why not pressurised air?

[Caldymoose]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Pretty much for the point above.... realism is a big one, the ability to drop the gun if you need with no connections (I'm ignoring a sling here) and such.

One of the lead marshals/techs at my site comes from a paintball background, and he is currently making an air rig, to run off a normal paintball air tank, to run his pistols off. QD connector onto the mags and such. Will ONLY be used (before anybody says anything! haha!) for private games between marshals that we do sometimes. Full 50 round mag with strong blowback on each shot? Hell yeah....1911 with a nice big recoil spring? Awesome....

[Ben_almighty]

Re: why not pressurised air?

With the number of M4s we have running around, surely there's room in buffer tubes. I think it could be a goer. Obviously small quantities though. How long would a buffer tube full last?

after seeing the idea behind the marui m870 i would be interested to see if the same thing could be done with a full stock m4, then you could have a gas m4 that takes aeg mags!
theres a market gap to fill with this guys, someone make it for me! :3

[Stealthkiller]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Polar star is ok for support gunners or fixed mg nest guns , but on an aeg , no thanks . I like my guns to fire at realistic Rof and most battery setups can replicate this reliably without the need for hoses and external air cylinders .
I remember borrowing a mates old pre marui aug for a day and found it to be cumbersome and restrictive not to mention heavy running around with the cylinder and valve / hose . Polar star do have a place in Airsoft but to be honest its not for me. .

[Heinz]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Polar star is ok for support gunners or fixed mg nest guns , but on an aeg , no thanks . I like my guns to fire at realistic Rof and most battery setups can replicate this reliably

Really? You can run at "realistic" ROFs for different guns just by changing the battery setups? Wow, you must tell me where you found that 7.325v pack so I can run an MP40 at a real-deal 500rpm.

[Stealthkiller]

Re: why not pressurised air?

With the correct gearing, battery , motor , MOSFET most Rof can be replicated within reason , including burst fire etc .

[Heinz]

Re: why not pressurised air?

So now it's gearing, motor and MOSFET as well as the battery. That's just a little more than changing the battery

The joy of the Polar* system, is that I can just dial the ROF straight into the FCU should I so choose (slightly academic though, as mine is set up for Semi only as a DMR)

[Stealthkiller]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Can the polar star system do 3 / 4 round burst fire . ?
Also in a confined cqb situation or heavy woodland the hose and tank become a snagging problem ,
Also if you want to put down a gun you have to disconnect the tank , gun. , hose from yourself . Wheras with an aeg its more realistic in use . Maybe if I wanted to do a flame thrower load out it would seem more realistic having a cylinder on my back .
With battery setups I meant battery operated aeg setups , not battery changes
Also polar star is wide open to abuse by people wishing to exceed fps. Limits on site .
I tried it many years ago and found it quite restrictive to movement .and not very realistic to look at .

[FireKnife]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Because this is not paintball? That pretty much sums it up for me.

We want realistically sized guns that have the entire system contained within a (as near as possible) 1:1 sized package, not a hose and a hopper sticking out. One of the advantages of the system is that we fire small rounds and so can have realistic enough magazines changes etc but by adding a can and a hose that would remove the reason that many people do the hobby over the likes of paintball (potential start up costs too but that is another issue).

This is a bit like asking 'why not just use a crossbow for archery practice', yes the system is more efficient but it isn't as fun / realistic / interesting and that is what pulls people in.

Also one big issue would be the ease of changing FPS. Sure 95% of us would use it for when the day is colder and harsher on the expanding gas / air but that little 5% would use it to get the FPS down for the chrono and then up for the rest of the game. Typical small minority spoiling for the large majority is another reason, much harder to do with AEGs, even the quick spring ones are a bugger to do in the field etc.

'FireKnife'

[Heinz]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Yes Stealth, you can set the FCU up for burst fire (up to 9 rounds per burst). As to putting the gun down, all I do is pull the self-sealing QD from the airline, which takes milliseconds to do - you dont need to dismount the tank and airline from your rig. With regards to the "wide open to abuse" comment, you can say the same about ANY gun with a quick change spring or cylinder. Would you ban P/C/D TW's, ICS M4's, the vast majority of Ares guns, WE Katana's? (plus numerous others) - as all are open to abuse by arseholes who won't play the game in the way it's supposed to be!

FireKnife, as someone who is a big user of GBB pistols, you know how easy it is to change the FPS in a pistol. Simply slip out the magazine filled with 134a and slide the one with either Red or Green gas into the gun instead. On a summer's day, many pistols will happily pass the chrono check in the morning, but wouldn't when the ambient temperature heats up.....

[FireKnife]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Actually I find it rare that for many outdoor games that FPS in a GBB pistol reaches high enough to cause an issue and not consistently anyway.

The few times it has the gun either failed spectacularly or it resfused to cycle and jammed up. Now as much as people like to cheat they are also oddly the ones that moan too much when kit goes wrong and thus don't want to damage their own gun. Thus it is rare that with a GBB pistols it is done or even capable. However with rifles and NBB guns the potential is much, much greater. But my point about it being another system to abuse is in general, my main point about why not is that this is airsoft, not paintball and the AEG is a time proven platform that really can be made to outclass its tank and hose rivals while also not having the massive tank attacked to you too.

Why fix that which is not broken? It isn't like GBBR over AEG where you have the realism argument as the tank instantly takes all that away.

'FireKnife'

[RedHawk]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Can the polar star system do 3 / 4 round burst fire . ?

Yup, you can change both the semi and full auto selector options to being anything from 1 round burst (semi) up to 9 round burst.

Also in a confined cqb situation or heavy woodland the hose and tank become a snagging problem

Been using mine for 8/9 months now and haven't had that problem. The hose can be tucked in close to your person (if you have the common sense to think of such an audacious idea).

Also if you want to put down a gun you have to disconnect the tank , gun. , hose from yourself

Wrong. Only need to disconnect the gun. Reconnecting takes about 2 seconds.

Wheras with an aeg its more realistic in use . Maybe if I wanted to do a flame thrower load out it would seem more realistic having a cylinder on my back .

We're talking about a game where we pretend to be soldiers running around with toy guns. An AEG is (if anything) less realistic as at least the Polar Star uses a compressed gas to shoot the projectile. An AEG does not use a compressed gas.

Also polar star is wide open to abuse by people wishing to exceed fps. Limits on site .

Can be done with any quick change spring system - APS UAR (don't say it's hard to, I own one and I routinely change springs for CQB and woodland use), ICS split gearbox, PTW etc.
You can also cheat by doing this nifty trick of using *shock* heavier BBs.
Perhaps we should ban airsoft all together, because at most sites there is some form of cheating - non hit taking, being medic'd more than once...

I tried it many years ago and found it quite restrictive to movement .and not very realistic to look at .

Well you obviously didn't use it properly. And if you're talking about many years ago, I highly doubt it was a Fusion Engine. These things are relatively new on the scene - Polar Star Airsoft itself was only created in 2009.
People do the old time classic of judging a book by it's cover. Your argument is not based on any proper experience and your points represent this fact.

As I said, the only main barrier that stops the widespread use of HPA is the high cost and the tank/hose (purely aesthetics, as above it can be tucked in so it doesn't snag).

I welcome anyone who sees me at a site to come and have ago shooting it. Nine times out of ten people love the trigger response and think that the benefits outweigh the negatives.

the AEG is a time proven platform that really can be made to outclass its tank and hose rivals while also not having the massive tank attacked to you too.

3/10, made me giggle. Come back to me when you've run a million rounds through your 40 RPS AEG without having to replace anything, because my Polar Star can and all I need to do is lube it.

[Stealthkiller]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Maybe technology has improved , my experience was with a fifteen year old aug connected to a regulator and an air cylinder and more recently with a minigun connected the same way + two motorcycle type battery's . . Also got to use a strafer last year which I found to be fun but more paintballesque than Airsoft gun in use. can only state my honest experiences of using an air / cylinder powered Airsoft gun .

[RedHawk]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Of course technology has improved. Escort guns of the 1990's are still being used as the basis for the Daytona guns, but the Polar Star Fusion engine is a completely new design.

It was created by people who wanted a more efficient airsoft gun. To deny that the Fusion Engine is less efficient than an AEG would be stupid.

I've used AEGs for over 5 years and I've had 9 months use of my Polar Stars. I'm in one of the best situations to decide which system is better. As I've previously said I still enjoy using AEGs, I hold no elitism over the use of my Polar Star. It is simply another tool that allows me to play the game. I'll do it with a pistol, a marksman rifle, a shotgun or a rubber knife. Both systems have benefits and disadvantages, and both have areas in which they excel and fail in.

This argument is no different to AEGs vs GBBRs, spring shotguns vs gas shotguns, AEPs vs gas pistols, spring sniper rifles vs gas sniper rifles vs electric sniper rifles.

Airsoft is your own game. It's our personal preferences on gear, guns and tactics. If the site I'm playing at lets me use my Polar Star then I'll play it in accordance to their rules. I don't judge you on the field by your gear or gun, only by how good a team player you are. If you want to avoid me because I use a Polar Star, you'll be waiting a while for me to care.

[Lt3033]

Re: why not pressurised air?

I also think people are not understanding the size of the bottle, it's not huge, its will easily go in a small hydration backpack and as for the hose you can get ones that are coiled like a spring and keep them selfs nicely tucked away even when attached but don't effect you when moving the weapon around.

Personally I don't think a hardly noticeable pipe is a problem with realism and you can can get camo pipe covers to match your kit so it blends in even better, the Quick detach hose connector is also very easy and fast to use, makes putting your gun down while climbing through a window hardly a problem.

[Ells]

Re: why not pressurised air?

Anyone thought of running a rig from the polarstar into a mock grenade launcher?