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Which lube, grease or silicone, for the cylinder/piston interface?


Tommygunn

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I stripped the cylinder and piston of my CA M24 today to inspect it and give it a clean.

 

I left the spring, spring guide and piston internal suface greased but I decided to use HPI 40 weight silicone oil (RC car shock absorber oil) for the mating surface of the piston and cylinder thinking that the oil would be more fluid than smeared grease.

 

However, I chronoed the rifle today and it appears to have lost about 10fps since the other day. It was about 500fps and now it is shooting consistantly around 490fps or thereabouts.

 

Is there an explanation?

 

Tom.

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I'm pretty sure that the greasing of the outside of the cylinder wouldn't affect the fps very much, if at all, due to it not really having anything to do with the air seal, only the smoothness of the bolt pull.

 

Your spring may have just lost some of it's tension, or some other logical reason

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Dan B,

You have misread the title and my post. I said I have used oil instead of grease to lubricate the piston against the inside of the cylinder wall i.e. the cylinder/piston interface or mating suface.

I made no mention of lubing the outside of the cylinder, although I do that to promote smooth action when cocking.

 

Lightbulb,

Never needed to. The o-ring(s) of the cylinder head/nozzle are in excellent shape and are well lubed up to keep them sealed and in good nick.

I could try the teflon tape trick I suppose.

 

Tom.

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Lightbulb,

I just tried the teflon tape and it made no difference to what I was previously experiencing.

 

I just took the rifle apart and cleaned out the oil and replaced with grease and I'm pretty much getting the same results but with quite a bit of variance. I'm sure I was getting the fps variance before I switched to oil as well.

 

I fired about 15 shots that gave me random fps readings of the following values:

 

0.2g BB

483fps - one or two times

490 to 495fps - a few

499fps - once

509fps - at least twice.

 

Is it normal to get random fps results in near specific values?

Does that seem a normal variance on the values?

It's the high and low values which are most bothersome, or rather I would like to have the rifle shooting at the 500/510fps mark.

 

Tom.

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How many rounds have you fired between applying lube and chrono'ing? Could be that any excess grease around the piston is getting fired through into the hop/barrel - Try firing say 100-200 rounds, clean the barrel and hop and air nozzle thoroughly and give it another go?

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I've got the grease issue covered and made sure I've not been excessive, mostly greasing behind the piston o-ring. I've also checked each time I've taken it down in the past day or so and no grease is being spat through, hop and barrel are clean.

 

I have actually put in a fibre and nylon washer on the spring guide, about 3mm in total, to slightly tension the spring. Here are the results for five shots on a 0.2g bb.

 

505fps

501fps

504fps

498fps

506fps

 

That'll do for me!

 

I'll put it down to the rifle and spring being 8 years old.

 

Tom.

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