 41£ (I don't think you get cheaper parts made by a custom shop). I hope I did the currency conversion right :) . I asked and they told me that PayPal should be ready by the end of this week, so you might be maybe able to order it quite soon...

 

Would be good for someone to do a full conversion kit for it. Spacer / Piston / Head / Sector Gear all in one kit.

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