AEG Bearings
Checkout our selection of high performance upgraded gearbox ball bearings for your gears below! Click Here to Learn about the benefit of ball bearings for your gearbox!!. Have questions? Give us a call at 888-316-7816
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Checkout our selection of high performance upgraded gearbox ball bearings for your gears below! Click Here to Learn about the benefit of ball bearings for your gearbox!!. Have questions? Give us a call at 888-316-7816
Gearboxes inside automatic electric guns (AEGs) will have either bearings or bushings, or a combination of both installed. These act as the surface in which the gear axles rotate on. They can be made of plastic or some sort of alloy metal, though for a quality airsoft gun made to last for a while these will have metal gearboxes with metal bearings or bushings over plastic ones. Bearings have the benefit of being very smooth and allowing the gears to turn with even less resistance compared to fixed bushings. This ultimately allows everything to turn more smoothly and thus more efficiently. It is with bearings that you can realize higher potential rate of fire as less friction means your gears can turn more freely. Installing bushings or bearings requires fully opening the gearbox as well as shimming the gears. We offer tech services to repair and upgrade many popular airsoft gun platforms.
Q: What size bearings do I get?
A: Your gearbox dictates what kind of bearings you would have to get. If your gearbox has 6mm bushings/bearings then you can only and should only get that exact type to replace or upgrade it with. Bearings and bushings can be had from 6mm, 7mm, 8mm, and 9mm configurations with a few strange ones in between depending on the type of AEG you have.
Q: How long do bearings last?
A: Bearings should last indefinitely or tens of thousands of rounds in optimal conditions. Poor shimming, compression jams, misshaped or damaged gears, and anything that could introduce yaw to the gear axles could potentially tweak or damage the bearings and cut life significantly.
Q: How do bearings fail? How can I prevent them from failing?
A: A gearbox consists of many high stress parts working together to function properly. When you upgrade your gun to shoot harder for example, you are putting more wear and tear of the components next in line from the parts you upgraded based on just the one part you changed. A bearing can fail over time by being worn out and sloppy over time to the point where they do not spin smoothly or evenly. A bearing can fail prematurely when they are exposed to external forces that introduce yaw or friction that could ultimately destroy the race or ball bearings inside. A compression jam, jammed or stripped piston, or damaged gears can all introduce undue yaw to the gear and throw everything out of alignment. The benefits to having bearings might be arguable to some, but preventing jams will go a long way to keeping your bearings healthy. Otherwise we would suggest you go to bushings if durability is your priority. If the bearings or bushings do not fail themselves, be sure that they are held into the gearbox firmly and do not spin around.
Q: What upgrades exist for the bearings?
A: If your airsoft gun already has bearings in the gearbox, your only upgrades to the bearings you have would be ones that could be more durable or have even less friction. You could get steel bearings or ceramic bearings which have ceramic ball bearings encased in a metal alloy cage. Your other alternative if you do not like bearings is to convert to bushings, which are much simpler and do not have the same failure points that are a potential in a ball bearing.
Q: What is shimming?
A: Bushings and bearings need to fit inside the gearbox in a way that allows the gears to turn with the least amount of friction possible. Shimming is the act of fine tuning gear placement within the tolerances of the gearbox using tiny shims which appear as paper thin metal discs. AEGs that are not shimmed appropriately will become electrical inefficient and experience more undue wear and tear on the gears.