If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I see Skirmshop as a family. After my first visit, it was clear to me that the people at Skirmshop are sincere, friendly, and passionate airsoft players who have turned their hobby into a profession. Because their story and mine are very similar, I am very happy to support these guys!
This article was also written on this basis, as Barry and Wesley thought long and hard about how to make R-Hop accessible to normal players. Without having to glue anything and without the nerve-wracking task of aligning the HopUp.
While searching for a high-quality inner barrel for my Hi Capa project, I came across the new Stalker R-Hop system!
Disclaimer: All items in this post were sent to me by Skirmshop for testing purposes. However, this does not affect my opinion of the content in this post. If you order something using my links, I will receive a small commission from Skirmshop for the sales, which I can then invest in new projects 🙂 So it’s a win-win situation!
What is an R-Hop and why is it so good?
An R-Hop Bucking is a special type of HopUp rubber located directly in the barrel of an (S)AEG or GBB, which significantly improves accuracy and range. Quick note: Please always start with a standard bucking from the manufacturer. The better your current bucking is, the less room there is for optimization.
With an R-Hop, a precisely fitting piece of rubber is inserted into the hop-up window, which offers a significantly larger hop-up contact area for the BB compared to other buckings. This gives the ball a more even and stronger spin, resulting in a more stable trajectory. The BB simply has more time and surface area to build up a more consistent and even spin than when only a small hop-up bar 1 mm long presses down on the BB from above.
Compared to conventional hop-up rubbers, a well-adjusted R-Hop ensures more consistent shots—especially with heavier BBs—and can make the difference between an average and a precise setup.
Please note regarding this article: This is still about airsoft and not precision long-range shooting with a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle! So please don’t take everything at face value and think that you can expect the same kind of accuracy with an R-Hop (or airsoft setup in general) as you would with a live firearm.
What makes the Stalker R-Hop system different and, above all, better: Installation
For a long time, I steered clear of R-Hop solutions. The simple reason for this was that installation was usually a real nightmare!
How to install an R-Hop in the past
In short, the installation usually went like this: disassemble the gun, remove the barrel and hop-up unit, adjust the R-Hop patch dry (i.e., cut the edges perfectly with a sharp cutter), determine its ideal position, permanently attach the patch with glue, sand the surface (because there is glue everywhere), and reassemble everything. Then test it thoroughly and fine-tune it until the trajectory and dispersion are right. So it’s a task that takes 2-3 hours and involves a lot of tinkering, trying, and testing.
Useful tricks and tips for installing conventional R-Hops
- Try it out dry first: Always check the cut/shape/placement without glue. This will help you avoid mistakes that cannot be corrected later.
- Proceed step by step: Don’t try to do everything at once; instead, work in small steps and test after each step.
- Test with different BB weights: An R-Hop shows its strengths especially with medium to heavy BBs — test 0.28 g / 0.32 g etc. to find the best setup.
- Fine-tune the contact surface: Small, even corrections to the surface often bring greater improvements than radical changes. The goal is a clean, even contact line with the BB, not excessive pressure.
- Learn from the community: Good video tutorials, forum posts, and airsoft nerds (said affectionately!) have practical tips. For example, on rounding/beveling the patch edge or clean gluing in the window. I learned most of what I know from Reapers Airsoft’s videos.
The Stalker R-Hop system makes it much easier!
It used to be annoying and complicated! But now you know why I never really tackled the issue. I was just mentally out of it, because you have to insert a 6.00 mm drill bit the wrong way round into the barrel and be careful not to scratch it, then use 2K adhesive to neatly glue a piece of silicone to a piece of stainless steel without the adhesive oozing out. Then sand it down and so on…
Too fiddly, too few advantages compared to a normal tuning bucking.
However, Skirmshop has given this some thought and reduced this system to a minimum of complexity! 🙂 The result is the Stalker R-Hop System, a perfect combination of high-quality barrels and super easy-to-install R-Hop buckings and sleeves.
In principle, the solution consists of three parts: inner barrel, HopUp bucking, and sleeve.
The system is therefore worthwhile if you want to install a high-quality inner barrel anyway. This is because the HopUp (contact) patch fits perfectly into the barrel window of Stalker barrels.
So you don’t have to glue, cut, or fiddle around with anything. Just place the bucking on the running window and put the sleeve over it. It fits perfectly and only moves in one direction: more hop or less hop.
Then there are 4 different degrees of hardness per HopUp component:
This is most evident on the sleeve. It ranges from 40 to 80 degrees, from very soft to quite hard.
And now for the smart part of this system: the same range of hardnesses is also available for the contact patches of the HopUp. So again, from 40 to 80 degrees:
This results in 16 possible combinations of sleeve and contact patch. So there should be a setup that works perfectly for every setup, every BB weight, and every joule count!
For my new Hi Capa, I used the 60 bucking and 60 sleeve. So simply take the barrel and place the bucking on the window:
Then just pull the sleeve over it and use the guide line on the underside of the barrel to align everything perfectly:
This means you have combined all the advantages of an R-Hop system with the simple installation of a standard HopUp bucking. The result is impressive:
As you can see, the entire width and length of the HopUp window of the barrel is used as a contact surface. This gives the BB maximum time and contact to build up spin and stabilize before it starts its flight through the barrel.
Because, and now it gets very physical: the contact surface of the buckings is basically the only point of contact for the BB in the entire barrel system. After that, if everything is working perfectly, the BB should be pushed through the barrel on a kind of air cushion, rolling as far as possible in the upper part of the barrel. Ideally, there should be no further contact.
So far so good, but where’s the shooting test?
I’ll save myself that trouble 😉 There are two good reasons for this, which I hope are understandable:
The first reason: In the article Airsoft GBB Tuning – Sensible Upgrade or Gimmick, I showed almost exactly two years ago that GBB tuning improves accuracy, but that accuracy itself is influenced more by factors such as “do I move when firing” or the quality of BBs than by the (tuned) barrel and bucking. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, it is good to know that you are technically very close to the optimum!
The second reason: Whether you install a 4UAD bucking or a Stalker bucking doesn’t make much difference anymore. Both perform well. A Maple Leaf bucking will also produce similar results. The days of upgrade buckings that don’t really improve performance are basically over. As I said, we’re talking about airsoft here, not long-range precision shooting.
But if you’re into sniper golf or want the perfect combination of inner barrel, hop-up bucking, and sleeve, the Stalker System lets you try out all possible combinations until your system performs optimally.
And that’s exactly what makes airsoft tuning so appealing. Ultimately, they are small, (far too) light BBs that can be affected by the air, but it’s most fun when the system allows you to shoot laser BBs! 🙂
The Stalker System also offers additional factors that speak in favor of this solution:
- Longer durability due to greater contact surface area
- Longer contact surface for greater consistency
- More precise adjustability due to larger contact surface with the BB
Conclusion on the Stalker R-Hop System
Everyone should play what they feel like playing and what suits them best. Anyone who has ever seen me on the field knows that I like to keep things as minimalist as possible. So, on the next two game days, I’m going to try playing with a Hi Capa (or my TP22), if the temperatures allow it. Somehow, I’ve moved away from heavy primaries, which become a burden after 3-4 hours. I prefer to just carry a plate carrier with a holster and 2 extra magazines.
Especially in times when a GHK HK416 GBB is coming onto the market, whose replacement magazines cost a whopping € 100, a pure backup setup is all the more tempting for me. As they say: we’re still talking about airsoft. My SSP5 4.3″ with Stalker inner barrel and R-Hop system has a similar accuracy to a € 1,000 GBBR. So why not get the most out of your backup for € 50 and enjoy a relaxed pistol-only setup if that’s what you enjoy! 🙂
