Madbull's new .40g BB's (Silver-Grey)

[chaz]

So, Madbull refined their heavy weight BB's I take it and released them in new colours for their .36 and .40
from Green to Brown for .36
from Orange/Yellow to Silver/Grey for .40

Decided to move up from the .36 Greens I had before and try out their new .40s.
The colour is actually easy to see but not something that gives you away like a white BB.
When I opened them up (and other people have reported the same thing) the BB's felt gritty to the touch. A quick clean in coke fixed this up. Not sure what the gritty is, if its a bad batch for their first run or what.
Moving on.
Played them today and I must say I was impressed. They shot straight and hit good. Not one confirmed hit went uncalled.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Macro lens is missing.
Cracked one open by request on another forum. Does not appear to have any bubbles or bad spots inside.

[CR0M]

awesome. yeah ive used the. 36 madbulls before and im not a huge fan of the green colour bbs and not being able to see them fly. yellow and heavier sounds great. ... im going to give them a try

[Scarecrow]

A little insight on these.

Lately it appears manufacturers have moved to iron as a weight additive from zinc powder. Zinc in some jurisdictions comes up on soil analysis and can be considered an unacceptable contaminant, whereas iron is a natural appearing substance in soil, even in higher quantities and gets disregarded if soil remediation is a requirement for resale of lands.

I am not a fan of iron as an additive because its typically harder than the feedpath its being shot through and if used extensively you will notice scoring on the inside of you barrel - a steel wool effect. Zinc was softer and finer and did not do this. It also prematurely wears your feedpath. Iron also makes double polish almost impossible as the iron on the surface does not bond well with the ABS or PLA and literally falls out, leaving pitting, no matter how much polishing you do.

We sell this in our Frag line of product (0.36g) as I don't consider it to be suitable to sell as a premium line. The greens and yellows are still the higher quality material (manufacturing not withstanding) if you can find them but most manufacturers seem to be on this iron trend. I believe its cheaper and easier to do weight control all the way up to .43g. If you see a black BB above .32g its most likely because of this additive.

The reason it cleans up in coke is that the iron isn't as fine and they aren't washing the BBs prior to packaging - this is on purpose because the fine dust left in your feedpath "acts as a lubricant" for the BB (sarcasm). Throw a nail into a glass of coke and leave it for a week - its a great metal cleaner.

If you're running a tuned gun with a tightbore you might experience mid to long term issues. Ultimately this material will gum your system up - it is fine enough to eventually get into the mechbox lubricant, turning into liquid sandpaper and potentially prematurely wearing your internals. Again, this takes a fair amount of use of the product, but once its in the mechbox and in the lubricant, it won't matter if you stop using an iron additive BB, it will continue to wear. Clean and relube your mechbox. A rule of thumb to follow is that there should *never* be a powder residue on a BB product and if someone tells you its for lubricant, its more likely a lack of cleaning in post production.

This is why BB Bastard has been shy on the heavyweights this year and only has .36g in the frag line. If I can't be sure it won't damage your gun, I prefer not to sell it.

Good review though, nice to see some pictures.

[chaz]

I am running a BASR and at most fire 100-150 per 6-8 hour day. Not overall concerned.
After I cleaned them off with coke I noticed the surface was smooth to the touch and lost the gritty feeling. I normally wash all my BB's (Not BIO's) in coke when I get them to remove any crude/crap left behind by the manufacturing process.

But I do appreciate that information.

Scarecrow - Does BB Bastard intend on releasing a high weight BB? Something in the .40 range? This is what I shoot and would prefer to shoot your product but sadly Madbull is the best I can get at the moment.

[cetane]

Could tin be used as a filler? Softer than iron (& zinc) . Not sure how it would work with soil analysis stuff. Copper maybe? Other than its stupid expensive?

[leth1337]

Originally Posted by chaz

Scarecrow - Does BB Bastard intend on releasing a high weight BB? Something in the .40 range?

They've had them in the past, I'm sure there's more coming. I still have a bag, heh.

[chaz]

Originally Posted by leth1337

They've had them in the past, I'm sure there's more coming. I still have a bag, heh.

Sadly I got into the game too late to have seen these out there. DIEING for them to come back.

[Scarecrow]

The short answer is yes. This year we worked on recapitalizing and warehousing .20g to .30g in depth in ECO and Styrene. We've done that. The team actually met this morning and amongst our winter projects is reloading on Tracer (the really good stuff in .25g), tracer units, and the heavier products above .30g. I have some samples coming in and will make materials selections shortly. We do intend to roll out in the spring with a good > .30g selection that don't use iron powder.

The big issue is there is a lot of pressure on manufacturers to utilize additives for weight that don't appear on proscribed lists. The EU has been vocal for a long time with their SVHC list (16 "Substances of Very High Concern") and that list has gotten into other jurisdictions with additional restrictions. Its a financial, logistical, engineering and materials science challenge that people don't appreciate - they see a little 6mm ball and say "what could be so hard about that?". Its harder than it looks.

My experience with MadBull is simply a lack of consistency. They do huge batch runs, annually from different manufacturers and from the latest ricebagging I am seeing, without a lot of thought to quality issues. One batch is great, the next is shyte. Or a great batch is spoiled by poor shipping and storage practices. Bottom line is when I go to buy a 5000 count bag, I don't know if the BBs in that bag were in the bottom of the ricebag or the top. Stuff like that spoils consistency. Remember, consistency does breed accuracy.

I'd put our FRAG .36g up against MadBull for sure.

Wrt additives:

Tin is toxic (lead content) and copper is expensive and too light and does not naturally bond to ABS. Copper can also be a contaminant.

Chaz: "After I cleaned them off with coke I noticed the surface was smooth to the touch and lost the gritty feeling."

Look at it under a magnifying glass - you'll see the surface is indeed pitted. I don't know if you've seen our tradeshow booth setup, but we bring magnifying lamps so people can actually SEE these effects - its pretty shocking for most people to realize that a smooth feeling surface does not equate to smoothness - our sense of touch is rather low-res, but the visual inspection doesn't lie. Of course you need to be a BB-geek to get that detailed but once people are spending thousands on guns and parts for accurization, BBs construction becomes the next point of concern. It also lets you assess if the BB is out of true - and if it isn't, it won't matter how polished it is, it will fly randomly.

[chaz]

My experience with Madbulls has been great.
I will switch to BB Bastard when you guys have a .40g available to me. For now, its Madbull.
On that note a bottle of 2000 will last me almost 2 seasons. I clean my gun after everytime playing so build up isn't an issue that concerns me.

[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by chaz

My experience with Madbulls has been great.
I will switch to BB Bastard when you guys have a .40g available to me. For now, its Madbull.
On that note a bottle of 2000 will last me almost 2 seasons. I clean my gun after everytime playing so build up isn't an issue that concerns me.

Good stuff. It will be of little consequence in that quantity over time.