Tornado Timer Grenade

 Airsoft Innovations Tornado Timer Grenade Review

In the world of airsoft cqb senarios have become increasingly popular. With that popularity has come GRENADES. Everybody loves things that go bang! if you don't why not?. However something that just goes bang can sometimes be frustrating when try to get a kill. For example.... Have you ever been in a situation where you throw your pyro into a room or corridor you know someone is in but they don't get killed because they were outside the door in time or have hidden behind a door and not been hit. I know i have and it was frustrating. This is where the bb grenade comes in. There have been many bb grenades from pyro based ones to gas and co2 ones. They have all had there limitations from the time it takes to load them to the complicated systems they use. The tornado is another breed of gas bb grenade and in my opinion the best gas system grenade currently available.  Capable of using 134a gas or propane and only having to load the bbs through 2 holes is a massive advantage over others available on the maket. But on to the review.

I purchased my grenade from www.fire-support.co.uk for £85 including P&P. They are available in multiple colours (see pic above). In the box you get the grenade, reset key, pin, gas chamber cap and a bottle of tornado lubrication oil (see pic left). It is important you only use the oil supplied and NOT silicon oil as it is to thin and will damage the grenade.

The grenade inside is a very simple affair comprising of the main gas chamber and gas release shuttle surrounded by intertwining bb chambers see in the pic right as green and yellow bb's. Loading the grenade was easier than I thought and is simply a case of using a speed loader push the bb's into there chambers, set the timer valve with the key and pin then fill with gas and screw on the gas cap and job done. All of the items required to load the grenade I carry on me anyway so reloading on the field would not be a problem.

Using The Grenade
Although the grenade is easy to set already using it is simple. Pull the pin, throw and whoosh! bb's flying everywhere. I first tried the grenade out at my local site on myself and must say the spread of bb's is immense. There was no part of me that did not get hit and I was a good 5 meters away. I noticed it is also very quiet as well just giving off a whoosh sound of gas expelling and then the clatter of bb's hitting everything.
In game I tried the grenade in a kill house environment and became the talk of the game. No one knew what had happened when they got hit and the look on faces was funny as hell. The typical "WTF?" expression.

The Techie Bit
The grenade itself is made from and aluminium core with high impact polymer cover and high impact abs internals. Its solid as a rock in other words. The grenade uses a gas expelling system to eject the bb's from the shell through two holes in the bottom of the gas chamber.

Summary
This is one well made piece of kit that will add a hole new dimension of game play to any airsofter and from personal experience would not part with it for anything. With the addition options you can buy to enhance the grenade for different styles and scenario's with the lever mechanism and the distraction device kit which turns it into a bang instead of a frag the situations this can be used in is endless. From hostage scenario's with the DD kit to leaving it standard to frag the enemy the versatility is amazing.


 Overall Score
Build Quality : ***** 5/5
Performance : ****4/5
Price : *** 3/5 could be cheaper

ASG Ultimate Series V2 Gearbox

 I have recently brought and fitted into my custom M4 an Action Sports Games - Ultimate Upgrade series V2 Gearbox, and I must say am pretty damned pleased with it! 

I purchased it from www.landwarriorairsoft.co.uk for £135.00 plus p&p. The package turned up the next day and immediately after getting home from work ripped it out of the box as you do with all new airsoft gear you buy!.

The specs of the gear box are :

 

A full gearbox, fully upgraded

Front wired complete gearbox:

M110 Spring

8mm Steel Bearings

Bearing Spring Guide

Aluminium Cylinder Head

Polycarbonate piston

Enhanced tappet plate

High performance gears (up to 35% less wear)

High grade low resistance wire, increases rate of fire and FPS

And I must say I thought that was impressive (which is why I got it). Upon first look opening the box I was faced with a very shinny gearbox that looked very well made. No molding seams or weird little lumps and bumps you find on some Chinese cases. It looked and felt solid as a rock and with the care that had gone into the outside with the laser engraved logo and precisely drilled holes I was eager to take a look inside.

The case is held together with 8 torx head screws as you would usually find on the better quality gear boxes.

Upon opening the case the amount of grease on the gears reminded me of the three little bears, not to much not to little but just the right amount, where it should be and no where else. The rest of the gear box was well put together with steel toothed poly piston, ball bearing piston head, and a nice heat sinked cylinder with a blue aluminium cylinder head. The parts were all nice and tight in there seatings with no wiggle space. I was mostly impressed with the 8mm bearings that spun so freely you barely had to flick the gears and they would spin forever and a day. the shimming was also spot on leaving just the tiny bit of movement on the axles you should have. 

Onto the electrics. All of the wires are silver with silicon flex cover and silver contacts. Even the trigger contacts were silvered which gives better conductivity. The selector plate moved solidly but freely, but lacked the silver contact on it as it was copper, but all in all was of excellent quality. 

Installing the gearbox.

I wanted to put the gearbox in my old HK416 and although it seated nicely and everything went together fine upon shooting it found it would only fire in semi auto even though the selector was on full. I immediately thought NOOOOO! its a dud. But low and behold I found after much tinkering it was that the selector bevel inside the case would not push the selector plate back far enough. So to the trusty TM receiver we go and guess what? not a problem. The gearbox had a nice crisp sound and a slight kick to it as well which gives you that solid firing feeling. It was fairly quiet as well which is good when you are sitting in a bush trying to be sneaky sneaky! 

I was using the gearbox in conjunction with a systema one piece hop and a ASG Ultimate 6.03 barrel. It shots sweet as a nut and with the 7.4 lipo I was using at my last game the ROF can easily keep up with my team mates M249's ROF.

The gearbox is yet to let me down (touch wood) and overall haven't got a bad thing to say about other than if you plan on using it in a budget Chinese made receiver be careful as compatibility could be an issue. Finally I would have liked to see the selector plate have a silver contact as everything else was. Price wise I believe it is fairly priced for the level of quality you get as it is comparable to the leading gearboxes out there but have given it 4 for price as there are gearboxes out there a lot cheaper.

Overall scores

Build Quality : ***** 4/5 (the copper on the selector plate let this one down)

Performance : ***** 5/5

Price: **** 4/5 

In conclusion this is a amazing gearbox and worth seriously considering if you are planning on replacing your existing one or even just upgrading your as it is pre-upgraded ready to rock! 

FPS wise it shoots just under 350 fps with an average over 10 shots of 342 fps. But this will vary from gun to gun dependent on hop, battery etc...

Hope you enjoyed reading my review and sorry there are no pics but I did the review after putting the gearbox in the gun and did not fancy ripping it all apart again.