Fire Support

NOTES ON GAS PISTOLS DURING COLDER MONTHS

 NOTES ON GAS PISTOLS DURING COLDER MONTHS

Here at Firesupport Ltd we test everything before it is despatched, this results in less hassle for both us and you, the customer. It gives us the chance to stop items with problems leaving our shop in the first place, which is why we do it.

You can be assured that we only sent your pistol out to you confident that all is well with it.

Of course things do occasionally go wrong but the biggest reason for return of gas pistols in the colder months is temperature related.

Gas pistols need pressure to operate and that pressure comes from the gas we put in the magazines. It has certain limitations to give that pressure when the temperature drops. The problem varies enormously from brand of gun and also type of gun, mostly because of magazine size.

Small magazines, like 1911's, and heavier metal slides make things worse. Large magazines such as the Marui G17 magazine, allied with a light plastic slide are the least troublesome, which is why Marui pistols generally give us less trouble than other brands.

Rapid firing of the gun on semi, or bursts of auto will chill the magazine as it vents gas, making it even worse. If you can, keep your shooting to a minimum, that will help lessen the chilling effect as the gas is used.

Don't even use full auto when its cold! It is a waste of time. Personally I keep my pistol magazines in my leg pocket, it means I have to put it in the pistol before I use it, but I get very little trouble with performance doing this. It is worth the trouble.

The symptoms usually show as sluggish or incomplete slide action. When the slide stops or slows right on the point of impacting the hammer or the slide hesitates over the discharge port from the magazine then a complete discharge of gas can occur. You will also find that chambering of pellets is erratic as the slide often doesn't come back far enough to pick up another pellet from the mag.

These are all symptoms of the cold and whilst we are always willing to help, there is little we can do about physics except give guidance.

Once you have gassing problems the pistol is then frozen with chilled gas internally and getting cross and doing it again and again will make it worse! It needs to warm up again, internally as well as just on the outside. That of course requires a little patience! Very little from our warehouse works well straight from the warehouse, pistols stored in our heated building are always much better. The colder it is, the longer we need to leave them in the warm office to get them to behave! Higher pressure gas helps resolve some of these issues. The cold is always a factor.

If your pistol is showing some of these problems the best way to ensure it is down to the cold is fill the magazine  and keep it in your pocket for 10 minutes, it picks up the heat from your leg and that extra 15 degrees is usually enough to give you most of the magazine reliably. The pistol and gas need to be at room temperature to start with, not garage or shed temperature! If this makes a big difference to your problems then it is most likely temperature related. It isn't something that will help in the field but it saves the trouble of sending it back to find it isn't something that cannot be prevented until the weather improves. Of course we are happy to look at anything defective and continue to provide what we consider the best service in the industry but this note may help educate people on what is a yearly problem with gas pistols.

Many thanks and we appreciate your custom and by all means call us is these notes fail to help

Many Thanks

Frank and John

Firesupport Ltd – 01733 247171