Rhop has many benefits, but firstly what is ‘R’ hop?
Rhop is a term used to describe a unique bucking & nub combination which give significant range and accuracy gains.
Rhop has some obvious differences to a conventional hop setup which are shown below.
Scroll to the bottom of the page for a TL:DR!
Firstly here is a conventional barrel, bucking & nub;
We can see the barrel cross section showing a conventional ‘hop window’, and we can see a conventional bucking (in purple) and its hop-up ‘mound’ as viewed if looking through the barrel.
Here we can see the same conventional setup with the ‘nub’ added (in green). When we apply more or less hop we are basically pushing the nub further into the bucking, which in turn pushes the mound further into the barrel, which in turn applies more pressure – and therefore more friction to the BB, resulting in more backspin to increase the flight distance of our BB.
The areas of contact are shown in red, these being the bucking mound and the bottom centre of the barrel.
NOTE: the bucking is responsible for providing the nozzle air seal AND the friction surface for backspin (hop).
Here is an Rhop barrel, bucking & nub;
The first major difference is the length of the hop window, depending on application it can be upto twice as long, normally it is 2 or 3mm longer.
The bucking is for the most part identical to a conventional bucking, the only major difference being that the conventional hop-up mound does not exist, or is removed – this is known as a ‘straight’ bucking.
The second major difference is the Rhop ‘Patch’ (shown in blue). This is a piece of silicone which is exactly the same size, shape and thickness of the window / barrel – this completely fills the window making the barrel totally sealed.
NOTE: this means the bucking now only has one job to do – providing the nozzle air seal.
What do these differences give in performance gains?
This is the first major gain an Rhop has over a conventional setup – the barrel is air tight, so when the air is released through the nozzle to fire the BB, all of that air goes down the barrel, none leaks or escapes out from under the bucking – this massively improves velocity consistency, which in turn massively improves shot consistency by straightening the BBs flight path, reducing vertical up/down deviation.
The second major gain is that we have a much larger contact area to apply backspin – nearly the full length of our Rhop patch – again shown in red.
Pressure is applied evenly along the length of the Rhop patch by an Rhop nub (shown in green). This is made from very soft rubber or silicone foam which molds itself to the shape of the barrel, this along with the barrel shaped Rhop patch means that pressure is applied to the BB around a much larger radial area.
The much larger radial contact area combined with the long contact length means we can apply a lot of backspin to the BB with much less pressure.
By being able to apply more backspin we can use heavier BBs, which carry more energy – allowing them to travel further, and are less affected by wind giving yet again more shot consistency.
The third major gain is because the BB is contacted over a large radial area, this centres the BB in the barrel much better – this massively improves shot consistency by straightening the BBs flight path, reducing the left / right deviation.
The fourth major gain is the life span of an Rhop patch, because it uses much lower pressure to apply backspin, and is physically so much larger it lasts many times longer than a conventional setup – the other advantage to this is that over extended use the hop adjustment set is more consistent.
Likewise as noted earlier – the straight bucking only has one job to do now, which is to provide an air seal to the nozzle. Whereas in a conventional setup the bucking also has to provide the friction surface for applying hop, this job is now undertaken by the Rhop patch.
Rhop truly is a major upgrade to ‘effective range’ – AKA a shooting distance of which you can accurately shoot the intended target, not just randomly lobbing a barrage of BBs!
TL:DR – IN A NUTSHELL
- IMPROVES EFFECTIVE RANGE – USUAL GAINS OF 20M
- USE OF HEAVIER BBs ARE LESS EFFECTED BY WIND
- REDUCED WEAR RATE EXTENDS LIFESPAN OF HOP-UP
- USE OF HEAVIER BBs MEANS OPPONENTS AT RANGE ARE MORE LIKELY TO ‘TAKE THE HIT’
SixG 