[MagicMarker]

Clickbait title to get all those ML CJ yay-sayers in here :hehe:

I just want to hear from those who stand by them, detailed descriptions of what it is that convinced you:
What changed between the two builds you're comparing? Were both platforms using the same BBs? What sample size are we talking for evaluating groupings? Etc. etc.

You probably know how hard I try to be a cold hard scientist, but I understand circumstances aren't always perfect and can still convey worthwhile information. Give me what you've got!

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My motivation:
EdGI has been porting for some time, and the hype over it never got to the level the Crazy Jet's hype has, which implies the Crazy Jet's design has some effect that regular porting does not. The thing is, I just can't rationalize any of its potential effects as superior. From my understanding, the idea behind porting is - in layman's terms - to more smoothly transition from the pressurized environment of the barrel to the outside atmosphere. I can see how the CJ would do this more than a standard muzzle, but not in a better way than standard porting. In the case of standard porting, the logic is straightforward - pressure behind the BB decreases less suddenly - whereas the concept behind the CJ implies some benefit from projecting all this exhausted air in front of / around the BB's path. There's a physics concept describing how moving air has lower pressure than stationary air - this can be practiced by folding a piece of paper in half into an A shape, setting in on a table, blowing through it, and watching it suck inward and collapse - considering this, it should be the case that the CJ's air stream creates a low pressure zone all around the BBs path as it exits the barrel. This doesn't seem like a good thing- even if it were in theory, it just seems the execution would be too inconsistent to be beneficial...

 

[whalesmash]

Personally, it's a price to performance thing for me. The barrel is nice, but it doesn't particularly do anything better than say an edgi ported barrel. It does, however, come in at half the price point of an edgi, at the cost of some occasional manufacturing oddities. I mentioned that the collar in one of the barrels I tried in my polarstar m4 was mounted slightly offset, but the other crazyjets haven't had this issue, so could be a lemon, could be a mistake, who knows.

 

[Dimitri MdP]

Don't know how the pressure relief sleeve works, if it works. Don't care. What I care is that my tests results consistently achieved EgGI-like precision (i.e. the best possible accuracy) at less than half the cost.

 

[1tonne]

I did an experiment a while back and the results where really good with the CJ. I put photos up on here and it was definitely better than the Action Army barrel (AA barrel was about a year old) although in tests since then, the Crazy Jet has only been a little better. I guess it depends on the day at times. Anyway, overall, the CJ barrel is a little better than a non ported barrel.
I have been able to make stock Jing Gong barrels shoot extra accurate at very long ranges just by polishing them. So, I do wonder if barrels matter that much. Also, our club G&G M4's have only had the inner barrels cleaned once in 8 years (LOL). They still seem accurate. So I don't think it matters that much what you run. More importantly is the cylinder to barrel ratio.
If you are using extra tight bore barrels, then maybe it matters more about the quality of the inner surface.

 

[Dimitri MdP]

More importantly is the cylinder to barrel ratio.

Well, the pressure relief sleeve / the porting takes care of any over volume, so that might be the trick.

 

[Reliku]

I can see how the CJ would do this more than a standard muzzle, but not in a better way than standard porting

This is it really. The CJ isn't better than an EdGI. It's about on par with an EdGI. Which is why I recommend it over the EdGI: it's half the price!

The hype about the CJ is that it's a great performing barrel (like EdGI) without a huge price tag, which is pretty much unique to the CJ. Some barrels like AA perform decently at a reasonable price, but the CJ has absolute top notch performance for a very reasonable price. No barrel can match the price/quality ratio. That's what all the hype is about

 

[Jeppe]

Magicmarker i don't think anyone is really claiming that the jet thing on the barrels work, just that the barrels themselves work ok.

 

[MagicMarker]

But don't you guys see why this baffles me? If we assume the port sleeve isn't the source of their performance, then that implies their bore quality is comparable to EdGI's which is...bonkers. If that were the case, it would have been much cheaper than a gimmick to simply say "Hey guess what everyone, PDI's bore roughness is 'x', and ours is much better at 'y'!"- simple to understand logically and can easily be hammed-up and hyped to appeal to emotions.

Am I really supposed to believe that Maple Leaf went out and made shelf barrels with bore quality comparable to custom barrels of the highest standard, for less than half the price, and didn't even try to advertise that fact at all??

 

[ArcAngel]

The CJ barrels is not near the polish as the EdGI but more of a mat finish, but is a insanely consistant mat finish. The inside of a Laylax for instance has machine rings that you can feel with a cleaning rod. These are tooling marks. The EdGI and the CJ do not have these, very consistant all the way down .

Its almost like the barrels was laser cut but not polished, which I don't think it was, but thats the consistancy of the finish inside.

 

[Dimitri MdP]

Am I really supposed to believe that Maple Leaf went out and made shelf barrels with bore quality comparable to custom barrels of the highest standard

"custom barrels of the highest standard" = some dude in his garage lapping the thing like there's no tomorrow .... Which makes for a big part of their price tag.
Even crappy OEM barrels of the crappiest kind get amazing results if you just take the time and effort to lap it to a ridiculously high grit. It's just that the costs of lapping compounds plus all the time and effort it takes to get there makes it quite tempting to just buy a better barrel instead.

Brass barrels have always been a favourite of mine precisely because of how easy to lap they are. And I think that's a good part of EdGI barrels epic performance (*yes, I know there are some steel EdGI's too, but the point remains the same)

I got the feeling surface finish (however they are achieving it) must have been the reason for Maple Leaf to switch from steel 6.02 to brass 6.04 when developing the Crazy Jet series.

Unfortunately we don't have access to actual readings on bore quality, all because of nay-sayers stupid backlash back when that German dude were providing such test. Such a stupid reaction from the airsoft community, I still gets mad every time I think about it.

As for the Crazy Jet sleeve itself, I think we are getting the terms confused. It works, there's no doubt about it. What we can discuss all day is that if it really "creates an invisible inner barrel extension", if it just prevents turbulence in front of the bb / when it gets out of the barrel, or if it just negates issues from over-volume builds, etc. But there's no doubt it works somehow.

 

[Jeppe]

But don't you guys see why this baffles me? If we assume the port sleeve isn't the source of their performance, then that implies their bore quality is comparable to EdGI's which is...bonkers. If that were the case, it would have been much cheaper than a gimmick to simply say "Hey guess what everyone, PDI's bore roughness is 'x', and ours is much better at 'y'!"- simple to understand logically and can easily be hammed-up and hyped to appeal to emotions.

Am I really supposed to believe that Maple Leaf went out and made shelf barrels with bore quality comparable to custom barrels of the highest standard, for less than half the price, and didn't even try to advertise that fact at all??

Who knows, maybe the production quality is amazing for the money.
I will say that it's just as likely to be how the barrel fits in terms of width, hopup window placement etc. All barrels are slightly different.

 

[Plazmaburn]

Mine is not as good as a my Edgi or PDI. As far as comparing it to other barrels in the same price range, $30-$60, it pretty much dominates all the others.

My CJ, I think is flawed, as the porting does nothing. I sealed the end with a small rubber plug, and made sure the tip was still open so I can see if air is escaping the tip. Nope. Not mine. No air passes threw the porting on mine. Though I don't think that is effecting the performance of it all that much as its still quite accurate. Now what I am sure is effecting the accuracy on mine is the shit machining job on the inside of the tip sleeve thing. On mine if has a case of smearing and tool marks, it looks like ass.

Its impressive that it works that well with it looking like that.

 

[Reliku]

I happen to know that the end pieces on the CJ barrels are glued on, by hand. Yes you read that right. Maple leaf is not known for its exceptional quality control, and I think the only brand that has more lemons in their shipped products is angel custom :shrug:

The surface finish on the CJ is not as good as EdGI, it's not much worse than PDI but it's definitely not the best finish I've ever seen. Which leads me to believe that surface finish is not the most important factor at this point, but rather the way the bb is released into the atmosphere. Traditionally, this would be the crown, but on the ported EdGI barrels and the ML ones, there are ports dropping the positive pressure behind the bb before the bb exits the barrel, making for a smoother transition. It just happens to be the fact that these two barrels both are top scorers on the current market, which leads me to believe that how smooth the bb's transition from inside to outside the barrel is, is more important than to how many microns the surface is lapped to perfection, at this level.

Lapping barrels is definitely a good practice, but at one point you get diminishing returns, especially if the crown (porting in this case) is not so great.

The CJ is capable of beating barrels with better surface finish because of the smooth transition it allows due to the porting, while other barrels use a traditional crown which just doesn't work as well, which cancels out the effect of a better surface finish. It's like using crappy bb's in an exceptional barrel vs using good bb's in a mediocre barrel. The latter will perform better

 

[1tonne]

If it is just the porting then we can probably make stock barrels perform really good just by making an extra, extra long crown at the end of the inner barrel as this will/should help the smooth transition between inside and outside the barrel.
So get a rotary tool/Dremal with a long cone end on it and make an extra long crown. Then smooth it down.


Personally, as said earlier, I don't see much difference between a high end barrel such as a Maple Leaf or PDI or Edgi, and a stock inner barrel. There may be about 5% difference at long range which is not overly noticeable to the eye (10% in a really bad case scenario). If shooting at a round target, it is a little more noticeable as you can sit down and compare each individual shot but like I have said, there is not much of a difference between a high end inner barrel and a stock one. (NOTE: I have seen some stock barrels with defects do affect the bb trajectory but most stock barrels work well)
A lot of the accuracy gained could possibly be put down to the simple fact that a stock barrels are 6.08mm and after market ones are tighter bores and so they give more fps. More fps means more energy which means that you do not need to use as much hopup making it more accurate.

 

[Plazmaburn]

Honestly I do not really care how the CJ works its black magic, though I probably should.

Price to performance, I can't complain. If I were to buy a PDI or Edgi, retail in the states, I could buy 2,3, maybe 4 CJ barrels, for the price of 1 of those. (Not that I would buy them in the states anyway, you are asking to be scalped at that point.)

==========

I do have some ideas on how they keep the price low and the finish as nice as it is.

I think they likely ream the barrels, then pitch them in a vibratory tumbler with fine cutting, fine grain media. (I'm talking bead blasting small media.) Clean, laser, and glue.

If I wind up nailing the process, someone owes me a bag of bbs. lol

 

[Zero Roaster]

Personally, as said earlier, I don't see much difference between a high end barrel such as a Maple Leaf or PDI or Edgi, and a stock inner barrel. There may be about 5% difference at long range which is not overly noticeable to the eye (10% in a really bad case scenario). If shooting at a round target, it is a little more noticeable as you can sit down and compare each individual shot but like I have said, there is not much of a difference between a high end inner barrel and a stock one. (NOTE: I have seen some stock barrels with defects do affect the bb trajectory but most stock barrels work well)
A lot of the accuracy gained could possibly be put down to the simple fact that a stock barrels are 6.08mm and after market ones are tighter bores and so they give more fps. More fps means more energy which means that you do not need to use as much hopup making it more accurate.

I have to agree, sir. Lately, I've gotten off of the aftermarket band wagon and started revisiting less 'high end' barrels. If I do buy aftermarket, I'm getting alot of satisfying results from any steel 6.03mm barrel. Cheaper the better. It seems if I really concentrate on the hop and establishing the flight characteristic of the BB, as long as the barrel isn't poorly finished, it doesn't have to be pristine either...I recently stuffed a Lonex 6.03 in my SL8. I cleaned it very well, and polished it out with autobody compound to a glass finish. So, it's probably 6.04 now!:lmao: Ok, regardless, works absolutely fantastic. I would say it's more the hop than the barrel...

 

[Dimitri MdP]

My CJ, I think is flawed, as the porting does nothing. I sealed the end with a small rubber plug, and made sure the tip was still open so I can see if air is escaping the tip. Nope. Not mine. No air passes threw the porting on mine.

Write at their facebook group and they'll send you another for free. And then, it'll be as good as Ed's.

If it is just the porting then we can probably make stock barrels perform really good just by making an extra, extra long crown at the end of the inner barrel as this will/should help the smooth transition between inside and outside the barrel.

Considering Maple Leaf will take custom orders for Crazy-Jetting their 6.02 steel barrels, I wouldn't be surprised if a DIY approach for a jet (or extra-long sleeve, or porting) provides the same results.

 

[MagicMarker]

Well diminishing returns will absolutely always be a thing- and I would not doubt that we've reached it with lapping...
It seems like the truth is somewhere in the middle- that Maple Leaf's Crazy Jet has good bore quality, and porting can actually be quite significant (contrary to what seems to be out there; I've heard a lot of "porting is negligible").

Unfortunately we don't have access to actual readings on bore quality, all because of nay-sayers stupid backlash back when that German dude were providing such test. Such a stupid reaction from the airsoft community, I still gets mad every time I think about it.

Wait what? I've been gone too long...what happened??

 

[ArcAngel]

There are two kinds of smooth. There is "glass like" smooth and there is "satin" smooth. This is something that we never thought about before. So my theory is that a consistant satin finish may be whats causing the CJ barrels to work as well as polished barrels. Think about this for a second, shouldn't a consistant satin finish create less friction on a smooth BB that a high polish glass finish?

 

[Handyguy]

I polish all my barrels with “Mothers” metal polish paste, just using a few pieces of micro fiber cloth, I can achieve a mirror finish on both steel and brass, I have done to C.J. barrels, stock brass ones (JG) and AA tb ones, I do not notice a huge amount of accuracy between different brands, however the FPS is higher on Tb barrels and I use 45s, I have the same set up in 3 guns but each one has a different brand inner. But in my gbb and non gbb pistols there is a definite improvement using the CJ barrels