BT and OMW internals

Hi guys, i did'nt know if this needed a topic but seeing as people will (hopefully) be offering pros and cons for both options i thought what the hell.

Well me and a mate are looking for springer guns to use in speed foam warfare (as our arsenal is 90% air guns) and i've noticed a bit of talk about the metal internals offered by Black Tactical and Orange Mod Works and their potential to make reverse plunger guns effective. At the moment we are trying to get either the recon or the alpha trooper as our primaries as they are smaller and lighter, and both sites offer upgraded internals for these blasters.

My question is has anyone experienced both options (or either) and what are the pros and cons associated with each choice... im mainly looking for difficulty of installation and reinforcements, performance increases and cost comparisons.

Thanks guys for any help, Bailey

I have an omw recon stage 1&2 and it has caused me allot of frustration to get working, took allot of trimming and grinding to get it to prime and after that was fixed now having dart jams at the breech with streamlines. I have shelved it for now as it makes me too angry (opened it over a dozen times). It was meant to be easy installation and off you go but its not as simple as that, most people experienced no problems with their kits but there are quite a few like me with issues, there were many different runs of blasters with slight changes too which doesn't help.

I guess if you are better at modding than me (which i'm not very good at) and understand breeches and the finer points of how the blaster works then if you have issues you will be able to sort it out.

Also wasn't very cheap with the price of both kits around double the price of the blaster itself.

Having said all that it does fire very hard and make a scary snap/crack when fired. it also worked well with just the stage 1 spring alone and AR removed with a bit of padding in the tube it was lasting a while but I'm not sure if that was going to continue so I tried to get the metal bits in and working but not much luck.

Long time user of BT products. Very happy with them. Only problem I've ever had is that their new V2 reverse plunger springs require some grinding inside the back of the shell where the spring coils up and there was no mention of it. Easy fix, but still wasn't 100% impressed. Have had

No personal experience with OMW other than installing both Recon kits. Lots of messing with it to get them to fit, not particularly impressed. Also know a few people who have blown out their replacement plungers. Having said all of that, I'm still organising a group buy through our group with OWM right now and will be purchasing a few things myself.

Not a big fan of 'vs' threads. Though people have proven they can be civil in the past so I will just keep on eye on this one. As soon as I see a flame or emotional rant though that is the end of it.

AS for my opinion, I have not used OMW so I cannot say much. But I have seen a couple broken OMW recon plunger tubes which makes me lean to thinking they arn't of the best quality.

I'm sorry i probably shouldn't have titled this as a 'VS' thread as I'm just trying to get information on both products so i can make an educated decision.

From what I'm hearing, and what i have previously read, it seems that BT products are more expensive but have received better or more consistent results to the same products from OMW.

For people who have actually completed these modifications (primarily replaced plunger tube and spring) is there a noticeable range increase? or would i be better off putting my money towards a different gun setup entirely? Basically im asking if this is all worth it...

Thanks everyone for the replies so far, and Joey ill edit the title, sorry about that one.

OMW recon yes huge range increase although the metal plunger and tube may make it lose a couple of feet over the plastic due to the extra weight being transferred on shooting (couple of grams difference maybe more but the plastic is very lightweight and can move faster). still makes streamlines fishtail out of control and is unpleasant to be shot with haha

Thanks ucwepn, yeah i don't use streamlines i use blue sili tips for the accuracy issue so i will probably also lose a bit of range due to heavier darts. Out of curiosity what ranges are you getting? flat if possible.

So what sort of springs could be put in with the new internals? At the moment I'm leaning toward a BT metal plunger+catch but don't know if i should buy the BT recon spring or try for a larger one. I'm quite a big guy so I'm not too worried about priming difficulty here...just concerned about potential stress on other parts...

haven't measured sorry man plus its still having major jamming issues and don't play with it, its hanging on my wall lol would probably guesstimate it at 65+ft flat and around 85+ft angled, thats with streamlines that don't fly straight, maybe more but i'm being conservative in my guess. with the 6kg omw spring its very hard to prime 18 times in a row lol

oh I also removed the jam door so I can partially prime it to make sure theres a dart in there, dry firing will kill the plunger tube fast.

Okay thanks

This is kind of a legit thing. I will tell you this now, the metal internals in OMW will eventually break. We've got two known breakages in Brisbane. Which isnt' cool. Their products are really shoddily made.

My recon stage 2 plunger just broke. I don't really recommend them.

Thanks,

Thanks for all the replies guys, after looking things over I'm going together a BT plunger set up and spring to put in an alpha trooper. It's a bit more expensive but the quality and ease of installation is worth it.

Thanks again, I'll see what I can do and post up my results when I finish the blasters, hopefully help out other people who want to do the same thing

BT don't make a plunger for the AT, only the Recon. The Recon one won't fit the AT.

It says on the BT site that you need to do some cutting to the shell but that the recon PT will fit in an alpha trooper....can anyone confirm this?

Stand corrected sorry. Have installed two of them in Recons myself but never noticed that addendum there. Let us know how it goes.

From my experience: yes, the BT Recon Metal plunger will fit into the AT if you take out the locks as directed in their image. I've done this and it worked well, but in 2 rare cases the plunger "fins" (not sure of correct term) on the sides fell out of the guide rail grooves. The fins on the AT plunger are longer for this reason.

A related note ; I also modded a BT Recon plunger with some plastic "wings" using 3 day EPOXY to make it for my brother's Raider. Worked well also, but rattled a little bit since it wasn't a *perfect* alignment. So I guess if you wanted to mod the fins on the side of the plunger to be a bit longer, that would solve the above stated problem. Just depends if you want to go that extra mile in terms of "difficulty" (as you said; trying to keep it easy)

One thing I am also testing is using the stock plunger tubes, but with a 5cent coin 3-day EPOXY’d inside the bottom of the plunger, then padding over the top of it. This is just to increase durability at its weakest point, but also if it implodes it’s no great loss. I saw someone’s guide somewhere that they put coins / washers on the rear of the plunger tube… but in theory it’s the edge of where the tube meets the base/face that shears off. So by having the glue thickening this joint, then a thin metal coin to reinforce; so far NO signs of stress, fits well and gives a good enough seal with a better O-Ring with some electrical tape to fit. Easy to do and cost effective since you already have the main part; the plunger XD

I use OMW gear in my Recon, AT and my brother's Raider. I haven't tried the Longstrike stuff though. In some cases I actually combo the BT parts with the OMW kits. For example:

Recon:
- BT Plunger (better durability and fit)
- OMW Spring (Better power)
- OMW reinforcement parts (although somewhat unnecessary, yet I’d rather be safe than sorry)
- Either metal catch is fine, but both may require a little bit of grinding down making it easier to 'catch'. BT is more economical if you get it bundled with the plunger.

- I actually DON’T use the OMW metal breech tube; it's heavy, loud, and doesn't feed darts properly. Even though it gives a great seal, it's fiddly to adjust to get it right without bending or chewing on darts, not worth it IMHO. As LittleBro mentioned some people have had the plungers break, and I find having an overly-solid metal breech slamming into it, regardless of padding, isn’t going to help. For now I’m just using stock plungers with 5c coin mod… works fine and hasn't broken in 2 wars yet, which is good enough for me.

For my brother’s Raider, however, I use the OMW Kit 1 and oh snap does it go off! It outranges most of mine and my friend’s blasters, and comes close to some of our medium-level modded Longshots! Might sound like a big claim, but everyone who’s been up against it have been very impressed and still talk about it, so that’s saying something. It works very smoothly and have had no issues what so ever.

The BT Recon gear is reliable and made well. The Recon gear gave me a few headaches trying to get it all to fit in, but once I did it was magic. The BT Longshot metal parts are divine and only required minor, easy modifications to fit.

Hope any of this info is of help!

Last night I seemed to have cured my omw 1&2 recon jamming problems, had to take quite a bit of material out of the bottom of the breach where the clip feeds, its still not 100% but I feel of take some more material away to make it look like the stock breach it will cure all my jams, it is allot better than it was maybe jams once every few clips now, also padded the plunger tube while it was all apart it also has the O ring padding at the back of the tube as standard but more protection is always welcome.

EDIT: wow just wow the power of this thing is insane, we have an indian mynah birds infestation and I was having allot of fun shooting at them in mid flight, (note: they are a pest bird before anyone gets all PETA on me) well over 35 meters angled with stock streamlines although they would have been my best freaky wind carried shots. (from my front yard i can shoot over the house across the road). If it all stays together it is good value.