To BB or not to BB, that is the question.

[Ian_Gere]

Whether tis nobler in the gun to suffer the slings and arrows of...

Outrageous prices!

What I'm on about here is the cost of some high end BBs. Are they really worth it, or will any decent BBs do?

So, the way I work out whether BBs are worth checking out right now is to compare their price with the cost of getting 3000 Blaster 0.2g BBs at Skirmish Airsoft Mansfield, which is £8 or £0.002666666/BB

Once you add P&P, which I obviously don't have to pay when I buy from Skirmish, there are surprisingly few comparable deals out there. So then I started wondering about quality too...

For e.g. 10 x 3700 Excel 0.2g BBs from ZeroOne - £74.95 + £7.95 P&P = £0.0022405405/BB or £6.72/3000 BBs - a saving of £15.77

not such a good deal considering it takes a spend of more than 10 x the per 3000 price at Skirmish to get it...

versus 16000 BB King 0.2g BBs from contactleft - £19.99 + £7 P&P = £0.001686875/BB or £5.06/3000 BBs - a saving of £15.68

a much better deal!

The Rub

Has anyone used Blaster and Excel and/or Blaster and BB King so they can say what difference, if any, there is in performance/quality between them?

May as well open this thread to advice concerning any specific makes of BB from particular sellers (if this is the right place for it; if not please move it mods(oh yeah, and I did search but didn't find another thread addressing this issue)). I think we all know that simple moulded BBs rather than polished ones should be avoided, so I don't think we need any generic advice... but I could be wrong :lol:

 

[Tariq]

I only use Blaster / Blaster Devils and never had a problem with them. Unlike the Z1 BB's which i've had a few jams with before.

 

[craig]

BB king is ok it very popular in Ireland as most of the major sites sell it as well as most of the major retailers and its the only ammo i use

 

[Hibernator]

I only use Blaster / Blaster Devils and never had a problem with them. Unlike the Z1 BB's which i've had a few jams with before.

Exactly the same here! I also use Excel if the prices are good. But Blaster and especially Blaster Devils are always my number 1 choice

 

[BaggyPants]

Exactly the same here! I also use Excel if the prices are good. But Blaster and especially Blaster Devils are always my number 1 choice

Same here. Blasters all the way. I have used Excel before, when I was running low and bought a bag on site, and they worked fine too.

 

[M_P]

Just stick to well known brands with good reputations, better to buy better ammo than a new gun

 

[Tariq]

Better safe than sorry.

Do this with everything. Airsoft, Motorbike parts, PC parts etc.

End up poorer but at least everything works

 

[TPI]

I prefer Extreme's lol .23 all the time lol

 

[Ian_Gere]

Thanks all. I tend to agree with "better safe than sorry", but at the same time I find myself wondering how much hype there is involved here. Let's face it, everything else that we are offered for sale has whole reams of hype attached, so why should BBs be any different? As an example, if you use a car for driving to and from work, the shopping, a few miscellaneous short journeys, you will never actually notice the differences between a 2nd hand £10K @new car and a brand new £20K car... The "difference" is all in our heads - the supposed status we gain from driving a more expensive motor.

Has anyone actually had a jam which damaged the gun? I mean yeah, if I had to break a gun down to clear the barrel or something I'd not be happy, but I want this thread to get to the nitty gritty... Already we've heard that BB King are fine and they're significantly cheaper than Blaster or Proball, both of which I've found to be indistinguishable in performance.

If we think about it logically, can the choice of BB actually eff up a gun? The damage would have to be in the magazine, the hop unit or the barrel, all of which can be replaced easily enough, but is it actually possible for a polished BB to be so un-spherical that it jams into one of these 3 places so tightly that some careful poking couldn't get it out without causing any damage?

BB king is ok it very popular in Ireland as most of the major sites sell it as well as most of the major retailers and its the only ammo i use

Have you ever had any problems you put down to the BBs, craig?

Tariq and CraigW-H, where do you get Z1 and Extreme .23 BBs from and how much do they cost inc. P&P?

NB I've since found that I can't see any difference in performance between Blaster and Gun Tuff BBs (£4.49 + £3.39 P&P from JS Ramsbottom)

 

[Tariq]

Z1 is the airsoft site

http://www.zerooneairsoft.com/

Thier own BB's are £7 for 5000.

No idea on postage as i never just order BB's. I usually order in bulk, or with other things.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Z1 is the airsoft site http://www.zerooneairsoft.com/

Thier own BB's are £7 for 5000.

No idea on postage as i never just order BB's. I usually order in bulk, or with other things.

Doh! I can be a dick @times...

OK, so to keep this thread fair I looked up Z1's ammo - 5000 cost £6.99 + £7 P&P = £0.002798/BB or £8.394 per 3000

More expensive than Blaster from Skirmish or Op-Tactical (I've been expanding my horizons :lol: ) who also do 3000 for £8

As you say though it makes no sense to order so few online.

Bundle of 10 x 5000 Z1 0.2g BBs cost £65 + £8.95 P&P = £0.001479/BB or £4.437 per 3000

A saving of £59.38 compared to buying Blaster in 3000s as and when you need them.

A great deal that backs up their claim to be the cheapest pro BB in the UK... but who cares what they cost if they're actually pants? Has anyone else got anything to add about Z1's own BBs?

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

Thanks all. I tend to agree with "better safe than sorry", but at the same time I find myself wondering how much hype there is involved here. Let's face it, everything else that we are offered for sale has whole reams of hype attached, so why should BBs be any different? As an example, if you use a car for driving to and from work, the shopping, a few miscellaneous short journeys, you will never actually notice the differences between a 2nd hand £10K @new car and a brand new £20K car... The "difference" is all in our heads - the supposed status we gain from driving a more expensive motor.
Has anyone actually had a jam which damaged the gun? I mean yeah, if I had to break a gun down to clear the barrel or something I'd not be happy, but I want this thread to get to the nitty gritty... Already we've heard that BB King are fine and they're significantly cheaper than Blaster or Proball, both of which I've found to be indistinguishable in performance.

If we think about it logically, can the choice of BB actually eff up a gun? The damage would have to be in the magazine, the hop unit or the barrel, all of which can be replaced easily enough, but is it actually possible for a polished BB to be so un-spherical that it jams into one of these 3 places so tightly that some careful poking couldn't get it out without causing any damage?

Have you ever had any problems you put down to the BBs, craig?

Tariq and CraigW-H, where do you get Z1 and Extreme .23 BBs from and how much do they cost inc. P&P?

NB I've since found that I can't see any difference in performance between Blaster and Gun Tuff BBs (£4.49 + £3.39 P&P from JS Ramsbottom)

Sorry for copying the entire quote, but I could not agree with this more Ian, it's almost all psychological in my experience. I've heard reviewers on youtube say that BBs can explode in the barrel and destroy your gearbox and it's a pipe dream, it has to be.

How can a tiny sand sized fragment of plastic, do any damage at all to a gearbox made out of metal gears, walls, shims and shafts? It's truly ridicluous. I can understand the gun jamming if there's dirt in the barrel but I imagine jams are more likely to occur due to feeding issues with regard to the way the mag is sat, not inserted correctly, or an issue with the tappet plate.

Gearbox damage is something I have never ever heard a single traceable story about and I won't believe it until I see it happen.

That said, I've never really bothered buying ammo from anywhere other than on site when I go to a skirmish, but I have always made use of the "test batch" ammo that you get with new guns, which people almost always say to throw away, and guess what? It's always been fine.

 

[joshcowin]

I had it where the nozzle hit the bb and a bit if the bb went into the cylinder.had to get a new piston head

 

[Ian_Gere]

Well you've hit the nail on the head imo, Ed. Personally, I believe that a fragment of BB would, as you suggest, have to be tiny to get into the gearbox because the only point of ingress would be under the air nozzle where the tappet plate moves back and forward... but to even get there, it would have had to get backwards through the hop unit, over the feed from the mag, past other BBs being fed from the mag, and fit between the air nozzle and the rear opening to the hop unit... something that small would get squished into the space between the gears and end up in 1 of the little collections of grease that accumulate next to them.

No mate, frankly it strains credulity to imagine that it could happen at all, let alone do any damage once it got there. Nevermind that though: what, in the name of all that rocks, could possibly cause a BB to explode inside the barrel? I've seen Blaster BBs shatter when I've shot them full auto into a sticky target from about 6m. I expect that the BBs hitting each other is the cause. If we imagine that 1 BB gets jammed in the barrel, then we might imagine that the next BB could shatter, or shatter the sticker, as it gets fired... but no, that isn't possible. If there is a BB stuck in the barrel then the air between it and the next BB to be fired has to be compressed and pass around both BBs to escape, which would cause a significant cushioning effect, like pneumatic suspension, so the BBs couldn't hit each other with much force.

Doncha just love physics? I'm with you: until I see it happen, I'm not having any of it.

 

[Ian_Gere]

I had it where the nozzle hit the bb and a bit if the bb went into the cylinder.had to get a new piston head

Aha! Now that I do believe. What make of BB, Josh?

 

[M_P]

Depends on the sort of gun in my opinion.

In a normal assault rfile use what you like, on full auto it won't make a huge difference and most players won't notice or care enough anyway.

In a rifle for sniping or a dmr, you'll probably see a difference.

The way i see it is the same as most others: better be safe than sorry.

 

[Ian_Gere]

In a rifle for sniping or a dmr, you'll probably see a difference.

I expect that the degree and evenness of polishing and internal weight balance of BBs does make a difference for sniping, because they will affect any spin on the BBs. BTW, what is a dmr?

Which BBs do you know are better for sniping and which show up as worse, in your experience?

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

DMR is a Designated Marksman Rifle - Basically a semi-auto sniper as opposed to a bolt action. The idea is that the DMR user follows the general players with AEGs around, but takes out those harder to hit, longer range threats with their improved range and accuracy.

 

[TPI]

I just get my Xtreme`s From the HTA Site £7.50 for 3043 on game day .23`s

 

[joshcowin]

Aha! Now that I do believe. What make of BB, Josh?

they were zero one 0.20s and it went into the cylinder via the nozzle and made a bit of a mess of the piston head