How I fixed my Well MB03

[t-j-b]

Hey all,

I bought a cheapie Well MB03 VSR clone to see if I liked sniping enough to spend more £££. I was pleased with my purchase as the Well had half decent build quality for the price, seems you get a lot of gun for £70.

Power was almost spot on 500fps with 0.20's but the accuracy was a bit off. Grouping OK but always curving to the left. I played for a bit by twisting the rifle but this got frustrating.

Here's a list of mods I made to get it shooting straight:

1. stripped down completely and barrel properly cleaned

2. wrapped the barrel in tape to create a good bushing and ensure it's centered

3. shimmed the hop up arm by wrapping the last 1/6 past the arms with plumbers tape

    this method prevents the full range of hop up but I can still lift 0.45's with it

4. ground the hop up arms to ensure both arms were equal heights, astonishingly one side was a mm or so longer

    this had the biggest effect

Hope this helps some of you with the curvy Well MB03's!

 

[Rogerborg]

Super, thanks, I'm thinking of getting one myself.

3. shimmed the hop up arm by wrapping the last 1/6 past the arms with plumbers tape

    this method prevents the full range of hop up but I can still lift 0.45's with it

Can you expand on this a bit?  I'm not sure what exactly you're wrapping here.

Also, are you running the stock hop rubber?

 

[t-j-b]

Yeah sure, I've attached a really bad quality image to illustrate what I mean.

The red section is where I wrapped plumbers tape. Just enough so when installed there is no movement laterally. You don't want to much tape otherwise the hopup unit won't reassemble flush.

I'm using stock rubber atm. I tried Maple Leaf autobot rubber but it seemed to big for my hopup unit and I was shooting around 50 fps lower. Something just didn't seem right about it so I put the old rubber back in. Luckily it still works perfectly even though I removed the barrel bridge to fit the Maple Leaf.

Hope that helps you Rogerborg

View attachment 32771

 

[Rogerborg]

Brilliant, thanks, that is very helpful.  I see the point of shimming the end of arm rather than letting it wobble around, great idea.

I was swithering over ordering a Maple Leaf but it sounds like might as well give it a try as stock first, with those basic mods.

Oh, what hardness of bucking did you try?  I've seen it suggested that the recommended 70 degree is too hard and requires so much pressure to impart spin that it will indeed reduce performance.  If I do try one, I'll probably go for a softer 60.

 

[t-j-b]

I can't seem to find out from eBay which one I bought but I think it was a harder one, possibly even 80. The problem for me was the bucking didn't sit properly in the hopup unit like the bucking that came with the rifle. I'll probably end up trying an Action Army bucking soon, I'll post the results when I do.

Out of interest which rifle do you have? Is it your first sniper? I read some discouraging comments about sniping that nearly stopped me buying one but I'm glad I did it's an absolute blast having that extra range and accuracy, ive had my most satisfying kills behind the scope

 

[Rogerborg]

I've just ordered an MB-03 from Taiwangun.  I get that the hop unit isn't VSR compatible (probably why the Maple Leap isn't a good fit), but at just £56 with 3 mags included, I couldn't find a reason not to get one. Plus, I enjoy fettling things, so even if it turns into a project gun, I'll still be grinning.

 

[t-j-b]

I didn't know the hopup unit wasn't VSR compatible but that makes sense, the Maple Leaf bucking was a little bulkier and wouldn't work with a bridged barrel. With a little modification I bet I could make it fit but as things are working sweet atm I'll leave it!

That's a great price, I paid about £70 for mine. Yeah for that price it can be an experiment! Post back any mods you make and let us know how sucessful you've been

 

[Rogerborg]

Will do.  I was initially planning just what you've done: clean, shim, and have a look at the hop arm to check that it's snug and square, then see how it performs as stock.  Oh, maybe teflon tape the bucking.

Mid term, I'm thinking of slinging in a short Crazy Jet barrel and chopping the outer barrel down to effectively create an MB-02, which is what I'd have had if GunFire could keep them in stock.

I'll see how the stock hop and rubber perform.  I'm surprised but pleased to hear yours is lifting 0.45g, you see all sorts of nay-saying about stock hops only being good for 0.3 or so.  Sadly my local site has just gone bio so I've got a fairly limited choice, and I reckon that BBs will be a lot more important than for spraying and praying with an AEG.  I've ordered some Geoff's 0.43g and 0.36g bios and worse case if it's not wanting to lift them, I'll have to drop back to 0.3g from the site shop.

This is all speculation at this point, it's still with UPS rather than in my sweaty mitts.  Hopefully I'll be able to give it a try this weekend and see if all the dire warnings about cheap snipers are more accurate than the guns.

 

[Rogerborg]

I'd tell you to grow up, but then I remembered that we're discussing playing with toy guns. :lol:

 

[Rogerborg]

MB-03 obtained, and good gracious, it's a solid beast.  To be honest I was expecting something more plasticy at that price but there's a fair amount of metal in there, including everything in the trigger box as far as I can tell.  The only notable piece of plastic is the piston, which might not last too long with the metal sear, but I'll give it a chance rather than replacing it pre-emptively.

There really wasn't much to do to it without test shooting: teflon wrapped the piston nozzle threads, taped up some barrel spacers (there was a single novelty plastic spacer half way down) and cleaned the barrel.  I couldn't detect any lateral wiggle in the hop arm but I'll keep an eye on that.  Even the piston o-ring was good and loose already, and the piston slide was well lubed.

It's so hefty that the lad - who's finally shown an interest -  was finding it a bit of a struggle, so I reckon I'll go ahead with the plan to cut down the outer barrel (that spacer will make a handy new tip) and fit a shorter tightbore.  I may even shorten the stock down a bit, but I'll give it a try, heh, as stock first though.

Fun times ahead.

 

[Rogerborg]

Little BUMP, I just tried the MB-03 this Sunday, and wouldn't you know it, mine curves fairly consistently to the right. :lol:

I didn't chrono with 0.2s, but was only getting 280fps with 0.4s, just 1.46J or about 395fps with 0.2s.  That's actually close to the 400fps GunFire reckons it should be as stock, rather than the 470fps claimed by TaiwanGun, which I was a bit suspect about.  Maybe they come with random springs.  Either way, the effective range was less than an AEG, which is as expected.  It's about the process, not the result.

Well, let's get going.  M150 spring/piston/guide, metal hop arm, and a 6.03mm inner barrel are on their way.  I'll stick with the stock bucking for now and see how I get on.

 

[Rogerborg]

The new spring and piston are in and the pull is much heavier than the stock spring that was in it.  Unless they're shipping with different springs, I can't see how it could be close to 500fps as stock.

The new metal Airsoft-Pro hop arm has a long flat "nub" rather than the widely spaced fangs on the stock arm, so I'm not sure how that'll work with the stock bumpy rubber. It feels like it's exerting a lot of pressure even with the minimum hop on and I'm guessing it's designed to be used with a flat hop with no bump.  I'll find out tomorrow, and might just file a U into it if over-hops.

However, I also discovered that the inner barrel has loads of rotation in it, like 20 degrees, even when clamped in the hop unit.  There's a rubber bar on the side of the stock nub that fits in a slot in the hop unit, but it's only very approximate.  That might explain the consistent curve, if the inner barrel and hop rubber are skewed. I've PTFE wrapped the barrel so that I can clamp it in the unit more tightly, but it's largely guesswork whether it's totally vertical.

But then that aggravates the second issue: the metal arm, unlike my stock plastic one, has lots of lateral slop in it, exactly as @t-j-b said.  So now I've got a big teflon bell-end on mine too.

 

[Rogerborg]

The new metal Airsoft-Pro hop arm has a long flat "nub" rather than the widely spaced fangs on the stock arm, so I'm not sure how that'll work with the stock bumpy rubber. It feels like it's exerting a lot of pressure even with the minimum hop on and I'm guessing it's designed to be used with a flat hop with no bump.

Yup, comically over-hopped.  0.4s were heading for orbit even with the lever on minimum.  I'll have to file it down.

This one:

https://gunfire.pl/product-eng-1152208718-Reinforced-Hop-Up-Lever-for-Well-MB-Replicas.html

I've not idea what they were thinking putting a "nub" that long on it.

 

[Rogerborg]

I guess this is as good a thread as any to warn about this spring and piston kit:

https://gunfire.pl/product-eng-1152197547-MB02-MB03-replica-tune-up-kit.html

" The whole set allows to upgrade the replica up to the muzzle velocity of  about 500FPS. "

Well, maybe with 0.3s!  I fitted it, PTFE sealed my nozzle and did some chrono shots with the Geoff's 0.4g [CORRECTION - 0.43g] that I was intending to use.  It came out consistently at about 434fps.  That's 3.5J 3.75J, so congratulations, GunFire, I now have a lethal barreled firearm.  I didn't try with 0.2g, but even with hand waving over Joule creep, it would be well in excess of 600fps.

OK, I can cut the spring down, but it's way, way over what they claim.

 

[t-j-b]

Rogerborg, thanks for keeping us updated with your build!

I'm sure quality control is non-existent at the lower end of the market, as I mentioned in my first post my Well was hitting almost 500fps out of the box, how can it be you're getting such wildly different numbers with the same gun?  

Have you tried filing down the stock hopup arm to make sure the H nub is even? That seemed to work for me. Accuracy is pretty good with the odd flier I'm putting down to a poor quality barrel.

Keep up updated with how the build is going...

 

[Rogerborg]

Well, thanks for starting the thread and providing that great idea about bell ends.

I'm still on the metal Airsoft Pro arm, with the over-long nub.  I've filed that down with a U shaped file by approximately... some... mm, and got it to a usable length, so that the range of adjustment actually covers under- to over-hopped for the BBs that I'm using.

Oh, and I just realised that they're not 0.4g, they're 0.43g, so my unlicensed firearm is producing about 3.75J.  I'd suspect the chrono was off, but it was spot on for my AEGs, or at least agreed with a chrono at another site.

I can report that with 3.75J the range is immense, but also unusable in game.  The accuracy was... OK.  Torso sized at ~70m with a few fliers, but with that daft energy going through the hop it doesn't really mean much.  I have a tight bore inner barrel to throw in next, but I think I'll go back to the stock hop arm - the fangs on mine are the same length.

It's a fun process, I just wish I had more opportunities to try it out between game days.