Springs

[Ebbed]

What’s the benefit to the other springs that came with my gun? Red being the softest, gold being middle of the road, and silver being stiff? What’s the benefits, what do you guys use?

[deathbypaint1213]

The longer the spring, the more gentle the bolt will be on paint. I use a red spring and one shim for my lvl 10 setup. Most people would just use the gold spring, you would need to crank the velocity higher for a red or silver spring to function properly.

[dark blade]

the different bolt springs are meant to for different velocities but are often used for different purposes.

Each spring starts allowing the gun to fully cycle at a different FPS and i believe that they are as follows...

gold - meant to use at ~250, cycles at 230
red - meant to use at ~ 280, cycles at 260
silver - meant to use at ~300, cycles at 280

those are approximates and are only off the top of my head. HOWEVER, the different springs can be used to achieve different things. the length and stiffness can control reactivity, the gold being the most reactive because you have to crank the velocity dial to get it to 280. the red is a medium reactivity and the silver is the least reactive.

They can also be used to control pressure on the bolt such as mentioned. The less resistance of the gold spring would produce a harder hit on a ball at 280 than the red and even more than the silver. The silver has the most compression force and "slows" down the bolt before hitting the ball and makes the force less.

I personally use a red spring with a 2.5 carrier, 2 shims, and an input pressure from tank of 1000psi to achieve my perfect setting. It is different for everyone so just use whatever works for you and whatever you are trying to achieve :) cheers :cheers:

[athomas]

To add/summarize to what has been posted:

gold spring = stock spring = most impact force on ball ( always works)
red spring = middle spring = moderate impact on ball (most universally used)
silver spring = stiff spring = lightest impact on ball ( may not function in your velocity range)

Using the level 10 bolt, the smaller tip means there is less force exerted on the bolt to push it forward. That means, even with the stock bolt spring there will be less impact force on the ball in the chamber. When you use a more stiff bolt spring like a red or silver one, you require more pressure to move the bolt forward against the force of the bolt spring. When you increase the pressure (increase the velocity setting), the velocity goes up as well. This is why the different springs operate at different velocity settings, and the stiffer silver springs may only operate at a velocity above the safe limit of 300fps. Each gun is a bit different and the type of barrel you use and its length and porting have a big impact on the amount of air it takes to propel a ball to 300fps. Therefore, each gun will exhibit slightly different operating ranges for the same bolt springs.

The reason the gold bolt spring is the most reactive is due to its lower operating pressure. Reactivity is largely due to the differential between the input pressure and the chamber operating pressure. Since the gold spring has the lowest operating pressure, it has the largest differential pressure and thus, offers the greatest reactivity.

The carrier used is very much dependent on the size of the oring you use. The carriers are used to tighten the inner diameter of the oring. Using different carriers allows you to provide the same inner diameter on the oring no matter what manufacturing tolerance issues the oring has. Sometimes the orings are too tight from the factory and won't work no matter what size carrier is used. If this happens, you must chuck that oring and start with a fresh oring. When sizing oring carriers, alway do so without any shims installed. The shims offer no value other than changing how far the bolt needs to move before it can vent air and reset. Having shims installed while testing can cause leaking that can be missinterpreted as a carrier leak causing you to use a carrier that is too tight for your setup.