Quality Heavy bb's

[captainkirk05]

I've been searching around for some 0.36g and 0.32g bb's to buy. Every time I find some, I'm let down by poor reviews. Madbull / WE / Airsoft GI brand (same OEM) are cheap, but have a habit of being loaded with air bubbles and leaving residue on buckings and barrels within 100 shots.

Does anyone have experience with good quality heavy bb's, and if so where to find them? So far I've found Elite Force Bio 0.32g bb's on ASGI, and GoldenBall 0.36g bb's on Airsoft Atlanta. I haven't seen any bad reviews, so are these good? Airsoft Atlanta had some GoldenBall 0.32g but they'll be out of stock for who knows how long.

[SteevoLS]

I've used tens of thousands of WE/Madbull/King Arms BBs and I've never had a problem. In fact, they've been some of the best BBs I've ever used. I've also used tens of thousands of Crossman .20s in my CQB guns and never had a problem. This strikes me as being just like your perceived problems with that KWA... that is to say, too picky.

[captainkirk05]

Good to know, and true being picky was just a part of the airsoft learning curve. I've been using Crosman's 0.20's in my CQB guns as well with no problems. I was just basing this question off of the reviews people leave on other forums. Even if what they say is true, my gun will be shooting these at a much lower fps than their snipers, and probably won't encounter their problems to the same degree.

Still, if there is a better quality bb on the market, it would be nice to know about it.

BTW, what weight of those brands have you used?

[SteevoLS]

.20, .25, .28, .40, .43

[wesley810]

Get some Bioshot ammo; pretty cheap and great quality..

[marpat96]

Evike sells 5000 rd .25 gram bags for the best price around, and for heavy weight I use Madbull .36s

[Rev]

I use WE .4 in my P* and I have not had a problem with the bbs.

[Dominum]

I've used Madbull .40gs in all of my high FPS builds for years now, thousands of rounds. They may not be perfect (I haven't been cracking them open to check for bubbles) but they have never left any residue or given me any problems whatsoever, and I have been very happy with their groupings. Not sure what this residue issue is you mention, but I have never seen it.

[TreeRat]

I rock MadBull .36's and .48's in my ASR.

No real preference for CQB.

[SteevoLS]

MadBull .48's

Umm... .43?

[captainkirk05]

I finally got a batch of those green colored 0.36g bb's. I will go ahead and say it, I was right about my concerns. Within 30 - 40 shots the accuracy has left the building. I went from a 2 ft spread at 55 yards to a 6 ft spread. When I took a look at my little r-hop patch and the inner barrel, I discovered the culprit. A smudge of residue on the patch where it contacts the bb, and a thin coating in the barrel. After rubbing it out, all was fine again, until a repeat happened another 40 shots later.
And for clarification, these are being shot from a 400 fps aeg.

[Star_folder]

What style R-hop are you using? There's a reason the ER-hop is suggested for heavy weight bbs (.36+)

I've rarely had this issue. Once, with very cheap .43s, did they rub off on the barrel itself, but only once. My guess is that you are applying too much hop to them, or something isn't sitting right in your gun. Of course, it's also completely possible that you have a bad batch. Either way, rubbing off on the hop up isn't unusual, but rubbing off in the barrel, and causing such a dramatic spread is unusual.

[SteevoLS]

Considering that you have virtually no other options for heavy BBs (that don't cost an arm and a leg), just wash the BBs. Fill a pan/bowl/tupperware/whatever with warm soapy water, dump the bottle of BBs in, roll them around in your hands for a little bit then rinse them off with a strainer. The whole process should take 5 minutes or so, and should remove whatever coating these BBs apparently have.

What strikes me as odd is that I've been using Madbull .36-.43 BBs for years and I only clean my barrels when I drop a gun in the dirt or mud. I have never noticed a severe accuracy drop, even at extreme ranges.

GoldenBall does product .36 and .40 BBs, but they are black. Black BBs are great in that the target can't see them coming, but the flip side is that you can't see them going.

[Star_folder]

Goldenball's heavy weights aren't much different from the largely available Madbull bbs. They are simply black instead of tan. They have the same rub patterns and both have air bubbles internally. Personally, I'd stick with the cheaper bbs than I can see.

[vanevery]

I have gone thru about 2500 MadBull .40's and about 2500 .36's over the last 6 weeks.
I am very impressed with the accuracy and consistency of the .40's.

I am still not sure about the .36's.
My first bottle (2000 count) seemed to have all kind of consistency issues.
When they were on, it felt like I could not miss out to 70 yards.
When they were off, it felt I could not hit anything at any distance, though sights and scopes were all sighted the same. Yes I am sure that the shooter (me) has to take blame for misses, but I have never had any issues such as this with other weight bb's.

I bought a second bottle (2000 count) of the .36's and have gone thru about 500 rounds and so far much better. I only got out to 60 yards last time I was using the .36's and then my battery died and my back-up battery was causing me problems as well. I think my smart charger is dying on me.
I will test the .36's out to 100 yards, just haven't had the chance to go past 70 yards with them yet due to the issues stated above.

The one thing I really do not like about the MadBull .36's is the color: Green.
This makes them extremely hard to visually follow in flight, especially when the backdrop to your shooting range is a wood line. This causes me to have to zoom out with my scope just to visually follow the bb's initial flight path. This interferes with sighting my scope in where I would like and otherwise need to.
This also interferes with following the bb flight path as it hits the target.
This could be an issue in trying to gain visual confirmation of a kill shot in an actual game.
The orange color of the MadBull .40's is pretty good visually by comparison.
When you are shooting past 80 yards, bb's of any color become hard to visually follow to the target.
I find white to be the best color for bb's to visually follow the bb flight path, but that is jsut my opinion.

I also did my research and read all the bad reviews about MadBull brand bb's.
The only reason I gave them a try was the fact that a local airsoft store stocks them and I can pick them up and pay cash instead of ordering online.
I have found no visual evidence of air bubbles or deformations in the spheric shape of the bb's though I read that people have. I have visually inspected them with a magnifying glass and a bright flashlight to know for sure.

I will say that I do wash all bb's over .30's and find that to be helpful.
I use a degreaser first and then hot soap and water to finish them off.
The feel of the bb's after doing so is noticeably dryer and smoother.