Selecting a piston
 

What are some basic things to know when selecting a piston? I always just grab whatever is clever, although i dont feel so clever.

Depends on your setup. What is your goal?

I generally stick to half rack pistons.

I just want to put reliable parts in my guns, I dont run anything crazy never a 3 cell lipo or anything. The piston happened to be the first thing to go In my m14 and ive never really known what to use I just find one that works and sounds tough.

If you're not looking to do anything substantial pretty much any piston will do as long as it has more than one metal tooth to reinforce the release tooth.

I usually reach for the SHS 14 tooth. 15 or 7 tooth are also acceptable, and the 1 tooth is okay too with lower power setups.

K thanks guys. Would anyone mind explaining what happens when I go with more or less teeth, the piston still gets pulled back the same??? Are more teeth just plain stronger?

its how many metal teeth are on the rack.
You only need 3 metal teeth up to 470fps, depending on the quality of your piston.
The prometheus and system super cores are good to some 650ish fps and they're got 7 metal teeth.

cool that makes perfect sense thanks a lot everyone for the help.