Philbucknall Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Well it looks good and has a good weight to it but after that it is all down hill! i don't have any photos yet, but will take some at the weekend. The finish isn't awful but there is a brownish substance that is obviously the glue used to join the two resin halves together along the seams and its clearly visible, which does detract from it's overall performance. It comes with a valve key and some thick silicon oil and good instructions, I'll grant you and these are reproduced on the side of the grenade to aid your memory when out in the field. to use it you have to depress the valve using the provided key and insert the pin in one of 2 holes. these holes allegedly relate to the different fuse times 1.5s or 3s. you remove the little rubber plug on the top of the grenade and then fill with propane in the valve at the bottom. once gassed up fill the BB channels with a speedloader and screw the bottom plate on. You now have an armed grenade. Now I tried this grenade with propane as recommended by the manufacturer and i kept it in my pocket for 30 mins to warm it up. i set the fuse to 1.5secs; pulled the pin out and legged it! 90 seconds later nothing had happened. I tried again after it finally went off over 5 minutes later. I added some extra oil to the valve mechanism as suggested and thought round two! guess what same again!! You would have time to build a shelter - a nice one at that, whilst cooking a meal and then casually throwing it back and walking off into the sunset. Would i recommend it? are you serious do you need to ask?! NO £70 wasted is the best way to end this review. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
meppie Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 (edited) I agree with MonekyBoy regarding the recommendation: Got the same problem in the field. But at that time everybody using gas was having problems. It is damn cold these days and not recommended to use gas operated replicas. When I was using it in a more properly heated area it was working fine but not as fast as I was hoping for (5-10 seconds). But I have to admit the AI should do something about the coating of the metal parts inside the grenade. This will make the parts slide more easily or you have to use all this oil. But the entire loading and maintenance sequence is quite long, it takes me more time to prepare a grenade then to load a magazine for my P226. My recommendation: great grenade if it goes. The problem is however is that the timing when the grenade goes of is rather random/unreliable. It gives you the old-fashioned grenadier feeling again except that it probably will not go off in your hand. So I will still give it a few tries and hope that in warmer weather the grenade is functioning properly. Edited January 9, 2009 by meppie Quote Link to post Share on other sites
poison123 Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 All 3 of my buddies work perfectly fine. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
meppie Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 All 3 of my buddies work perfectly fine. In that case I am curious: Do you know if he did something special with them? Does he do any maintenance with them? Where in the US are you guys playing? This in regard of temp etc. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
poison123 Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 In that case I am curious: Do you know if he did something special with them? Does he do any maintenance with them? Where in the US are you guys playing? This in regard of temp etc. Does nothing special that the directions don't outline. We're in Atlanta Ga. So hot during the sum and 60's during the winter. I'm willing to bet its a climate issue for yours....or they are just bad. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
nelly the jelly Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 My tornado grenade was great in the beginning but soon it turned pants. It stripped the thread off the end cap when it blew it off and sent the grenade flying into the air. I bought another one from AI (who's customer service is brilliant) along with other spare parts. It then managed to blow the fill valve straight out and stripped the thread. Now the grenade is useless. I should have known from past experience that you should not mix metal parts with plastics threads. When it worked it was awesome and as described. I might try and see if I can mod it a bit and get it back working in the future. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Philbucknall Posted January 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 I am sure there have been more people with duff grenades rather than fully functioning ones. I agree that their customer support is good - I wouldn't go so far as to say excellent as I am still stuck with a grenade that even when used as prescribed doesn't work as it should do and that was before it even got cold. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AustinWolv Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 I've had 5 of these. 3 work perfectly. 1 worked fine, but some tolerance different in the shuttle made the fuse delay much longer than it should have been, so I sold it. The other one had a leaky valve that AI sent me FREE parts to fix, and I've since given it to a teammate to replace one of his that was lost at Op: Irene. It works perfectly after the parts replacement, but he hasn't played in months so it is just sitting around. They have worked incredibly well during skirmishes and ops, including using them at Op: Irene and Op: Bulldog this past fall. I personally cleared out an entire first floor of ~6 people in two connected rooms using them, allowing the squad to take over the building. They have not been used extensively however since we play more woodlands/outdoors than CQB/MOUT due to local field facilities. In other words, it isn't like I've been using them every week. One skirmish deployment per month on average would be reasonable, along with a couple plinking deployments per month also. There is simply no other grenade product that works as well to eliminate targets as these. They are not 'duff' and they work as advertised, but YES, SOME do have problems and they are NOT monkey-proof user-friendly, as they do take some care and knowledge to make work if they aren't working correctly out of the box. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Philbucknall Posted January 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Well i followed the advice given to me by their customer services dept and it still performs woefully. they most definitely are not user friendly and AustinWolv - I can assure you mine does not work as advertised it is duff unless of course you are implying that i am lying. Care and attention is all my grenade has received and yet it still fails to work. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AustinWolv Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Which means something is wrong with it. Did I say otherwise? Did I call you a liar? No. I said that there is a sample size that shows they do work and they work wonderfully. Yours doesn't. Badger AI to help you or to replace it. Just because YOURS doesn't work doesn't mean they ALL don't work. Hence, the product is not 'duff', just yours. Unless you are doing something wrong. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. I don't have proof either way, and there have been plenty of times that people have told me they are doing something correctly when in fact they weren't. The point is: Badger AI and get their support. Or the retailer you bought it from. Not fun, I know, but at least you'll get a product that works. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
meppie Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 AustinWolvy - ty for the first answers. Temperature could be: the moment I got them it was below 10 degrees celcius. After that the temperature only dropped so I did not had a real good chance of testing them. Except for using the silicone oil for maintenance do you know whether there is a trouble-shoot guide on how to fix them? Bought mine from UNCompany. Where did you bought yours? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AustinWolv Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Bought a couple directly from AI and then the others from Kastway in the US. If you are having issues with a grenade, take a look at the bottom of this page at the videos: http://www.airsoft-innovations.com/nadeart4.html Quote Link to post Share on other sites
meppie Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 AustinWolvy - thank you for that link. I will have some mayor maintenance on the grenades and then we will see if it works. First I have to wait till the winter has passed us. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
govtcheez Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 How long ago did you guys who claimed that their customer service was good contact them? After about 20 days, my Tornado stopped working so I contacted AI. My first email was responded to right away and they claimed that they would repair or replace it. Then they asked me a few questions and when I answered them (I followed directions) their emails to me stopped. No responses at all, even after a number of attempts. I got sick of it and found out a way to repair it myself, but their customer service is so terrible, I am boycotting all of their products. I recently had to buy a new propane adapter and went with a competitors after having used nothing but their products. I am telling everyone I know to not buy their products because of their shoddy customer service. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AustinWolv Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 The last time was something this past fall....October perhaps? Can't recall exactly. Maybe something has happened since then.....it is not a large operation the best I can tell. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
The Saint Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 I got sick of it and found out a way to repair it myself, but their customer service is so terrible, I am boycotting all of their products. I recently had to buy a new propane adapter and went with a competitors after having used nothing but their products. I am telling everyone I know to not buy their products because of their shoddy customer service. Do you enjoy getting righteously indignant at one of the smallest airsoft manufacturers in the world? Airsoft Innovations is a very, very small number of people, of course not everyone is going to get served equally quickly. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WhutJP Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 I would put most of your problems down to temperature. Right now at about 5 degrees C the timer takes ages and has little power (hfc) But if i fill it up and sit it next to the heater to warm it for a few minutes it works just fine. So perhaps we can conclude that this is (like GBB pistols) a non-winter airsoft weapon? I wonder if you use propane the grenade made for hfc gas in the winter if it works as it should. I cant get propane here in japan but someone should try. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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