It doesn’t matter which type of Airsoft Guns or BB Guns you have or what powers them, you will need periodic maintenance. Whether you have a trusty WW2 Sten gun made from rudimentary pipes or a near future, tactically-tweaked AR with RIS front to back, it’s going to need some love and attention once in a while. The main reason for this is that no matter what gun you have, if it shoots BBs, it’s got a rather finely balanced linkage of mechanisms inside. Doesn’t matter what rough and tough externals it’s got, it’s still just as reliant on decent lubrication and proper configuration internally.
It can be easy to get confused about what work you should do and where though. Certain grease damages rubber seals, other stuff is too thin for use on metal and so on. Why doesn’t somebody just make it easy? That’s the question the guys at Nuprol must have been asking themselves when they came up with the idea of the Airsoft Maintenance Kit. Packaged in a neat half-pint size box, there’s a plethora of fluids, tubes and items inside that form a comprehensive kit to overhaul pretty much any airsoft gun out there. It has exactly what you need, and nothing you won’t, all for less than £15!
To help you get the most out of your Maintenance Kit, (you’ve already dashed off to order one, right?) we decided we’d miss out performing anything too ambitious this month and go back to some of the basics. Nothing you will find in the following guide will be too testing, and for the most part, the fundamentals will remain regardless of the type of gun you are working on. Kick back, have a read through and get ready to get your armoury working smoother than ever before!
CLEANING
The Nuprol Maintenance Kit contains a number of items for cleaning your weapons both inside and out. Cleaning is obviously essential because dirt and debris can jam, clog and wear down the workings of all of your guns. Whether you have a gas gun that needs its slide cleaning to reduce resistance, or you are degreasing an AEG’s gearbox shell for rebuild, it’s an essential step.
White Cleaning Cloth
The first step to cleaning up anything is a good going over with a clean cloth and there’s just the item you need inside the Maintenance. It’s soft and “lint free” meaning it won’t leave fuzz and fibers on your guns or their internals. It’s also soft and absorbent so it soaks up grease and fluids nicely. If you are particularly tidy and disciplined, you could save the cloth as a “finishing cloth” for polishing over chromed finishes or even lenses, it’s that high quality.
Cleaning Brush
It’s got to be one of the best ideas we’ve seen in a while because trying to clean out the nooks and crannies or gun internals is infuriating. We must have spent countless hours poking bits of gunk and debris from between the teeth of gearsets with a cocktail stick to check they run smoothly and are not damaged. Why didn’t we just use a small brush, just like this one? When used in combination with a clean cloth and some degreaser, you can have even the grittiest components looking brand new in no time at all!
Oil Remover
Inside the Maintenance Kit you get a 60ml bottle of Oil Remover and Degreaser. You can either use it with a droplet top/lid or there is a pump supplied so you can spray it onto surfaces. It’s a mild and biodegradable detergent type degreaser that makes it ten times easier to clean stubborn grease and old lubricant from gun components. If the old lubricant in your gun has hardened on and become riddled with dirt or other particles, spray some Oil Remover onto it, wait 30 seconds and wipe it away without a trace. It’s also top for removing grime from the outside of your gun too, so if your stock have got caked in cam-cream or you just want to restore that factory luster, give it a spray and a wipe over and it’ll look 10 years younger or at least a whole bunch less greasy.
Stick-Easy
Upon opening the WE Airsoft Europe Kit, we were greeted with a block of what looked like green plasticine. Referring to the box we discovered it was something they called “Stick-Easy” but we were still none the wiser. We reveal that the “Stick-Easy” is now one of the most useful tools in the kit. Are you forever loosing tiny screws or delicate parts of your gun when disassembling? Yup… We are always dropping stuff when it’s least convenient. Use a lump of stick easy to keep them in place on your workbench. Can’t get that lump of crud out from your pistol’s slide rails? Take a chunk of stick easy and dab at it, it’ll come out easy! Have you got sausage fingers and you can’t get that shim off of the gear axle? You guessed it! This simple lump of malleable green stuff is incredibly versatile, and you’ll wonder how you ever did without it!