mitchlandry

Hi all,
I'm new to RC tanks, but not new to RC. I am considering the HL Bulldog, i'm budget minded, as an xmas gift to myself. The Tamiya tanks are gorgeous, but WOW, what a price increase. Anyhow, i notice the HL tanks are airsoft equipped to shoot 6MM BB's. Has anyone tried the 6MM painballs that fit into the airsoft guns? Any degradation in performance (firing perspective) from the airsoft unit?
Any pre-mature failure using the paintballs instead of BB's? Just curious..

And of course, once i get it, i will definately post pictures for all to enjoy.

Harquebus

Those have been tried, the 6mm paintballs, with varied success. I think swathdiver is the lead pioneer on improving the airsoft unit and has recommended which paintballs to use as well as the best performing regular BB's. The airsoft unit invariably needs some improvement to burst the paintballs on a consistent basis. Some tanks can do it in stock form, others need an upgrade it seems.
My Pershing has no trouble lobbing BB's around the room with ferocity--just haven't gotten around to using paintballs yet. Oh well...

I would search the forum for anything airsoft related.

EDIT: you can post pictures of your out-of-the-box Bulldog, but it would be more gratifying to us all if you made modifications or repainted it before you did. We've seen plenty of plain-jane M41's

-Harq

swathdiver

If you purchased the "Super" version your tank will come with a bottle of yellow bbs. These are actually very good, second only to the Crosman Glo .12g in my testing. If you just have the little box, throw it away as they will jam your gun.

As for paintballs, the only ones that work are the Flying Colors Seamless Paintballs. None of the others that I've tested are uniformly round, they routinely jam the guns. However, a stock gun has little chance of breaking them from a distance of more then a foot! You'll have to upgrade the gun. If you want to do it on the cheap, you can buy a slightly longer and or thicker spring and seal up the two holes in the barrel. Or you can buy a VS airsoft unit and swap the guts into your gun, that'll almost double the performace. Lastly you can install a 6.04mm airsoft barrel for another significant increase in power. With those mods you should have no trouble breaking a paintball against a hard verticle surface from about 10 feet.

Welcome to the hobby. Remember these are tanks and their reliability is built into the realism of the tanks so you get the full experience of tanking! They break! Buy a couple of spare airsoft units, boards and crystals. Every Heng Long should come with a soldering iron too! That being said, I have a blast with my tanks!

Search these and other tank forums to educate yourself.

mitchlandry

Cool, i will have to look into the airsoft upgrades once i get the tank.
The breaking thing doesn't scare me, half the fun is fixing them, that's why it's called a hobby.
If you want to talk breaking, you should see me trying to fly my helo, man that's a fun sight.
Almost every flight includes cartwheel landings at this point, but it's fun to fix, learn from mistakes and do it all over again.
This is why i'm also so budget mindind in this hobby, i know i will fix broken parts or upgrade something at some point in time.

swathdiver

Well then you're perfectly suited for being a tanker! A friend of mine just started crashing helicopters as a hobby too! He's on his second helo now!

Larryds

Had my Bulldog now for a couple of weeks and you will enjoy yours also Mitch. James is right about the paintballs. I got a stock unit in mind and it wont break paintballs even at point blank range. Of course the guy at the store said the paintballs I got are for the airsoft units in tanks and there is another set that he said would break too easily with the tank so I will try them. I am going to take James idea about upgrading to VS this spring and get better results. Happy with stock for now.