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[pyrochris]

I was originally happy to sacrifice performance as I didn't think I'd be able to see past 200 feet with the NV scope anyway.  Fortunately however, the NV scope vastly outperformed my expectations!  Still, I'd like to keep this build themed for silent-ness.  I hear what you're saying, and in reality it may very well be that I'll end up giving myself away stepping on a crunchy leaf or twig or something far more often than from the report of the rifle, but it's nice to know the weapon is not the limiting factor.  I also tend to go for unusual or exotic features in my AS guns, it's an aspect of the hobby that I'm hopelessly addicted to.

As for the airbrake, I think what you are saying makes sense given that it essentially blocks airflow after it enters the cylinder head.  I've also heard conflicting information that they improve accuracy by reducing vibrations (as determined by real shock vs. pro sniper accuracy tests, which may not have been fair due to the recoil weights in the real shock version).  Perhaps the effects of the airbrake on accuracy depend on which energy regime you're working in (stock vs. somewhat upgraded vs. highly upgraded)?

Edit: also agreeing with Cheese Man, it occurred to me that the airbrake diameter is only a fraction of the nozzle diameter, so I wouldn't expect it to be a dead stop.  Also, a g-spec barrel has a volume of 8.5 ccs, and a mere two inch stroke inside the vsr's 22 mm cylinder would deliver 19 ccs, if I did my math right... So I'd expect the whole volume matching thing to be a non issue.  I'm unsure what the actual stroke distance is (and don't have my rifle in front of me at the moment to check).

A random good piece of news on my project: last night I found upon closer inspection of the nineball bucking that there was a loose frayed piece of rubber....which I removed from some tweezers, re-assembled... and this morning before work I took a dozen shots in daylight and they sailed perfectly strait!  Seems that I fixed the issue I was having.  Still having problems getting the piston to catch reliably, I'll look at it after work today.

[ryanm]

For balance, instead of filling your stock with foam, fill it with modeling clay. You want the oil-based clay instead of the "air-dry" type, because the air-dry type will dry out and shrink. With the stock separated from the receiver, put a small piece of paper over the little hole between the stock and the action, and then take small pieces of clay and press them into the stock. You can fit almost 2lbs of clay in there if you need to, but if you press it in tight without air space you can add as much or as little clay as needed to balance out the rifle, since it sticks to the walls of the stock.

If you fill the empty space with clay it also acts as a sound damper. The hollow stock is like an echo chamber, amplifying all the sounds your rifle makes. With it full of clay it stops amplifying the sound, which can make a huge difference.

Also, dense foam around the trigger mech will reduce a lot of sound. Most of the sound of the piston hitting the piston head and the spring banging around in the cylinder comes out through the sear hole in the cylinder, which goes into the trigger mech. If you use electricians tape to cover all the holes in the trigger mech that you can, and then put a dense foam around the entire mech, it stops the majority of the sound coming out that way. I used to have some pictures of a trigger mech completely wrapped in foam, but I can't find them now.

Also fill the empty spaces in the forward parts of the stock with either foam or clay. Every empty space is an echo chamber, eliminate them.

A properly bevel-cut damper pad on the piston head will also take quite a bit of the higher-frequency noise out of the piston hitting the cylinder head. It doesn't actually stop the sound, because the sound is a result of the energy of the impact, and that simply can't be removed. But higher-pitched sounds are easier to pinpoint, while lower-pitched sounds are more ambiguous in direction (it's just how human hearing works). A pad on the piston head turns that "bang" into a "thud", which is both harder to hear and harder to tell what direction it came from.

ryanm

[lulukchoo23]

There are a few things wrong with that.  Firstly, the airbrake does not completely cut off air flow.  It does not take up all the space inside the nozzle, and so air just sorta leaks by. It does not abruptly stop.  Secondly, it has been established that suck-back is really just a myth, I don't remember where they did the math, but the bb is way out of the barrel before anything like a negative pressure would begin to suck the bb back in.

Cutting the spring does not create negative pressure either.  All that it does is create some wiggle room between the cylinder head and the piston.  It also does not lead to terrible consistency, I still have my rifle running at 300 fps+-.4 fps for CQB with a cut spring, about 3 inches off the stock spring.

Well, I'm simply regurgitating what I've heard from chairsofting, but I've always thought the suckback thing was a little iffy. One thing that numerous people here preach is that there is supposed "suckback" if the piston stops being pushed BEFORE the bb leaves the inner barrel. I never thought it made sense, but that's just what a few people on the forums have said so I just kinda went with the flow. Same with the airbrake thing.

Does anyone here think that tapering the cylinder head will also decrease the sound, since there's less surface area making contact with the piston head?

[shifty050]

Back when I had a VSR, I did a few similar mods to my gun. Main thing I did was hot glue the buttstock (as noobie did in his bar 10 mods thread) and the area around the trigger group and mag well, then foamed the other empty areas. That alone made the sound of the gun much harder to pinpoint, as mentioned earlier, a muffled THUD is more difficult for the human ear to locate than a THWACK. I believe I was running a PDI 200 or so in the gun and used the damper kit (not the damper cylinder head). That also really helped lower the sound level of the higher fps spring.

Between those two mods, my gun was not silent, but very difficult for enemies to figure out exactly where I was shooting from. One game I engaged an enemy (one of my friends actually) at about 20 or 30 yards or so and after the game he said he could hear me shooting at him, but had no clue where it was coming from.

Here is a thread that I found very helpful when building a CQB loadout.
http://airsoftsniper.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=haveauniquerifle&action=display&thread=2558

Regarding this link, one thing you should not even bother with is modifying a mock mock mock mock MOCK mock mock suppressor in any way. It is absolutely not worth your time. Spend that time and money on foaming/claying your stock, or on sorbothane/TPE pads, or any number of other mods and parts you can think of.

[pyrochris]

One thing I've noticed with the BAR10 gspec is that the can acts as a hemholtz resonator when the rifle is fired... meaning that is it whistles when air is passed through it.  There is enough of a restriction at the exit and enough volume surround the center that there is essentially a large plug of air that is forced to vibrate.  It's not a loud whistle, but it could be eliminated pretty easily without doing anything illegal.

[Cheese Man]

I agree with the mock mock mock mock mock mock mock mock mock mock suppressor being unnecessary, but the rest of the mods in there are very well done and work well.

[The Nutty Professor]

As a sniper nothing should be left out of your bag of tricks including minimizing the report of the weapon even a little. So saying you don't need something is way to general a statement. You may not need something every time you hit the FZ but you might find it comes in handy right in the middle of an engagement.

[pyrochris]

Yeah, things that don't make "a world of difference" ... some people automatically deem them unnecessary, but having "an edge" (not a Ford Edge) is never a bad thing.

When I started this project, I was cautioned that gen 1 Nightvision doesn't make enough of a difference to even be worthwhile.  I've already won a small skirmish thanks to my gen 1 nightvision scope!  It didn't allow me to pick targets out "like it was day", but it certainly helped me to spot targets before they spotted me.

I haven't gotten much further with this project because I'm still trying to source a piston with an airbrake.  I might just end up buying the laylax piston. 

[lulukchoo23]

(This is kinda LONG.  )

Well I mean, in some cases, a small difference may make a big impact, like you said. But in other cases, a small difference won't make any difference. I mean, I'm all for going over kill and doing whatever it takes to squeeze out as much efficiency and effect as possible. I spend countless hours tuning my bicycle and a good amount of money on little little things that cut less than half a pound of weight off my bike each, all just so I can go a tad faster, since it can actually slightly make a difference. And, using Gen. 1 NV might even make a difference too!

But when it comes to things that are already good enough, a small difference isn't really going to do anything at all. It's like studying for an easy test. Take for example, my high school physics class last year. I was forced to sign up for regular physics last year (we don't have honors), since it was a prerequisite for AP Physics, which I'm taking now. The class was geared towards those who only took the class so they could graduate, since no one likes physics for some reason?

I've coached at baseball for Stanford University's camps that they have for younger kids, and we put a huge emphasis on working with physics, rather than against it. I've also done a lot of research about phsyics, since there's a lot of physics involved in airsoft, and both my parents are aerospace engineers. So, I already knew everything there was to learn in the class.

Whether I payed attention in class or not, whether I studied and read books or not, it wasn't going to make any difference on the tests, considering how I got 100's on them all.




This example is COMPLETELY relevant. There's a point where decreasing the gun's loudness isn't going to make any difference at all. Once your gun is at a certain level of loudness (I don't know any other term for it... resonance?), once your gun is scoring a 100% in that category, there is no point in trying to make any more difference. It's not considered any sort of edge to be lower than that point. An airsoft sniper rifle is so so so so much quieter than an RS gun, even if the airsoft rifle isn't "silenced".

I played a game of, what we call "Mercy", where no one gets out until they call mercy. I was shooting my friend with .28's with my nearly bone-stock UTG L96 (only thing in it was a Polarstar L96 piston I had laying around, with no airbrake, mind you) at around 25-30 yards away. Staying in the same spot and not moving at all, I shot him 4 times. He stayed in the same spot too, trying to look and find me. I was wearing a plain green T-shirt and jeans. Yet, he couldn't see me, and never did see me until I stood up after he called mercy when I shot him the fourth time, and in the neck.




I honestly think that silencing an airsoft rifle to a DEGREE is effective, but after that, it's pointless. And, having an airbrake, in my honest opinion, is pointless. There are other things to do, like using heavier bb's and claying/foaming/puttying your gun and padding the cylinder head (not piston ), but things like using an airbrake have pretty much no use, especially since (I totally forgot about this) the airbrake actually cuts down the fps as well. If anything, why not just use a weaker spring? That cuts down the fps too.

The only time that those differences that I call "pointless" WILL ever come in handy is in a situation such as if you are laying in an open field or are really really close to someone. You shouldn't even be in an open field with a sniper rifle. If you are playing at a place where there's an open field, avoid it. If the place IS an open field, don't snipe. And if you are really really close to someone, odds are, they are below your MED, and you can use a silenced, lower fps springer pistol or an airsoft blowgun (easiest thing in the world to make, as loud as a ninja ). If your gun has been silenced to a certain degree, know where to hide, and are a good distance away from your target and others that are out of your MED, the only things that will give your location away are your skills and your judgement, not some airbrake for your gun that no one can already hear.





Perhaps this is a rant? Or me just trying to win an argument? Or maybe, I just really hate airbrakes? LOL dunno! Keep in mind, this is my OPINION. This is what some guy you don't know on the internet somewhere probably far away thinks. But if you are still persistent in getting one, then nothing I say will stop you. So, I would highly recommend going for a stock piston, since the piston end is polycarb, which should help quiet the *click* sound from cycling the bolt, as well as *click* from the piston release. It's also very light and will give you a little more efficiency with fps.

[pyrochris]

Loudness is the correct term.  Or intensity weighted to compensate for human hearing, but that just sounds awkward . 

But...but...Here's the thing!

A traditional sniper role is out of the question, because of the limitations of gen 1 nightvision.  I'm not going to be making 200ft+ shots at night, unless I have the luxury of moonlight AND snow covered ground.  I fine with reducing the power to bring in my MED (though honestly this is irrelevent to me as well since I rarely play at sanctioned fields... we're just an obnoxiously large group of airsoft obsessed friends who get together in the middle of nowhere and we've never posted an MED).

Actually, what I'm thinking of doing (and you guys might laugh at me for this) is putting in the air restrictor for night games and removing it for day games.  That thing makes the gun quiet as hell.  It also makes is weak as hell, but it might just work for my style of play. 

I might add that my choice of a bolt rifle was because I assumed it would be easier to quiet than an AEG.  The way in which I plan to use it is entirely different from daytime sniping.  I probably should have said this right off the bat.  Then again, I didn't know until I had a chance to use the NV scope in a game to determine its limitations in a real situation.

[The Nutty Professor]

Pyro you are so limiting yourself! With you nightvision buy a cheap illumination system ($50 maybe?) and reach out and touch those suckers  As for the sound situation and physics you're right it does apply but not like you are describing. I mean the physics of sound. Think about it this way. You might pick the perfect hide but miss one thing. The funky shaped tree behind you. You fire a shot and the sound, although small reflects off the tree and toward you target. He can't see you but he can start to pinpoint your location because of a freaky deal-E-O that mother nature threw at you and laughed. They call them sniper systems for a reason. Each component is optimized individually and brought together as a whole. Don't sell your system short because someone tells you it's not necessary. Shoot for perfection and nothing less. The GOAT Hathcock took everything into consideration including sound, wind, bullet weight, and a billion other factors and was never satisfied. If you are you'll never be as good as you could be.

[pyrochris]

I'm aware that IR illumination can bring a gen 1 up to par, but it is likely that the opfor will have NV as well, in which case my IR flashlight might as well be a white flashlight.  Granted, there will probably only be one other player on the opposing team to be sporting NV.

I've also seen players get eliminated as a result of using their IR against players who did not have NV, simply because of the dim red glow that most IR illuminators give off.  I've thought about using an 800 nm longpass edge filter ($73 at Thorlabs).  I'm sure this will reduce performance somewhat but would cut out the visible portion of the beam.

[The Nutty Professor]

Just a thought. We have IR ChemLites on our equipment truck. No I don't know how they work or hell what they look like we haven't used them. I'd say get some and have your lead element drop them in open spaces or use them like grenade and throw them toward the enemy positions. That will light them up for you to deal silent death haha.

[ryanm]

IR glowsticks don't give off a lot of light, but if you set up right they can be very useful.

I once played a night game on a field I knew fairly well, and set up on a path I was familiar with. I hung IR glow sticks on trees at intervals along the path. Even though I couldn't really see by them, I would see them go dark as people passed, and wait for them to pass the next one. I got 6 or 7 "blind" kills on that path before people started avoiding it. No one knew what was going on until the next daylight game, when they caught me pulling down the glowsticks. 

ryanm

[Fish]

And this is revalent to the subject .. how? 

[ryanm]

Did you read the last 4 or 5 posts?

[pyrochris]

It is semi-related because the effectiveness of the nightvision partially determines how effective my silencing techniques have to be.  If it's a nearly pitch black night, and my NV can only see...say 50 feet (for instance), I'd like to be silent from that range, even if long range performance has to be sacrificed.  This is where most people are disagreeing with me.

I think I'll try both ways in-game and see what works best for me.  I have the threaded nozzle insert that restricts airflow to quiet it down.

[The Nutty Professor]

Yes the closer they are the more stealth you need. At night sound carries even further. Talking night-ops is directly related.

[The Crimson Falcon]

I like this topic.  Yes, it's possible to make a springer quite silent, or at least close enough that even at night, people won't be able to tell exactly where you're firing from from about 20 feet away.  If they're closer than that, the snap of the piston head is going to give you away.  That's probably the hardest thing to muffle.  A couple suggestions--ported barrel, build an integral sound reduction system into the barrel.  Then couple with a mock barrel extension.  Look into baffles.  You'll want to sand and foam your stock to reduce the vibrations and sound in there.

You're not going to get it quiet enough to be totally silent.  But you can get it silent enough for what matters--preserving the sonic security of your hide.  Get the noise diffused enough, and all they can tell is that somebody is shooting.  They're not gonna know much about where.

[The Nutty Professor]

I finished a few modification to my Mauser and I was pleasantly surprised! I dead quiet? The power output suck but you can't hear it if there is any other noise in the area. When I fired it I could barely hear it. That being said I have to up the FPS because shot performance sucks. I'll see what happens then.

[WalmartSniper]

My Gspec is almost absolutely silent.  Mods in sig but ill tell you what makes it silent.

Either 300 or 430 mm barrel, having the inner barrel NOT go all the way to the end of the MOCK mock silencer REALLY helps.  The "snap" of the BB leaving the barrel gets eaten by the volume in the mock mock silencer.

I do not have one but a ported barrel would also help in this respect, again, losing the "snap" from the pressure in the inner barrel escaping to the atmosphere all at once.

Use a piston with an air brake and if possible a damper.  Laylax ones are FANTASTIC.  And you dont even need the whole air brake, I cut mine down to about 1.5-2cm long, just enough to leave about .5-.75cm of air brake inside the cylinder head when its up against it.  And again a piston with a damper (mine came off, although I could re-glue it) helps as well, Laylax's does come with one.

Get some appropriate sized shrink tubing, cut about 1.5 inches of it, slip it over the end of the spring that goes inside the piston leaving a little sticking out on the end, and heat it up until its good and snug.  This cuts out the "twang" of the spring when the piston fires.

Like everyone else said, foam EVERYTHING, use good barrel spacers and all that to keep sound from reverberating through the stock of the rifle.

all of these tricks have made my SR absolutely silent.  I once snuck up on an enemy base where a teammate was being held "hostage" and took pot shots at them from 100ft for about a half an hour without anyone knowing where I was.  My teammate said that all they could hear was the sound of BBs whizzing by their head.

[Aznmountaingoat]

(This is kinda LONG.  )

Well I mean, in some cases, a small difference may make a big impact, like you said. But in other cases, a small difference won't make any difference. I mean, I'm all for going over kill and doing whatever it takes to squeeze out as much efficiency and effect as possible. I spend countless hours tuning my bicycle and a good amount of money on little little things that cut less than half a pound of weight off my bike each, all just so I can go a tad faster, since it can actually slightly make a difference. And, using Gen. 1 NV might even make a difference too!

But when it comes to things that are already good enough, a small difference isn't really going to do anything at all. It's like studying for an easy test. Take for example, my high school physics class last year. I was forced to sign up for regular physics last year (we don't have honors), since it was a prerequisite for AP Physics, which I'm taking now. The class was geared towards those who only took the class so they could graduate, since no one likes physics for some reason?

I've coached at baseball for Stanford University's camps that they have for younger kids, and we put a huge emphasis on working with physics, rather than against it. I've also done a lot of research about phsyics, since there's a lot of physics involved in airsoft, and both my parents are aerospace engineers. So, I already knew everything there was to learn in the class.

Whether I payed attention in class or not, whether I studied and read books or not, it wasn't going to make any difference on the tests, considering how I got 100's on them all.




This example is COMPLETELY relevant. There's a point where decreasing the gun's loudness isn't going to make any difference at all. Once your gun is at a certain level of loudness (I don't know any other term for it... resonance?), once your gun is scoring a 100% in that category, there is no point in trying to make any more difference. It's not considered any sort of edge to be lower than that point. An airsoft sniper rifle is so so so so much quieter than an RS gun, even if the airsoft rifle isn't "silenced".

I played a game of, what we call "Mercy", where no one gets out until they call mercy. I was shooting my friend with .28's with my nearly bone-stock UTG L96 (only thing in it was a Polarstar L96 piston I had laying around, with no airbrake, mind you) at around 25-30 yards away. Staying in the same spot and not moving at all, I shot him 4 times. He stayed in the same spot too, trying to look and find me. I was wearing a plain green T-shirt and jeans. Yet, he couldn't see me, and never did see me until I stood up after he called mercy when I shot him the fourth time, and in the neck.




I honestly think that silencing an airsoft rifle to a DEGREE is effective, but after that, it's pointless. And, having an airbrake, in my honest opinion, is pointless. There are other things to do, like using heavier bb's and claying/foaming/puttying your gun and padding the cylinder head (not piston ), but things like using an airbrake have pretty much no use, especially since (I totally forgot about this) the airbrake actually cuts down the fps as well. If anything, why not just use a weaker spring? That cuts down the fps too.

The only time that those differences that I call "pointless" WILL ever come in handy is in a situation such as if you are laying in an open field or are really really close to someone. You shouldn't even be in an open field with a sniper rifle. If you are playing at a place where there's an open field, avoid it. If the place IS an open field, don't snipe. And if you are really really close to someone, odds are, they are below your MED, and you can use a silenced, lower fps springer pistol or an airsoft blowgun (easiest thing in the world to make, as loud as a ninja ). If your gun has been silenced to a certain degree, know where to hide, and are a good distance away from your target and others that are out of your MED, the only things that will give your location away are your skills and your judgement, not some airbrake for your gun that no one can already hear.





Perhaps this is a rant? Or me just trying to win an argument? Or maybe, I just really hate airbrakes? LOL dunno! Keep in mind, this is my OPINION. This is what some guy you don't know on the internet somewhere probably far away thinks. But if you are still persistent in getting one, then nothing I say will stop you. So, I would highly recommend going for a stock piston, since the piston end is polycarb, which should help quiet the *click* sound from cycling the bolt, as well as *click* from the piston release. It's also very light and will give you a little more efficiency with fps.

I have to RESPECTFULLY disagree.  In keeping up with your physics class example, a sniper rifle is not scoring 100% until it's completely silent.... something that is virtually impossible. 

In my opinion, however, there is a point where one can say "good enough".  This may be when a rifle hits a point of diminishing returns (either money or performance-wise), or when the sniper is satisfied with the number of decibals produced from the rifle. 

But back to my first point; there will always be room for improvement since it's impossible to make a rifle completely silent.

One the topic of airbrakes: I love them since they reduce wear due to the "air cushion".  If you're trying to make your rifle as silent as possible, an airbrake is ESSENTIAL.

[pyrochris]

After all this, I ended up putting the project aside in favor of other things... That is until today.

I installed a laylax red piston (this one has an airbrake).  The PTFE guide rings required some sanding before it would fit into the BAR10 cylinder, but after that it was fine.  The laylax o-ring did not offer any compression in the bar10 cylinder, so I also had to swap the o-ring.  No big deal.

In any case... This was the difference that I was looking for!  I believe there's room for improvement on it, but it's now at least conducive to my style of play.  To recap: the other sound related mod I did was cutting the spring.  I believe I will try skirmishing with it before I go crazy with the foam.

[pbman55]

idk if this has been mentioned or not but UTG makes a pretty quite sniper i believe its the APS2 according to evike's site.  i shot a gen 1 and it was nice, now the gen 5 is out so i'm sure its even better

[lulukchoo23]

Quite honestly, ^^^ is barely a necropost, considering how dead this board has been lately. Amazing how a thread can keep it's front page status as long as it's younger than mid-March.
(Then again, our board has covered such a vast amount of questions and info that there really aren't many questions to ask...)



Anyways... to respond to ^
We aren't talking about a stock rifle, if you can't tell by the thread title... -___-' We are talking about what we can do to a stock gun to make it more quiet...

And, the UTG doesn't make an APS2. They make a APS96, which doesn't have a gen. 5. The latest generation is 3, which is made by TSD.

You might have it confused with the UTG M324, which has a gen. 5, but that gun has been established as useless, uncompetitive, and overall a bad base rifle. The M324 is also not APS2 either. It resembles more of the Type-10, but barely has anything compatible with Type-10's.