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Author Topic: Rhop my experiences thus far  (Read 14212 times)

luke213

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Rhop my experiences thus far
« on: May 02, 2015, 09:31:37 AM »
Well guys I'm going to start this thread about my experiences with rhop and what I think of it along with some of my things I've tested and tried to see if the claims out there have lived up to the hype or if it's about the same as a normal bucking. Now I should note this isn't scientific this is just my opinions and experiences so don't take it as the end all of rhop information.

So I started by buying the tubing rather than a normal rhop kit, I bought the same material(from what I've read) as the IR-HOP materials. I did not use the mnub I've used erasers and other things along with standard nubs in my testing so far. So maybe changes made there could effect the results but since I haven't tried that I can't give an opinion.

First gun I tried it on was my M14 and I had a heck of a time getting it to run properly. I had pinch jams through this whole process, probably tried it a dozen times. I was about ready to give up at this point since I had nothing but problems. Fast forward a month or so and I tried rhopping an M16 length barrel for my M4 to try and make a sort of DMR out of it, so that I could swap barrels and run it at longer distances. Well I had success and I managed to get an rhop that worked properly even at .20-.25 weights. Then I had some hooking issues, and ended up going back to a normal bucking and barrel for a while.

Around that same time I decided to rhop my TM VSR10 since I had planned that the whole time and after success with the M4 I figured it was worth a try. I managed to do that correctly the first time, worked right from the go. But I did have some hooking problems that showed up later, come to find out one of the legs of the patch had come unglued which was causing uneven contact with the BB. I glued that and sanded the outside a little more and it's back to working 100%. That was after around 2000 rounds of .40g BB's out of the rifle. I've shot maybe 1000 since fixing it without any additional issues.

This morning I decided to play with the M16 length barrel again, trimmed the patch a little shorter since I figured out it was sticking some in the window when depressed by the hopup nub. So basically it would get stuck slightly causing the hooking I encountered. Then reassembled and it's working well now.

So I've rhopped a couple different guns successfully and had my fair share of failures along the way. But the important question is how does it shoot and is it different than a normal bucking. Well yes it's different but how is harder to say. I haven't seen any magic that makes my guns shoot amazingly further than before rhop. I'll start with my M4 since it's fresh in my mind from this morning. Yesterday I did some shoot testing I've got laser ranged folding chairs setup at 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards. Basically they make a good noise when hit, and they are around the size of a person so they make good reactive targets for testing. I can hit the 50 yard no problems with most guns stock or otherwise 50 is a pretty good starting point. 75 yards on the other hand is rare, upgraded or not with an AEG. I've managed a few stray hits at 75 yards with my M4, G36, and M14. All three are just shy of 400fps, anything less than that in my experience doesn't really have a chance of tagging that 75 yard mark.

So I walked out to 75 yards and shot back at my pole barn with it's metal siding it makes the target the broad side of a barn;) What it really does for me is allow me to know when I'm hitting the barn, then I can lower the point of aim until I can't hear an impact which tells me I'm hitting the dirt in front of the barn. It also let's me check absolute range to a degree, and I've got a 50 gallon plastic drum there, which I can hear the difference in an impact on that vs. the metal of the building and it's easier to use all the feedback to track the rounds onto target especially at that range and further. So I did some shooting with the stock bucking and normal M4 barrel. 50 yards again no problem, at 75 yards I can't make a hit without hold over. On my EOTECH if I hold at 75 yards at the top intersection of the reticle and the circle I can make hits fairly regularly at 75 yards on that 50 gallon drum. So probably 6ft. of holdover at that range if I had to guess. But I was able to make the hits and I was somewhat surprised that it was able to do it. This morning I did the rhop and did the same testing. 50 was a little more difficult, I found that even with about the same setting for the hopup I was hopping more at 50 yards with rhop than with the bucking. IE I needed more holdover to make the shots at 50. At 75 I set the hopup to put the rounds on the drum at the same point of aim as the bucking so top of the reticule. So I was getting more hopup mid flight with rhop but basically the same absolute range and honestly I don't think the barrel length nor the rhop effected accuracy in any positive manner. It might be but groups at that distance looks about the same to me by eye. Also hitting the barrel was about the same results number of hits per try. So my current conclusions on the M4 is that it's not worth it, maybe with heavier ammo these tests were done with .25's rather than anything heavier. That might make a difference but I wouldn't hold my breath. I'll still be testing more with this platform and really the M14 again but so far nothing amazing. Also I should mention this is a CA M15A4 upgraded most of the internals running an M120 and a full cylinder.

My VSR10 now that is a little different story. I noticed a much more consistent hop compared to the stock bucking with much less pressure applied to the slide adjustment. IE I needed nearly full adjustment to hopup .43g BB's before rhop, now I'm able to get the right setting with about half adjustment. Range, I'm not sure it is any longer shooting but it might be. I'm able to hit the 75 yard chair regularly not 10/10 but more like 5-8 out of 10 depending on the wind. I'm able to walk to 75 yards and hit quite consistently on the barn as well as the barrel. I can also walk out to 100, and make hits on the barrel and barn still fairly consistently. I've also walked out basically as far as I can while still hitting the barn that seems to top out around the 120-130 yard mark. I can say I did that same test with the rifle before the rhop and I wasn't able to go past the 100 yard mark. It could be some of the other modifications I've done to the gun since then or weather or something else not sure but now I'm able to tag the barn at those distances. That's not to say I could hit a person at that distance it would be a very lucky shot. Also I should mention this is a higher hopup setting than I used at 75 yards.  I can pretty much set the hopup to be center of the scope at 75, it's high at 50. If I shoot at 100 I can hold over a fair amount or put one more click of hopup on the lever which puts me almost center of the scope at 100, which of course is then higher at 50 and high at 75. It's not really overhopping in the climb to the sky manner, it's more of a ballistic trajectory. This gun is a TM VSR10 with aftermarket sears, stock piston etc, SP170 spring and otherwise stock including gspec barrel length. It's currently shooting just shy of 500 with .20's.

So I'll update this as I fiddle with more stuff and get a better idea what the results really are. But for guys thinking about doing an rhop, I'd hold off if it's an AEG unless you've got time and money to burn. If it's a bolt action I'd probably go ahead with it. I think it really needs the higher FPS and BB weight to have any real noticeable effect from what I've seen. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's been the impression I've gotten from the testing. It might have more of an effect on my M14 with it's longer barrel and different cylinder but I don't know yet what that will show. I will say the M14 with a stock bucking is more reliable at hitting the 75 yard chair than any of my other AEG's so maybe but I'm unwilling to make a guess yet till I get it done.

Take care!

Luke
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T6e9a

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2015, 08:30:31 PM »
Interesting info.

I've had some minimal experience with R-hops as well.
I am currently testing my latest install in my M4 AEG.
It currently(with R-hop) shoots around 500 FPS with .20s. And so far, I've only ya a chance to test it with .28s. And as my driveway only allows for a max of 110', I couldn't test much. But whati was getting, was very accurate, and was able to hit my 10" diameter metal dish consistently.
I was able to get better results at a game. Which turned out that after 120'-140' the .28 just flew all over like .20s in a stock gun.

I'm going to try some .30s and .36s when I can, and heavier if I can get my hands on some.

Going to keep trying some installs when I have time. Eventually try to have all my guns R-hopped. I'll also be able to give input on how they respond/work with high speed builds, as well as somewhat restricted volume builds. (Those will probably be .20-.25 testing).

Might be a while, but I can throw my results in here as well.
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luke213

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2015, 08:41:09 PM »
Good deal I figured it would be a good place to more less collect my own experience but I'm happy to hear others experience as well ;)

At 50 yards or so my m4 is pretty accurate with. 25's but I think past there is where higher velocity and weight will start playing a larger role. With 500 fps depending on cylinder volume I'd be curious to see how some. 40's etc would work.

Luke
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T6e9a

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2015, 09:36:13 PM »
If I had the bbs, I definitely would test them. But I would want to have access to longer range for testing than the 110' of my driveway.
It'll be putting heavy bbs on the 'to trade for' list or wish list. I'll be open to brand suggestions.
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luke213

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2015, 09:39:02 PM »
So far I'm pretty happy with Ajax customs but I haven't been able to source them as cheaply as I did a few weeks ago. So right now I don't have a ton of suggestions I've been trying and white heavy weight bb I can find heavier the better;)
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luke213

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2015, 08:48:48 PM »
Alright guys I'm bringing this back up with an update on things I've found. The other day I tackled the M14 rhop project along with shimming the gearbox and a few other things that had been waiting for a little time to take care of. Now I think I mentioned it above but this gun has been a bear for me to rhop, might be because it's the first one I tried though. I must have tried 20 different patches or at least it feels like that I didn't keep count. I know I tore the gun down to the barrel assembly at least 20 times trying different things. The good news is apparently all that experience is paying off. I finally got the rhop installed properly into the M14 and the results are good better than it's shot pretty much with any other configuration. It's not a tack driver but it's good enough for around 9 out of 10 on the folding chair at 50 yards and I've managed intermittent results on the 75 yard chair. I'd say it's slightly easier to hit the 75 yard chair than with my M4 which as mentioned is also rhopped now. Though I think the consistency of the M4 is better right now but I believe it might be air seal at the hopup, we'll see with more testing. Now I should mention that's with .25g BB's in the M14 I haven't really tested heavier weights. With the FPS it's running I think I could pretty easily bump up to .36g and get better results in general from the gun but that will have to wait until I order BB's again.

Results wise it's about the same other than this gun has been a bit of a problem child with buckings and the barrel. It's got a weird deep hopup window which I think was the cause of some of my rhop problems to begin with as well it's more difficult to tear apart than an M4 in my opinion to make changes. I am happy to say though I never liked the small amount of adjustment that a normal bucking allowed in this gun because of the hopup design. I always felt I couldn't lift a heavier BB since I was nearly at the end of the adjustment just setting it for .25's. Now I'm able to set it for .25's around 1/3 of the way into the adjustment maybe less. So I've got plenty more hopup to apply for heavier ammo. And like I mentioned this time it was the first time that it worked. So the last several times I've done an rhop it's worked first try so I think allot of it is getting used to how it's going to work installing it in the barrel and how to do the whole process. Once you have that down it's allot easier from what I've seen. Also I'm glad I bought the tubing at this point as well since it would have cost me a fortune in pre-made patches to try this many times and fail.

So still unsure, might try to do some better testing going forward as I rhop other guns in my collection since right now 3 out of 12 are running the rhop and I might play with something like my shorty M4 since it's got a pretty strict range of 60 yards or so. And if I rhop that and it goes out to 75 it would be somewhat conclusive that there is a change.

Take care!

Luke
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luke213

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2015, 02:47:01 PM »
Another update of experiences. My Sniper rifle bar the spring problem I mentioned in another thread is shooting very consistently at up to around 100 yards now I'm quite happy with it. Though I did tear things apart and work over the hopup area again and managed to correct a hooking problem. I had a little burr of rubber on the rhop that started hooking right after a while. I might not have broken the edge of the patch well enough before installing it. Either way that corrected and with little wind it's working very well.

One thing I've noticed that I don't recall if I mentioned above, the effect of rhop seems to be a more gradual hop effect. With an ordinary bucking I find when you overhop that it goes over a short range very high up. With rhop it's more gradual and as a result I'm finding a touch of overhop will gain a fair bit more range than how I used to adjust hopups in the past. Just a touch, not jumping up high and dropping just a gradual increase above line of sight. It also allows me to hit longer shots without huge amounts of hold over.

My m14 still isn't consistent enough for me, mostly because my m4 with nearly the same barrel length is significantly more consistent. I believe it's the barrel though, I have an unknown 6.02 steel barrel in the M14 which I think is causing the inconsistency. One of these days I'll swap it with the M4 barrel and see if the groups tighten up accordingly. Right now the M4 is able to fairly consistently hit the 75 yard mark on the chair and the groups with .25's are surprisingly good. The amazing thing about that to me is that the sniper rifle really almost requires the 43g's to reach out well to those ranges but the M4 seems capable even with the lighter weight cheaper ammo. I'm going to have to test allot more to see what's going on exactly but it's interesting.

So currently I'm a bit of an rhop believer in the sense that I do see some things that it seems to do better than a standard bucking. It's got quirks though as well, right now my m4 for some reason will overhop like crazy once in a blue moon. No idea what's causing it at the moment, once it starts shooting properly it stays that way for a long time. Seems to be more when it's cold bore just starting out lacking a better term. So I'm going to have to look into that and see if maybe the patch has come loose from the barrel window or something.

Either way I'm seeing longer range consistency than I've found with other options and after much trial and lots of error I seem to have mostly figured out the installation pretty well. I'm still planning on installing some rhops in shorter barreled guns just haven't had the time to fiddle with them much lately. I will say my results say there is no reason an rhop can't work with light weight ammo. I've got all of mine to where no hop is no hop, and I can run any normal weight .20g or above without adverse effects. So it's all about making sure the patch doesn't enter the barrel to insure it doesn't overhop lighter weight BB's. I will say it's touchy getting just a very little bit of hopup on lighter weights since they overhop so easily but it does work fine once you get it set.

Either way thought guys might be interested in hearing how it's going so far.

Take care!

Luke
xaos - "298,000 yen for a complete gun. How much is that in real money?"

Ghast

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2015, 01:44:36 AM »
Luke, My GR-25 is accurate to 307' for a man sized target measured by Yankee with a distance wheel about 4 years back. It uses an IER-hop and M-Nub. I took my time with it (re 3 fucking hours) but got it right on the first try. Having a set of small files such as Jewelry files helps immensely.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2015, 03:44:05 AM by Ghast »

luke213

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2015, 04:29:07 PM »
Alrighty guys another rhop/ gun update relating to accuracy and range. This morning being fathers day my wife let me sneak out to the shop when I didn't need to build holsters;) So I took some time to finally throw that m16 length stock brass barrel into my M14. The barrel is a few inches say around 3 shorter than the barrel that was installed and I was incorrect stating that it was a 6.02, it was actually a 6.03 steel of unknown brand. Well looking down the barrel I noticed something I had seen before but put two and two together this morning. I noticed a banding effect visually in the barrel it's not super noticeable and previously I just ignored it since I thought it was just a visual thing it looked weird. Well I was reading an article and I saw this picture:


That is what I envision is the inner barrel surface even though it's more spread out than that. Well point is that I replaced that barrel with the M16 length barrel that was already rhopped and wow what a difference. I went from probably around a 6ft. group at 75 yards to being able to hit a folding chair around 5-8 times out of 10. I'm impressed by the range particularly with .25g BB's since it's nearly as accurate as my sniper rifle with .43g. That said it's much more effected by wind of course due to the light weight but super impressive compared to my other rifles right now.

So the barrel I had is bad, or at the least poorly made and not worth using in any of my guns. I don't know the brand but it's garbage and the stock brass barrel of known origin is much superior for longer range shooting. I noticed the BB's are not going much past the target, they are nearly out of energy at that point but it's shooting on the chrono around 420fps with .2g BB's. I need to one of these days cut the spring down to make it MIA legal though I don't expect to be bringing it to any games other than the ones I organize myself and I'm plenty happy just leaving it on semi auto for the day. Honestly I typically run semi anyways so it's not a huge loss. Though I suspect with 20fps less I won't loose a significant range advantage so I will likely get it down to 400 so that I've got the option for full auto as well.

I haven't shot this combination with a normal bucking to say hey this is the rhop making the difference but my other bucking based guns as still dropping short of this mark with the same basic FPS levels, so I'm willing to say the rhop is probably responsible for the slight gains in range. With an ordinary bucking I seem to hit the limit around 65-70 yards without overhopping to crazy levels. I will say the M14 is overhopping just a little bit, likely my rhop installation since I've barely got the hopup engaged to keep it where it is, just touching the nub. So if I felt like tearing it down again(I don't;) I could take a little more material off the rhop and fix that. Likely I'll just buy some more .28's and see how they do or test some heavier ammo since this is going to be a semi auto gun most likely 99% of the time anyhow. So I'd like to see how it does in the kinda sniper role with the option to switch over if I get found.

But it's overall a great change for the gun that has been honestly a real pain in the butt to get working properly. I don't think I've ever torn apart a gun this many times just to have it give me problems over and over again. But now that it's shooting well it gives me an excuse to carry that heavy of a gun into the field;)

I'll update again when I get around to rhopping a few of the other guns around here, might be a little while. I think I'll play with some of the shorter barreled and lower fps options and see if there are any interesting finds.

Take care!

Luke
xaos - "298,000 yen for a complete gun. How much is that in real money?"

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2015, 09:44:53 PM »
There's a theory running around the internet that says that wide bore barrels are better for long range accuracy. Of course there are a ton of variables to consider (bore quality being one of the most important) but maybe that's why the brass battle did better. Also I appreciate this detailed documentation; it's really helpful since I'm considering rhopping some barrels soon.

luke213

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Re: Rhop my experiences thus far
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2015, 09:53:45 PM »
Well I've read that as well, the theory that basically there is a cushion of air that the BB is traveling along the top of the barrel after stabilizing. I'm not certain I agree with it yet, but I don't have any facts to back up that either. What I've found is stock barrels do pretty dang good, especially TM and well CA barrels. That's most of what I have, this barrel is supposed to probably be from a newish production KWA so maybe that's why it's decent not sure. I don't know who made the tight bore, but I'd love to know so I know to avoid them in the future;) I did polish this brass barrel lightly with some compound back when I was using it on my M4, while I was doing the rhop. I'm still not sure why it's doing so much better with the M14 than the M4. I was running basically the same upgrades, but the M14 is shooting higher velocity, and consistency. The M4 has a full cylinder, from what I recall the M14 has a slightly higher cylinder volume so maybe it's that unsure at this point.

I will say I did try the .28's Elite Force BB's I had a small amount left and I was super impressed. Longest string of 100% hits was 15 in a row at 75 yards on a normal folding chair. That impressed me for an AEG shooting 420fps. I'm sure there are guys out there with more impressive results but first hand I think that's the most consistent shooting I've seen with an AEG certainly one I've owned. My bolt action is still better but it's close, and I can shoot allot faster with the M14. Just means I need to work on the VSR10 some more;)

But no worries I'm happy to document what I've seen. So far I'd still throw my vote that initially it's a pain to get the first time done right, but after it's not nearly as bad. I'd recommend buying the tubing from McMaster Carr though as the mistakes you make to start with will be much cheaper to learn on. And you can get pretty much a lifetime supply for less than $20 shipped.

Luke
xaos - "298,000 yen for a complete gun. How much is that in real money?"