Post by mattcfii on Dec 4, 2006 1:48:50 GMT -5
The milsim lab's grenades are reported by many in various airsoft boards to be the best grenade available due to it's performance and price.
The grenade is offered in kit form by MilSim labs. They also offer an an older design and more expensive Mark 3 grenade. This grenade was designed to be reusable but apparently most users didn't always find the grenade to reuse it later so a more disposable grenade was designed, the M805.
Airsoft grenades have used many different designs in the pursuit of simulating the real thing. They have used multiple methods like gas like CO2 or green gas, home made spring designs, weak pyrotechnics (but I wouldn't want to be wearing a Ghillie suit around anything burning), and chemical reaction (baking soda with an acid like vinegar or asorbic acid). Each design has it's pros and cons, the pyrotechnics and chemical reactions both normal produce a bang but have downsides. The pyro grenades need to be lit some how either by something like striking a match or lighting a fuse (both of which can be hard when engaged), but once they are lit, time until explosion is fairly dependable. Also pyro grenades have the inherent danger of a flame being produced. Chemical reaction grenades provide the satisfying boom without a flame with a good spread pattern. But the time for the CO2 to develop from the reaction can vary, ending up with unreliable detonation times. The acid used can also help corrode the metal on your gun and irritate your eyes if it finds its way through your goggle vents. Gas grenades tend to be expensive and there is the issue of finding them after you throw it. Spring loaded designs tend to be very directional and can't be triggered as easily by either time or impact, making them best suited for command or tripwire triggered homemade claymore type mines (a project on my list).
Milsim's Labs design is very much like a gloried water balloon. Its main feature is the piece of latex surgical tubing. Latex can expand up to 750% of its normal size and spring back into place. This tubing is expanded with a bunch of water and BBs and upon impact it either violently squirts the BBs and water out or ruptures and explodes.
The grenade kit contains a length of black surgical tubing, two zip ties per grenade, and one stopper BB for each grenade and one tube clamp per grenade. The zip ties are used to plug the bottom of the tube. The tube clamps acts a safety to plug the top of the tube. The BBs are larger than standard 6mm BBs and plugs the upper part of the tube from deactivating the safety clamp to impact. You can also adjust the triggering sensitivity of the grenade by placing the trigger BB in deeper or shallower in the tube.
A loader tool is also included. Depending on the kit you order, a standard or deluxe loader will be included. I would recommend getting the deluxe since the hardest part of using the grenade is loading it. The deluxe loader is a large syringe with a long piece of plastic tubing, all glued into a PVC pipe. The long tube holds the recommended payload of 200 BBs while the syringe is filled up with water. More on the PVC pipe later.
It is recommended that you don't load your grenades long in advance. While the tubing can stretch and rebound to it's original shape quite well, the longer it is under pressure the more it wants to stay at its new shape, and just like keeping your AEG spring compressed over time, the longer this happens the more the grenade looses strength. So loading your grenades should be done just before a game ideally.
Loading the grenade for the first time can be an adventure. It is one of those situations where you would really want a third arm until you get the hang of it. First, prepare the grenade body by zip tying the end and put an open clamp onto the tube. Next you put the BBs down the loader's tube. For my BBs I use a mix of once shot BBs recovered from my target trap and some cheap .12s that a friend gave me and I don't really want to use in any of my guns. Then you put the end of the grenade tube over the loader's tube and slide the still open clamp close to the end of the now covered loader's tube. It is critical that you get about 3/4" of the grenade over this tube otherwise it won't have enough of a seal and squirt the water out around the loader tube or even fly off the end completely. This is why it's a good idea to be outside and warn the first 3 rows they will get wet if you aren't careful. It is probably a good idea to wear eye protection as well since the BBs will fly too if the grenade comes off the loader tube. Now comes the three hands part. Fill the syringe with water, place it on the ground, and push down the plunger with one hand while holding the grenade onto the tube with the other. A pretty good amount of force is needed to get the plunger pushed all the way down and you need to keep this force on it because the grenade is trying to spit it all back into the loader. This is where the PVC pipe comes into play since it acts as a base. The problem is that even on level cement it can still be unstable and need another hand on it. I will probably put some plywood on the bottom of it to make it more stable. Once you are keeping the plunger depressed, close the clamp and pull the grenade off of the loader tube. Then insert the large BB about 1/2" into the grenade's end.
To use it, pinch just above the big BB and unclamp the tube. Pinching above the BB is so that the rush of water going into the non-pressurized area between the clamp and the BB doesn't possibly squirt the BB out causing it to "explode" in your hand. Whether if this is a big risk every time you unclamp or just an occasional thing is yet to be seen. The instructions for the grenade make make it seem like this is the exception rather than the rule. I also don't think you have to hold the pinch long after unclamping, since so far the big BB seems to stay in quite well.
You can either leave the opened clamp on the grenade for the throw or take it off to be sure you have it for later. It is recommended that you throw the grenade in front of your target so it will bounce up and spray into it. In theory, the grenade will impact and the extra force will shoot out the large BB and then everything else in the grenade as it whirls all over the place. The other possibility on hard surfaces or sharp is that the grenade breaks and explodes as it hits, as Matt and I saw today on my gravel driveway. The tube tore on the sharp gravel and the large BB was still in place at the end of the tube. It would seem that the explosion would have a better coverage in it's blast pattern. But I would bet that the spray detonation has a larger pattern since BBs are shot out rapidly one by one with more pressure behind then, especially the first ones. However, since it's only being shot out through a single nozzle it could have holes in its blast pattern. Time will tell which pattern is preferred as we use more of these grenades. It does seem like that besides for cheaper prices, one other reason for the thinner walled tubes on the M805 vs. the older Mark3s was more of a possibility of them breaking for the explosion.
One other use for M805 is as a tripwire mine. We'll have to try this in a future game. If you don't put in the large BB and attach a tripwire to the clamp's lever, it will squirt out the BBs when the wire is pulled. This is the recommend use for recovered unbroken grenade tubes, and is the reason why Milsim lab's recommends you pull the clamp off before you throw. However, my theory is that if you left the clamp on and you find the used grenade, the clamp is going to be right there as well. So unless you are saving them to reuse on new grenades if planning on buying your own materials to make them, I don't see a real reason take the time to pull them off. In fact, so far pulling the clamp off caught up slightly around the trigger BB making me worry that I might pull it out as I took off the clamp. I also I think reusing the soft plastic clamps will eventually after a several grenades cause them to break or not clamp down hard enough. I've also noticed that the holes I drilled in a clamp to use a pull pin have gotten larger with just a few pulls.
Speaking of materials for new grenades, MilSim Lab's replacement packs do come with all the parts needed to make the grenades besides the water and BBs namely the tubing, zip ties, large BBs, and clamps. Since they don't include the loader, before shipping these replacement packs can be as cheap as $1.50 per grenade (20 for $25), which is much cheaper than most other grenades that start a $5.
I would say that the materials could be obtained in bulk outside of Milsim that before shipping would cut down the cuts to just under a dollar per grenade. The only parts that I'm not 100% sure about is the impact trigger BB (which I'm 90% sure I know where I could get it), and the tube clamp. Surprisingly, the only part you can get from get from the local hardware is the zip ties. If they happen to carry latex tubing, it is most likely not the right size. I haven't found a source for the tube clamp yet. The "tube clamps" you find at hardware stores are clips that keep tubing in place on boards and such, they don't stop cut off the flow. I have found some website that have special clamps that allow you to control the flow with different settings which is too complicated and expensive for what the grenades use. The specific on/off clamp that is used on the M805 also allows for another great feature that I mentioned in passing before. If you drill small holes through the side of the clamp you can place a safety pull pin in it just like a real grenade! That adds just a little more grin factor. The pins aren't included, but they are made easily from cotter pins and keychain rings.
Out of respect for MilSim Lab's time and money put into developing and offering these grenades to the airsoft community, I'm not going to post the exact specs of the tubing and trigger BB or my suspected sources for them. I don't want B.I.A. to be known as the guys hat hurt Milsim Labs. Reading a couple of the developer's, Seth Charbonneau a.k.a. Gunfighters, I do think he realizes that these parts aren't rocket science. In fact, he often recommends that people build their own tubing grenade in threads talking about make grenades. But really the only time it would be cost effective not to go through MilSim Labs is on a team bulk level of probably at the very least 50 grenades (it may even be more after shipping from multiple sources is factored in).
To sum it up,
Problems with the M805 (real or guessed, will update as I throw more of these):
-Possible coverage holes in spray detonation
-Possible smaller blast radius with rupture detonation
-Not always being able to pick you detonation method
-Impact trigger could be set too light so that it goes off as you throw, or might be able to be too heavy so that it doesn't spray on impact (but this may cause more breakage detonations)
-Impact triggered, so not 100% realistic as timed fused grenades and may have issues if thrown lightly. However with practice I bet you could adjust the trigger out for a light room clear toss and keep it in a normal position for chucking it at your enemies
-No boom, but then again our airsoft guns don't go bang either. Plus I don't want to have to worry about hearing protection too.
-Loading is an adventure at first and can't be done long in advance
-Slow shipping, it took about two and a half weeks to get here but part of that is partly due to Thanksgiving. Since this is a small cottage industry, they don't have the manpower to ship same or next day after the order. Plus the shipping is reasonable at $7.
The good stuff-
-Good size and shape when loaded. It comes fairly close to a real grenade. Even though it is rubbery and slightly squishy, it doesn't take much imagination for it to be a grenade. Also it won't require stitches or x-rays if you bean somebody in the head with it.
-Impact trigger, while not realistic for most grenades, it has the advantage of only blowing up when it hits. You don't have to worry about how much time you have to throw it or how long the enemy will have to throw it back
-CHEAP ('nough said)
-Good performance
-Can add your own pull pins for realistic touch
While there are more problems listed than good points, I think the good points have much more weight than the small problem issues. There is a reason why this grenade seems to be the most recommended at Airsoft Retreat and other sites.
I'm sure we'll update this as we get more grenades downrange in mock anger. I'm also sure that I really need to proofread this since it turned out to be much longer than I thought it was going to be and I up way past when I need to be.
EDIT: Proofread and a few small edits, I still don't make a 100% no error guarantee
The grenade is offered in kit form by MilSim labs. They also offer an an older design and more expensive Mark 3 grenade. This grenade was designed to be reusable but apparently most users didn't always find the grenade to reuse it later so a more disposable grenade was designed, the M805.
Airsoft grenades have used many different designs in the pursuit of simulating the real thing. They have used multiple methods like gas like CO2 or green gas, home made spring designs, weak pyrotechnics (but I wouldn't want to be wearing a Ghillie suit around anything burning), and chemical reaction (baking soda with an acid like vinegar or asorbic acid). Each design has it's pros and cons, the pyrotechnics and chemical reactions both normal produce a bang but have downsides. The pyro grenades need to be lit some how either by something like striking a match or lighting a fuse (both of which can be hard when engaged), but once they are lit, time until explosion is fairly dependable. Also pyro grenades have the inherent danger of a flame being produced. Chemical reaction grenades provide the satisfying boom without a flame with a good spread pattern. But the time for the CO2 to develop from the reaction can vary, ending up with unreliable detonation times. The acid used can also help corrode the metal on your gun and irritate your eyes if it finds its way through your goggle vents. Gas grenades tend to be expensive and there is the issue of finding them after you throw it. Spring loaded designs tend to be very directional and can't be triggered as easily by either time or impact, making them best suited for command or tripwire triggered homemade claymore type mines (a project on my list).
Milsim's Labs design is very much like a gloried water balloon. Its main feature is the piece of latex surgical tubing. Latex can expand up to 750% of its normal size and spring back into place. This tubing is expanded with a bunch of water and BBs and upon impact it either violently squirts the BBs and water out or ruptures and explodes.
The grenade kit contains a length of black surgical tubing, two zip ties per grenade, and one stopper BB for each grenade and one tube clamp per grenade. The zip ties are used to plug the bottom of the tube. The tube clamps acts a safety to plug the top of the tube. The BBs are larger than standard 6mm BBs and plugs the upper part of the tube from deactivating the safety clamp to impact. You can also adjust the triggering sensitivity of the grenade by placing the trigger BB in deeper or shallower in the tube.
A loader tool is also included. Depending on the kit you order, a standard or deluxe loader will be included. I would recommend getting the deluxe since the hardest part of using the grenade is loading it. The deluxe loader is a large syringe with a long piece of plastic tubing, all glued into a PVC pipe. The long tube holds the recommended payload of 200 BBs while the syringe is filled up with water. More on the PVC pipe later.
It is recommended that you don't load your grenades long in advance. While the tubing can stretch and rebound to it's original shape quite well, the longer it is under pressure the more it wants to stay at its new shape, and just like keeping your AEG spring compressed over time, the longer this happens the more the grenade looses strength. So loading your grenades should be done just before a game ideally.
Loading the grenade for the first time can be an adventure. It is one of those situations where you would really want a third arm until you get the hang of it. First, prepare the grenade body by zip tying the end and put an open clamp onto the tube. Next you put the BBs down the loader's tube. For my BBs I use a mix of once shot BBs recovered from my target trap and some cheap .12s that a friend gave me and I don't really want to use in any of my guns. Then you put the end of the grenade tube over the loader's tube and slide the still open clamp close to the end of the now covered loader's tube. It is critical that you get about 3/4" of the grenade over this tube otherwise it won't have enough of a seal and squirt the water out around the loader tube or even fly off the end completely. This is why it's a good idea to be outside and warn the first 3 rows they will get wet if you aren't careful. It is probably a good idea to wear eye protection as well since the BBs will fly too if the grenade comes off the loader tube. Now comes the three hands part. Fill the syringe with water, place it on the ground, and push down the plunger with one hand while holding the grenade onto the tube with the other. A pretty good amount of force is needed to get the plunger pushed all the way down and you need to keep this force on it because the grenade is trying to spit it all back into the loader. This is where the PVC pipe comes into play since it acts as a base. The problem is that even on level cement it can still be unstable and need another hand on it. I will probably put some plywood on the bottom of it to make it more stable. Once you are keeping the plunger depressed, close the clamp and pull the grenade off of the loader tube. Then insert the large BB about 1/2" into the grenade's end.
To use it, pinch just above the big BB and unclamp the tube. Pinching above the BB is so that the rush of water going into the non-pressurized area between the clamp and the BB doesn't possibly squirt the BB out causing it to "explode" in your hand. Whether if this is a big risk every time you unclamp or just an occasional thing is yet to be seen. The instructions for the grenade make make it seem like this is the exception rather than the rule. I also don't think you have to hold the pinch long after unclamping, since so far the big BB seems to stay in quite well.
You can either leave the opened clamp on the grenade for the throw or take it off to be sure you have it for later. It is recommended that you throw the grenade in front of your target so it will bounce up and spray into it. In theory, the grenade will impact and the extra force will shoot out the large BB and then everything else in the grenade as it whirls all over the place. The other possibility on hard surfaces or sharp is that the grenade breaks and explodes as it hits, as Matt and I saw today on my gravel driveway. The tube tore on the sharp gravel and the large BB was still in place at the end of the tube. It would seem that the explosion would have a better coverage in it's blast pattern. But I would bet that the spray detonation has a larger pattern since BBs are shot out rapidly one by one with more pressure behind then, especially the first ones. However, since it's only being shot out through a single nozzle it could have holes in its blast pattern. Time will tell which pattern is preferred as we use more of these grenades. It does seem like that besides for cheaper prices, one other reason for the thinner walled tubes on the M805 vs. the older Mark3s was more of a possibility of them breaking for the explosion.
One other use for M805 is as a tripwire mine. We'll have to try this in a future game. If you don't put in the large BB and attach a tripwire to the clamp's lever, it will squirt out the BBs when the wire is pulled. This is the recommend use for recovered unbroken grenade tubes, and is the reason why Milsim lab's recommends you pull the clamp off before you throw. However, my theory is that if you left the clamp on and you find the used grenade, the clamp is going to be right there as well. So unless you are saving them to reuse on new grenades if planning on buying your own materials to make them, I don't see a real reason take the time to pull them off. In fact, so far pulling the clamp off caught up slightly around the trigger BB making me worry that I might pull it out as I took off the clamp. I also I think reusing the soft plastic clamps will eventually after a several grenades cause them to break or not clamp down hard enough. I've also noticed that the holes I drilled in a clamp to use a pull pin have gotten larger with just a few pulls.
Speaking of materials for new grenades, MilSim Lab's replacement packs do come with all the parts needed to make the grenades besides the water and BBs namely the tubing, zip ties, large BBs, and clamps. Since they don't include the loader, before shipping these replacement packs can be as cheap as $1.50 per grenade (20 for $25), which is much cheaper than most other grenades that start a $5.
I would say that the materials could be obtained in bulk outside of Milsim that before shipping would cut down the cuts to just under a dollar per grenade. The only parts that I'm not 100% sure about is the impact trigger BB (which I'm 90% sure I know where I could get it), and the tube clamp. Surprisingly, the only part you can get from get from the local hardware is the zip ties. If they happen to carry latex tubing, it is most likely not the right size. I haven't found a source for the tube clamp yet. The "tube clamps" you find at hardware stores are clips that keep tubing in place on boards and such, they don't stop cut off the flow. I have found some website that have special clamps that allow you to control the flow with different settings which is too complicated and expensive for what the grenades use. The specific on/off clamp that is used on the M805 also allows for another great feature that I mentioned in passing before. If you drill small holes through the side of the clamp you can place a safety pull pin in it just like a real grenade! That adds just a little more grin factor. The pins aren't included, but they are made easily from cotter pins and keychain rings.
Out of respect for MilSim Lab's time and money put into developing and offering these grenades to the airsoft community, I'm not going to post the exact specs of the tubing and trigger BB or my suspected sources for them. I don't want B.I.A. to be known as the guys hat hurt Milsim Labs. Reading a couple of the developer's, Seth Charbonneau a.k.a. Gunfighters, I do think he realizes that these parts aren't rocket science. In fact, he often recommends that people build their own tubing grenade in threads talking about make grenades. But really the only time it would be cost effective not to go through MilSim Labs is on a team bulk level of probably at the very least 50 grenades (it may even be more after shipping from multiple sources is factored in).
To sum it up,
Problems with the M805 (real or guessed, will update as I throw more of these):
-Possible coverage holes in spray detonation
-Possible smaller blast radius with rupture detonation
-Not always being able to pick you detonation method
-Impact trigger could be set too light so that it goes off as you throw, or might be able to be too heavy so that it doesn't spray on impact (but this may cause more breakage detonations)
-Impact triggered, so not 100% realistic as timed fused grenades and may have issues if thrown lightly. However with practice I bet you could adjust the trigger out for a light room clear toss and keep it in a normal position for chucking it at your enemies
-No boom, but then again our airsoft guns don't go bang either. Plus I don't want to have to worry about hearing protection too.
-Loading is an adventure at first and can't be done long in advance
-Slow shipping, it took about two and a half weeks to get here but part of that is partly due to Thanksgiving. Since this is a small cottage industry, they don't have the manpower to ship same or next day after the order. Plus the shipping is reasonable at $7.
The good stuff-
-Good size and shape when loaded. It comes fairly close to a real grenade. Even though it is rubbery and slightly squishy, it doesn't take much imagination for it to be a grenade. Also it won't require stitches or x-rays if you bean somebody in the head with it.
-Impact trigger, while not realistic for most grenades, it has the advantage of only blowing up when it hits. You don't have to worry about how much time you have to throw it or how long the enemy will have to throw it back
-CHEAP ('nough said)
-Good performance
-Can add your own pull pins for realistic touch
While there are more problems listed than good points, I think the good points have much more weight than the small problem issues. There is a reason why this grenade seems to be the most recommended at Airsoft Retreat and other sites.
I'm sure we'll update this as we get more grenades downrange in mock anger. I'm also sure that I really need to proofread this since it turned out to be much longer than I thought it was going to be and I up way past when I need to be.
EDIT: Proofread and a few small edits, I still don't make a 100% no error guarantee