I looked for some guide everywhere, and couldn't find any.

So I did it, and took photos. Maybe this would help. If you want to upgrade your VSR's speed, you have to open up the cylinder. But Tokyo Marui put a stainless steel pin on it so you can not open the cylinder. This is how you take the pin out. Actually, you don't take it out. You simply destroy it.


TOOLS----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Dremel or any other highspeed drill would do. Not the cordless hand held kind, they are too slow and weak. Dremel cordeless does not have enough torque. You need something that could get up to 2-3000 rmp with good torque.

[2] A rotary cutter. Again a Dremel set would have this included.

[3] A drill bit. Not the wood drill kind, but something stronger like carbide or tungsten, something that can be used against steel.

[4] Hexa wrench or a bolt.






CYLINDER REMOVAL--------------------------------------------------------------------

First, find 2 hexa bolts that are located under your rifle, one inch in front of the magazine and one inch behind the magazine. Unscrew both. That will separate the mechanical parts from the stock.

Check on the firing mechanism. On the right side, there is a little silver rectangular thumb notch. Take that down. That is the spring guide stopper, and it will slide down an inch, releasing the cylinder.

Now you have taken out the cylinder.




PRE-DRILLING PREPARATION---------------------------------------------------------

Check on the cylinder head. You will see one pin close to the cylinder head. This is your target.



Many people do not have a drill press and a vise. But if you simply start drilling, the drill bit will not stay on the pin. So I decided to give it a + shaped notch, so that the drill bit would stay on target. This is not to use screw driver on it. You cannot go that deep. That will destroy the cylinder. Ever so slight a touch will do the job.



I was careful, but I still ended up cutting on the cylinder. This is not very good. I would suggest using X notch instead of + notch. The top end of + ended up leading my drill bit to the top. If I do it again, I would use X shaped notch instead of + shape.





DRILLING----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now you have a notch. This is to center the drill bit, not to use screw driver.

Now stick your drill bit on the center and drill it. The size of the drill bit has to be same as the pin. It can be ever so slightly bigger, but not smaller. I used exactly same size drill bit as the pin. I pressed hard and drilled deeper than necessary, but no harm done. If you look at the picture below, you can see the thickness of the cylinder wall. That's how deep you need to go in. All you need is only about 1/32nd of an inch, because the cylinder wall is only that thick. But drill tip is not flat. It's a cone shape, so you do would need to drill 1/16th of an inch. I think I ended up drilling more. Going a bit deeper is no problem.

But I my drilling wandered around a bit, and ended up taking too much on the top rim. That's not what I wanted. This weakens the whole cylinder opening. Don't let your drill wander to the top rim direction.


Take a look at how I ended up drilling too much on the top rim of the cylinder. You can see how opening is weakened. Learn from my mistake and don't let your drill wander like I did. This is why drill press and vice is preferable.

Although, even as it looks now, it does not seem to allow any air leak. I lit an incense underneath the magazine well and fired one. There was no air leak. So, maybe having destroyed the cylinder rim wasn't all that bad after all.



UNSCREWING THE HEAD--------------------------------------------------------------

Now that you have drilled the pin you have to unscrew the cylinder cap. This is not easy because there is no place to grap hold on to. But there is a notch on top of the cylinder cap.


You can use this notch. If you have a regular household wrench, this is what you can do.



You can use a hexa wrench, or a bolt, whatever that would fit on that notch on the cylinder cap. Just hold it tight with the wrench. The hole in the wrench would be big enough to let the nozzle in freely.

Simply grab the hexa wrench tightly, and plug one end on the notch of the cylinder head, and unscrew.

Voila! The cap is undone.

As you can see, there is no more pin to take out. You have simply drilled out the offending part of the pin.

Now you can change spring, spring guide or piston, if you want to.



PISTON HEAD--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Piston looks like this.


If you have VSR Real Shock or USR, you will see two metal jackets around the cylinder. That extra weight is what gives the recoil sensation, but it will slow the piston down. If you have USR, I think it already has stronger 110 spring to handle the extra weight of the metal jackets. By simply removing the metal weights will increase the muzzle velocity to around 350fps. As you can see, I have VSR Pro Sniper version, so no metal jackets to remove.

Also there were people who mentioned that the O ring's seal is not perfect. Some suggested to change the ring to an AEG O-ring, which is supposed to be bigger. This O-ring looked good enough for me. But those of you who want real tight piston, might want to use slightly bigger O-ring.

One thing about air brake is that it will slow the piston down. Because this needle part will get into the nozzle first, it will prematurely plug the nozzle. But not completly. So the last 50-30cc of air will have to squeeze through between the nozzle and air brake. This cushions the piston by slowing it down right before the piston hits the cylinder head. This air cusion is what makes the VSR so quiet.

If you want your VSR to be quiet, leave it. But if you do, you won't see a lot of improvements even if you use a stronger spring. I for one, wanted to let my new m120 spring to do its job. So I cut it down to a stub, little too much. Then, I filed it to a round shape.


I cut it down too much. It's louder, but the 120 spring can do its job. I think I should have left maybe 1/16 of an inch longer. That would have made it slightly quieter, and there would have been less vibration.


CAPPING IT BACK ON-----------------------------------------------------------------

I have Systema cylinder grease; whopping $10 for a rabbit dripping size of grease. But I forgot to use it, and instead I used Tamiya ceramic grease. It's not designed for cylinder use, it's for RC plastic gears. At least it won't damage the piston or piston ring. Systema grease has an instruction and it says to re-grease the sylinder every 2000 rounds. Incidentally, every 2000 rounds is what Marui recommends on hop-up and barrel lubing with silicone spray. So I guess I will go back in after 2000 rounds.

I inspected the drilled edges, and found that it had many sharp edges from drilling. I carefully filed offending edges with needle files, and screwed the cylinder head back on.

Use teflon pipe tape when you do that. If you use the specially improvised wrench, you will find that the cylinder head will get screwed in slightly tighter than before.

When you slide the cylinder back in the barrel, you will find that it will not go in. On the left side(opposit of the spring guide stopper you unlatched at the very beginning) of the firing mechanism, there is a pin. This pin is thicker than clothes pin, but you will see no pin head. The pin sits in a quarter circle groove of about 1/4 of an inch. You need to use your fingernail on your thumb to move it down and hold it there. That will bring down what's blocking the entry of cylinder into the barrel. Slide your cylinder back in, and let go of the pin. In addition, you have to push the spring guide stopper on the other side (right side) back up. It will click into the position.

Don't forget to use grease everywhere, except for the top surface of the piston, and the thread on the cylinder head. If you use stronger spring, sears and spring guide stopper will wear out quickly if you don't grease enough.

When you put the cylinder head back on, use teflon tape on the thread. You will have tighter air seal that way.

Tighten two two bolts to reattach barrel to the stock and your rifle is back in action.


Results-----------------------------------------------------------------

It's been 14 months since I started the thread.
As a side note, I add results.

With a 120 spring, TM's Precision Brass barrel and TM's 0.3g BBs, best I could do was 4.8 inches from 100 feet(15 rounds measuring two farthest shots). All 15 rounds into a CD sized hole from 100 feet (measured 33 times with 1m tape). But usually I would get 6-7 inch groupings. Still good enough for a head shot.

Then I installed a 150 spring, PDI 6.05mm x 554mm barrel. Amazingly, result was not any better but slightly worse.

I installed a 170 spring, and I use even heavier BBs, 0.33g and 0.36g. Results were even more disappointing. 9-10 inches.

My unproven theory at this point is that stonger spring will impact harder, and cause more vibration. That seems to throw the shots off the right course, even with heavier BBs. So I am suspecting VSR can take only certain amount of vibration. 120 or 130 level springs have less of an impact, and the vibration from them can be compensated by using heavy and more accurate 0.3g BBs. But if you go over that, heavier BBs can no longer compensate for the in accuracies caused by the impact viabration. Right now with a 170 spring, my grouping from 100 feet is 9-10 inches. I'll try to shoot some more targets and see if I can do better. But if more testing shows the same results, VSR with a 170 spring is no more accurate than M16 or M14 at 100 feet. For the time being, my sense is that stronger spring is the killer of accuracy.

To reduce impact vibation I installed a damper, but it does take up some room inside, and that little bit of space seems to slow the muzzle speed down noticeably. There lies a dilemma. If I use a 170 spring and a damper, it shoots almost like a 150 spring, only it's harder to pull. In other words, there is no reason to use a 170 spring if I am to install a damper.

I don't mean to discourange would-be airsoft gun smiths from experimenting. Go ahead, start with a 120 -r 130 spring where VSR's accuracy seems to be at peak. Then, do your own upgrades and mods, if somebody has acheived better accuracy, let me know.



Good luck.

This post has been edited by Von Luck: Jul 18 2007, 01:11 PM

Wow, this needs to be pinned! Haha get it? Pin removal, pinned! I am so good at these jokes!

Anyway, I thought about writing a guide about this, and started taking pictures, but you were faster. Very nice job!

EDIT: If you read what I just wrote before the edit, feel free to call me a Newbie. If you didn't, then thats good, because it was oblivious and stuipid! =)

This post has been edited by Heaven'sSniper: May 17 2006, 02:51 PM

ADMIN: I suggest changing the name of this article to "GUIDE TO REMOVE PIN" or "Cylinder Pin, A REAL GUIDE" or something along those lines!!

Great job I used a drill press and it was nicer but still good job!!

Thanks guys.

I just relized that there was no mention of cylinder. I added it in the title.

Good guide. Very infortmative. Deserves a pin.

Nice job, it helped me out ;)

if you don't want to kill your cylinder head with notches from the wrench, then use the method on xavierthegreat1's vsr-10 guide. otherwise good guide. I have a question about the air break. I still have mine on, first, how much fps does it give you to take it off, second, do you just cut it off w/ a knife and the widdel it down, thats what it looks like you did.

Did you mean the holding the hexa wrench by hand and twisting it against the nozzle? It did not work for me, maybe mine was extra tight or something. That's why I had to use both grip-wrench and hexa wrench.

Grip wrench alone should not be used at all. The grip wrench is free rotating base that is biting on to the hexa wrench, not biting the nozzle. The force should be applied not to the nozzle, but to the notch.

If you hold a hexa wrench with a grip wrench, the grip-wrench's mouth is widened enough, so the grip wrenc cannot bite the nozzle. You won't damage the nozzle. The opening will snugly fit the nozzle. It won't bite on to the nozzle. If it does bite the nozzle, you must use thicker hexa wrench, or a slightly bigger grip-wrench.

The scratches you see on the nozzle are from trying to see if I could turn the head with the grip wrench alone. That's a big NO NO. I soon realized that I could easily damage it. So I used both grip wrench as a freely rotating base for the hexa wrench. You won't get this kind of scratches if you use both hexa wrench and the grip wrench. I would tape up to nozzle to protect it from minor incidental scratches though.




I don't know about how much fps I gained by cutting down the air brake. Or if I gained any fps at all, for that matter. I did 120 spring, Deep Fire sears, Nine Ball hop-up, barrel, chamber, barrel spacer, all at the same time. The BBs fly out much faster, but I don't know if that's the spring, or tighter hop-up seal, or the airbrake.

The way air brake works is that it plugs the nozzle before the piston hits the cylinder head. So the last 30cc of air must squeeze through the nozzle and air brake. It's like the piston landing on a air cusion.

I removed the air brake, because somebody said that he put in 130 spring and 150, and 190, and there was no muzzle velocity difference at all. If I remember correctly, all remained at around 400 feet per second. No improvements. Then other guys said that he should remove the air brake. That made sense to me. Maybe it made sense to the USR people too, because USR-11 does not come with the air brake. I have only 120 spring, so it won't make much of a difference, but if my spring was going to give me over 400, I would not leave air brake to hinder that.

So I gave a knife notch around the part where I wanted to cut. Then I used a wire cutter to cut it off. It was rather brittle and left a hard edged stub. So I used knife on it again to give it an aero dynamic shape. And I filed and sanded it too.

After removing the air brake, the sound got louder and harder. Before, it was like "puff" kinda sound, now the firing noise is a hard hitting sound, much like a BB hitting a cardboard. I don't like the fact that it's louder.

This post has been edited by Von Luck: May 28 2006, 02:37 AM

umm can someone write a guide to add a spring to the VSR 11 and removing the lead weights? im thinking of buying one in early october but I don't know how to upgrade this thing. please reply
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To be honest, I did it similarly but much... easier? better? I used my cordless dremel with a drillbit that was slightly smaller than the pin and freehanded it. Came out esentially perfect. Then I used needlenose pliers to remove it because there was an inset in each side of the cylinder head (this was on my USR-11, maybe the TM does not have two indentations). This left NO markings or scratches on the head, plus the pin removal was clean and fast.

It all comes down to holding the cylinder tightly and drilling SLOWLY, testing bit by bit to see if you're deep enough.

Nicely posted Von Luck! I wished someone has posted this with picture like these a long time ago when I bough my VSR-10. You could have had saved me at least 30 minutes for drilling out that PIN .... LOL ... Thanks so much for posting this valuable tip 2 years later .... hehehe. Well done. Deserve a Pinned so no else would open a thread and ask about this thing anymore!

So, Where the drilled out pin once was u don't need to fill that in with anything?

NOPE... Although you will need the teflon tape to wrap around the cylinder head to seal the air tighter in the thead. You can possibly use epoxy to seal this hole, but you may damage the thread which would stop you from taking out the cylinder head to change the Spring in the future. If you're planning to leave the cylinder internal forever after upgrade.... then use like 3000psi epoxy type. That should cover and withstand the force exerted from the compression bettween the piston and cylinder head!

What kind of drill bit thingy did you use?

just match the size of the bit to the size of the pin, thats what I did

EDIT: I still think this needs to be pinned...

This post has been edited by boom_headshot: Oct 18 2006, 08:33 PM

Sweet. Thanks.

I think It should be pinned also

I know that this is a pretty bad necro-post, but this is a really good guide that all VSR-10 owners could really use. Pinning this would filter out a wide variety of threads pertaining to this guide and it should be in a place where it is easy to find. I have to look back to this before giving advice every once in a while and others should do the same.

I am really suprised this didnt get pinned. It was still in the top page when I drilled mine, but this should really be pinned. It is an essential for the vsr, unless you have enough money to buy a teflon cylinder right away.

I vote pin as well.

Sorry to ressurect the dead here but how hard is this to drill out? I've read reviews in other places that say that its almst impossible to remove and that your better off buying a teflon cylinder. Also teflon cylinders cost about $100. Does it work the same if you just teflon tape this cylinder?

It isn't really that hard. Even if you were going to get a tefloned cylinder you would need the O-ring from inside the stock cylinder or try to find one that would fit. Try it and if you can't do it then you can get a tefloned cylinder and hack away at the old cylinder to get the stock O-ring.

I fail to understand how this thread could not be pinned; it has helped to answer many questions and has possibly help prevent the destruction of a couple VSR's.

Von Luck, this is a well written article and I intend to motivate ASF moderators to pin it. Right now there is but one pinned topic in the Tokyo Mauri VSR Series Sub Forum, thus I doubt adding this one, as well as the VSR Upgrade Guide would 'clog' the pinned topics area. Meanwhile I will work to get this pinned, and this post will allow newer players to notice its existence and possibly relieve any unanswered questions they may have.

I haven't checked through this part of the forum in the longest time. This thread and the other one are excellently written and certainly deserve to be pinned. I'll put this one and the other one up now.

Thanks for the heads up, Graham.

okay so your supposed to grease eveyrthing in there the spring and everything else? and also use teflon tape to hold it back together when your done and leave it on there?

Thank you, Graham, for working to pin this thread.





Yes, grease everything inside, except for the top surface of the piston.

Yes, use teflon tape on the screw of the cylinder head for a tighter seal.

why do you think you need a high speed drill? yes its steel but its not the hardest steel and its a small bit. Also why didnt you just center punch the pin? rather than trying to notch it.

Also I cant tell from your pictures but it appears that you could maybe drive the pin out of there rather than drilling it.

also on the air brake rather then cutting off. you could turn it down to be a smaller O.D. which would allow air to flow past it but still have some of the affect of the air brake.

I just opened my cylinder up. took the cylinder out put it in a vice and found the right size bit and ran my drill press down on to it. No center punch, no notching or anything the pin is flat and can be drilled on to if you have a press, or a super steady hand. Press is best. I ran about 2,500 rpm and went slowly down until I saw a touch of brass. I stopped there. Then Just grabbed a nice set of pliers and just turned it off. it stuck at first from teh burs of the drilling but after that it just un-threaded. it was a perfect drill. Just deep enough to get rid of teh pin. there is still some of the pin left in the head. but it doesn't interfere with the threads. the head didn't get chewed up by the pliers either. No need for the tape or the silly wrench. there isnt much torque on the head.

I then chopped my air brake. its shorter but not too short. I can still make it shorter but vibration didnt increase too much and its not much louder. Im waiting on my 130 spring and Dees 6.01

I was very happy with my results ill try to post pictures of my results. I imagine its going to be nicer then most of the jobs here but thats because ive been operating machines like that since I was 12. Working as a fabricator and machinist for a while helped alot. this whole process took me 20 mins.

next thing I make is a custom trigger and trigger guard.

This post has been edited by AndrewBall: Aug 21 2007, 08:41 PM

I'm planning on getting a VSR and want to upgrade it. Would my drill with 410in.lb. be able to do the job of cutting the pin out?

EDIT: I'm going to put a 120 in, would cutting the airbrake and tefloning the gun bring me higher than 500. If it gets close to 500 that's ok, but I don't want it higher because most feilds will not allow the gun.

This post has been edited by pizzamak: Nov 21 2007, 06:02 PM

I'm assuming that this is a handheld drill, right? If so, then it will work but I would not recommend using it. I would just use a drill press. It has no room for error when it's adjusted correctly.

it will not even bring you close. a 120 will bring you to about 400fps, taking into account that you cut the airbrake and teflon taped the hop up bucking.

couple things to note:
1. the airbrake will only come into effect when upgrading a spring well over 400 fps. if the airbrake is not cut then, the fps would be around 400.

2. teflon taping the hop up bucking will have little to no effect in a VSR.

I've dremeled out two pins so far. Both of them were very easy to do. You just have to be patient when you do it. And if you are a true sniper, you should have no trouble doing that at all.

This is all true. The closest you could get to 500 fps without going over is a 130 spring and spring tensioners, but I do not recommend this because the tensioners will wear your springs out. I suggest you get a 150 spring and cut it down a few coils. This should put you a little under 500 fps.

Would you recommend putting other parts in with I cut a 150 down alittle bit? By the way, thanks for al lthe quick answers.

I'm pretty sure that a 150sp with an intact airbrake would put you under 500 fps.

I have no idea, but these are PDI springs right? I don't know how to fool around with sears and stuff, that's why I just want to get a 120 and just slide it in there. If it was an AEG than I would have no problem. I'm trying to look for a diagram of how spring guns work. I have an idea but I'm not sure. That's how I got started with AEGs...I found a diagram.

Just check the other pinned topics. They have all the info you would need. The top links in my sig will work too.

I wanted to show you guys what I did when I drilled out my cylinder's pin. Months ago when I originally drilled out the pin, I didn't see a change in the color of shavings at all. Because of that, I kept drilling and drilling and drilling... I probably drilled about 70% of the way through the cylinder head as a result. I probably wouldn't have drilled down so far, but that sucker was really on there tight, and it seemed like I needed to drill down further to get it off! Sadly, that wasn't the case. Luckily, it works just fine.
Anyway, here are some pics of what [NOT] to do:




Also, I've noticed that my gun is actually quite loud.
http://www.trinityairsoft.com/p-296-vsr-cy...ads-silent.aspx
Does anyone know if these are effective at reducing sound a reasonable amount?


In addition to those things, I installed a tightbore that I've had lying around for quite some time. After I pull back the bolt and push it back in... towards the end, when the cylinder head is back near the hopup, it makes an audible sound. I'm not sure what it is, but I don't remember that happening previously. Could that be a serious problem? As far as I know, I reassembled everything correctly.

This post has been edited by dragonflyguy73: Dec 23 2007, 03:11 AM

Just foam the stock. It might not reduce the sound but it defiantly takes away from the "sharpness" of it. After I did it, the sound went from a loud "crack", like someone breaking a big stick, to a "puft", like someone blowing a BB through a barrel.

What's the sound like? Is the TB a VSR one?

I think I've figured out what the sound is. There's an object attached to a spring within the hopup, and when the tip of the cylinder head goes into it, it pushes it, and makes the sound. I'm going to attach a video shortly, to show you what I mean. Is there any way I could get rid of this sound? When cocking it, it is quite audible. Here's a picture of the part I'm talking about:


Great, just GREAT!!!!! You know, for $200 I'd expect more from TM. No extra screws, and the quality of their metal is horrible. I've hardly opened up my hop-up more than 2 or 3 times, and the holes that hold the hop-up to the barrel are ALREADY stripped! WTF? Not to mention, I seemed to have somehow lost the screw that holds the front barrel to the back. Oh I know! I'll just get an extra screw from the bag of spare parts that came with the... OH wait... THEY DON'T GIVE YOU ONE! This is ridiculous. It's things like this that make me wonder why I bother playing airsoft in the first place.

It also seems like the gun is much louder than it was before. It seems like after I tried the gun out again after opening back up the cylinder, it shoots a lot louder. Before when I had used it in games, it seemed much quieter and was barely audible from more than a short distance away. And if it helps, for some reason the gun is now able to shoot without the piston being locked back into position. Shouldn't it refuse to fire until it's back in position? If it isn't in position, it slams it forward and I know that isn't good for the gun. I just can't remember if it's supposed to be able to shoot then or not.

This post has been edited by dragonflyguy73: Dec 23 2007, 06:38 PM

^ Nevermind this, I was having a stroke of retardedness at the time and got a few things mixed up. Nothing to worry about, no problem here.

I'm still not quite sure about the sound. I thought it was just that plastic piece I pointed out, but it could be more than that. My guess is that when I opened my gun up and adjusted things, they aren't all settled in the same place as they were previously, and things have to adjust a little to fit into place after the gun is cocked each time.

This post has been edited by dragonflyguy73: Dec 24 2007, 10:03 PM