Standard measurement for accuracy
 

I was trying to find out where my Kraken stood in terms of its accuracy, and what barrel I could switch to. I found that most of the stuff on accuracy of various barrels is very subjective, based on the guy shooting by hand and the terms describing groupings and distance are pretty variable.

I also found that it's rather hit and miss with tightbores and stock barrels: the accuracy depends ultimately on the barrel itself, not the make of barrel. Some stock TM barrels outshot some tighbores in terms of accuracy, and some tighbores turn out to be lemons. Some other airsoft site said that the very used (many tens of thousands of bbs) stock barrels of any make are the most accurate, when they are highly cleaned.

I was wondering if there is some kind of standard measurement for accuracy for barrel/hop-up combinations? For example, a gun held on a vice or stand can shoot a grouping of X inches at X feet, with X brand of bbs. Such a standard would be useful. Then we would know if we have a duff barrel or if we got lucky and it's not worth switching to a tighbore, for example.

another question:
What grouping do stock Tokyo Marui AKs manage at 60 feet, gun held fixed firmly as possible, with good bbs? I am assuming TM barrels and hopups are at least fairly consistent in terms of QC, so they can reliably post results with a low standard deviation?

None exists as far as I know. Airsoft guns are so inherently innaccurate that it would almost be pointless. So many factors can screw with accuracy -weight of BB, hop-up, slight wind, etc. There are too many variables to try and compansate for to make a proper baseline. Add to that the fact that a certain barrel type might perform great in a stock gun but really shitty in the same gun with certain mods... it's just too much data you can't account for.

I think what we need to do is to formulate a standard whereby all accuracy tests are performed under. ie: distance, fps, performed indoors, bench rested, parts used in the setup, bb used, accurately measured groupings, etc... Then whack it into a spreadsheet and start overlapping the similarities between the tests. After a boatload of tests, data should start emerging where we can actually point to parts that are consistantly better than others. Wouldn't be too difficult, as it would only take a little while to do a gun with different bb's and/or weights. If enough people participated we'd have a ton of info really quick.

I agree. There must be enough people with access to an indoor range of up to 100 feet to make it possible to generate data. The data management would be a bit labour intensive, though.

Off the top of my head,
I would say 100' for most AEGs is getting toward the end of your effective range. 230' for most bolt rifles and semi-only upgraded AEGs. 300' for highly tuned bolt guns and this requires a fair amount of know how. A man sized target should be considered for these estimations. I am also assuming that hopup and BB weight is also correct.

TBBs can make a difference but hopup is where its at. TM, Prometheus and Firefly make great AEG hopups. TBBs can also be used to increase velocity as an alternative to upgrading a spring. Of course a spring will give you more control in obtaining a target FPS.

mateba

Yes, I forgot to mention weight of bbs. Or did you mean the bbs themselves vary?

If tests are performed indoors wind can be eliminated.

So you are suggesting it is better to just experiment with various parts combinations until you maximise the accuracy of your setup? It's hard to know what to upgrade to when a particular barrel that worked great for some guy does not do much for another.

Really, though, I think we can create a benchmark against which to measure your set up - some kind of golden standard - if a load of people did a 60 foot grouping test with a benched gun indoors with KSC 0.2s, we could see what individual gun had the best accuracy and what gun was the worst, and where our setup falls in the grand scheme.... sort of like a league table.

Also, some guns are inherently more accurate by design than others. A stock TM MP5 will always outshoot a stock TM Armalite, simply by the design and the way the inner barrel is held. Armalite is "held" at the hop up unit, between a spring in front of it, rails at the sides and the mechbox at the rear. And that's about it. MP5 is screwed to the body, is helf by a clamp in front of the body, then also held inside the muzzle, so it has three points of security vs. the single point of an Armalite.

Accuracy, I do it all at 30ft in my basement, is a pretty damn good way to do it too. If there is a tight group at 30ft, that will give an idea of tightness of your BBs at 100ft (remember, small things become large things). Some guns will make a CD sized grouping at 30ft (new G&P SPR for example) and others will put 5-6 semi shots into a 1" hole at that distance (my MP5s are an example, and a SIG 552 I recently installed a tightbore into).

And heavier BBs will always be more accurate too, even at said 30ft.

Thanks! so if you can land most shots at 100 feet into a man sized target I guess that's good enough.

Now I'm getting somewhere! that data is golden, thanks Stalker. I did some tests at 30 feet in my basement, and found a 1 inch grouping was easy to achieve even aiming by hand, not benched. I don't think I need to upgrade, then.

My only reservation is that with my gas/spring pistols I notice they can be incredibly accurate at around 25 feet, but beyond 80 or so they veer off to one direction - so I was not so sure accuracy at 30 = accuracy at 100.

EDIT: offhand exaggeration. it was more like 2 inches, I just measured.

Taken from modern firearms here
There is a technical measurement of accuracy, but in airsoft the MOA will be much larger, tightbores will decrease that value, as would longer barrels.

When it comes to GBBs the ammo weight is key. I've gotten kills at 140ft with my G19, propane and 0.43g BBs. yes I had to aim for the head to hit th echest, but those AEGs users were embarrassed to run AEG vs. GBB with me. List is long and dignified actually. Lol

Mostly I use 0.28g to 0.30g for my GBBs, have outlined the many reasons why, and many have benefitted from it and follow it themselves.

Regarding the above post, is rather pointless to compare real steel ballistics with airsoft ballistics. for most airsoft guns, 100ft would be less than similar to 300 yards with real steel. My 500fps tuned sniper rifle with good ammo and no wind conditions (like indoors) can hit a piece of paper 8 times out of 10 using 0.30g BBs. No lie, airsoft sniper rifles tend to have greater "shit luck factor" than AEGs do, simply because you are shooting one shot. Mother Nature largely decides where the BB hits, nothing you can do changes that, and that gap increases with the range. 300ft kill? Shit luck, period, unless you are using a 700fps rifle. Others will argue with me, but I have little to brag about (way I am) I prefer to tell it like it is.

Do rifled barrels exist for Airsoft?

They have proven worthy in the paintball world...

It does not matter if you have the best barrel on the market , it has to do with the play or user behind the AEG. MasterGoa You are refering to a company call Armson bast in South Africa then moved to the UK and now owned by Pro Team Products., I was involve in the development of the 3 types of barrels, that were made, over the yrs we had done tests and tests, what we found was that Paintballs in there nature were bad due to them having a seem and that there were 2 types of fluid base that effected the ball flight , so to control the flght we tried different thing in the end and by pure chance we discoverd that if you start with a gentel rifling moving to the end of the barrel ending in arresive twist we could control the ball, this we improved in late 2002 with the tight bore and venting.Also the 3rd barrel was we call straight Rifling barrel with a 2 piece step tight barrel .
hope that helps :D

but that deals with a vortex