King Arms Version 3: Do I dare use it stock?
 

Hi, I'm not a really a 'n00b' with gearboxes, I'm just not fully educated on the best fitment/setup. I already know the basics, etc. etc. I just have a question about a piston head/cylinder head configuration used in a pre-assembled King Arms (which I now think was a mistake) version 3 gearbox. They happened to use a metal piston head (from what I know can be hard on a gearbox) with a silenced cylinder head, which of course is SUPPOSED to be matched with a silenced or rubber-head piston head to fit in the whole of the cyl. head.

My question is: How much damage would this pre-assembled setup do to the gearbox as a whole? Is it even safe to fire a few shots to try it before I do change the cylinder setup??

That's a whack set-up! King Arms sold it to you like that?!

In short, I'd recommend changing it right away, not just to ensure nothing breaks, but also because you'll get low performance out of the gearbox with that set-up.

King Arms V3 gearboxes are ok in general, but because of their construction (crappy zinc alloy metal, to my knowledge) they don't stand up to abuse very much. If the system is perfectly tuned, you should be golden, but with that set up it sounds like it might not have sufficent padding on the cylinder head to take repeated impact from the piston head. Also depends on the strength of your spring too.

Silent piston head usually only have that crappy rubber ring, if any padding at all, to protect them. They don't stand up to much punishment.

v3s rarely if ever crack the front off... that's a v2 issue. In fact I've never heard of a v3 having a front failure like a v2 does. That's really the only concern with poorly chosen front ends. They're also louder. Sometimes you might get a metal piston head on a plastic cylinder head and it may bash the cylinder head to pieces, but again, that's likely not going to happen immediately unless you're really unlucky.

If you're not sure about changing it, just run it.