Hop Up Shenanigans

[Flaming Salami]

This past July, I purchased an A&K Masada from Airsoftdepot.ca. It arrived in a short time, with no problems at all. I took it out to a friends house and gave it a shooting test. I fired a few hundred rounds and noticed that the bb's were only travelling about 50ft before dropping dramatically. When I adjusted it from one extreme to the other, there was no apparant change.

A month later I finally was able to take it out to a skirmish. Unfortunately the hop up stayed the exact same and I had to compensate for it. Either I had to get up real close, or I had to arc my shots by aiming very high. The gun chrono'd at 330fps with 0.25's. The box said it shoots 380-400 with .20's, but I have learned to not trust anything the box says.

Again I took the gun to a skirmish and the range issue was really starting to get to me. Since my other guns are still waiting for me to fix them, I was reluctant to open this gun and see what the issue really was. So it was decision time... do I buy the wii tech hop up, or do I fix it myself?

I researched how to fix it and decided it would be cheap and easy to do it by myself. Oh boy, now came the nightmare. Luckily the quick barrel change feature helped reduce a lot of stress here, but the situation looked grim. I took the barrel out and looked down the hop up end. I turned the hop up to the lowest position (there is no lump pushing on the bb) and I could see straight down the barrel. Then I turned the hop up all the way up and looked down, again for some odd reason there was no lump. So I pushed really hard on the arm that pushes the nub into the barrel. Yet again no small lump!!

I took out the entire unit and noticed two things. First off, the entire unit was cracked at the front and the plastic clamp attaching it to the barrel was snapped in half (I only fielded this gun twice). Second, and quite possibly the most bizzare issue I've ever seen, was that the nub that pushes down onto the hop up rubber was non-existent. By non-existent I mean IT WASN'T THERE! There was a space for it (sealed in so that it couldn't fall out) but it wasn't in there! Now I discovered why I had no range, there was no spin on the bb whatsoever.

So I used a toothpick wrapped in heatshrink as my new hop up nub. After 15mins of cutting it to the right size and fitting it in perfectly, I finally was able to reassemble the barrel. That night I did a short range test and concluded that it didn't jam the barrel with my new piece inside. The next day I did a long range test and was very shocked when the gun fired and additional 150ft! Now my gun finally has range (around 200ft give or take) that can be used outdoor! Next time I go to a field I will chrono it and see if my piece made a difference.

The problem didn't take long to fix, but it was the most bizzare problem I have ever seen with a gun since I started playing airsoft!

[Reaver_RRTS]

Lmao I had a similar issue with my G&G GR25. Got it, wanted to check the internals and pulled the barrel out and hop up unit etc.. put it all together and went out for a game and realized it had no range. Took it apart and the barrel wasn't installed correctly so the nub wasn't able to activate due to it pressing on the actual barrel itself instead of the slot with the bucking! Talk about a goof up. Glad you fixed it!

Mind keeping me updated on the A&K Masada? I was contemplating on purchasing one in the future

[lurkingknight]

the hopup unit is really the only weakness of the a&k masada, yours is not the first to arrive from factory like that... wiitech's metal unit makes it a very viable gun to field once you replace the hopup.

A bunch of gun makers have sub par hopup parts, assembly or buckings from factory. I just serviced a gun that was severely overhopping from the box even with 0 hop set, it was so dramatic that the gun lost 30fps at 0 hop and the BBs still went to the moon.

[pestobanana]

A&K Masadas are generally pieces of crap. Last one i worked on had a cracked air nozzle. I can't imagine how shitty that clear plastic has to be for something like an air nozzle break.