Just wanted to show off my e-mag build, so here we are. I bought this about a month back from AO member woouulf. He had issues with it for a while, and said that "the on/off pin was getting stuck and it would go full auto". He got tired of trying to fix it, so now it's my turn to take a crack at it! It should be noted that this is my first emag, and eight months ago I had exactly zero automags. Let's take a look at what we have here...all images are clickable to full resolution.



Not bad, it's in used shape but the electronics work and the battery is new (battery charger not shown). The Dye barrel is not for centerfeed bodies however. Thoroughly inspecting the marker, I discovered several issues:

valve
  • level 10 bolt carrier too tight (size 0)
  • level 10 bolt foamy missing
  • seemed to have a regular buna o-ring for the on/off top instead of a quad o-ring (had .712" pin)
  • valve pin assembly o-rings were old and brittle

    sear
  • sear bushing ground flush with sear
  • sear bushing ID larger than sear pin OD
  • sear trigger rod too long
  • sear solenoid plunger rod missing locknut; impossible to maintain correct length

    body
  • mode selector switch installed in wrong orientation
  • missing battery disconnect plug
  • missing burst mode jumper
  • missing sight rail and screws
  • missing one grip panel screw with another being stripped
  • missing grip frame screw washer

I have some work to do! I start with the valve, like always. It was taken apart and cleaned inside and out. The regulator springs were coated with new bearing grease, and the regulator adjustment nut received some fresh anti-seize compound. All o-rings were replaced just to be certain there would be no issues (including a proper quad o-ring for the on/off). The on/off bottom and power tube were polished, and the fitting was re-installed using less teflon tape for a cleaner look.

Before and after:





At this point I focused on the level 10 bolt. The bolt head measures .687 (body is .681), so this can present issues where the bolt can jam in a smaller bored barrel. To prevent this, I grind my bolt heads down:



It's first ground down with a dremel tool using the fine sanding drum, then any high spots are finished by hand with a small file (second image). The head is then wet-sanded so there are no tool marks remaining with 320-400 grit sandpapers (third image). It should be noted that my sand papers are 10 years old or something, so they're a lot finer than that lol. Finally the bolt is polished using the dremel with a felt polishing wheel, and tripoli and white rouge polishing compounds (last image).

Valve done and assembled, fitting the correct size carrier for the level 10, a new reg spring and a new rt bumper:



Time for the mess that was the sear. As pointed out earlier, the bushing that keeps the sear centered in the rail was ground flush with the sear, meaning there was a ton of side-to-side play. In addition to that, it had been drilled out so it wasn't even a tight fit on the sear pin. I have NO idea why anyone would do this. Basically this sear was not only completely out of spec in every way, but it was just flopping around like a fish out of water. It would need to be adjusted and have a new bearing pressed in.



Here i've already pressed the old bushing out using a large clamp and some sockets, and have the replacement bearing waiting. The bearing was ordered from ebay from a bearing wholesaler and measures 1/4" OD, 1/8" ID and 1/4" wide. This is the same type of bearing that is used in RT classic sears.

And here we have the sear all done:



The bearing was carefully pressed into the sear using the clamp. Once it was flush with one side of the sear, a large socket was added so I could press the bearing through. Progress was checked frequently with my digital calipers to make sure the bearing was centered in the sear. The trigger rod was removed (it came out by hand, that's how loose it was) and cleaned up, blue loctite was applied and the length was set back to the correct 2.125" (it was 2.165" before). The solenoid plunger was set at 3.005", and is kept in place with a new 4-40 locknut (which was missing before).

Let's see what it looks like installed:



It's 100% better...no slop at all!

Lastly the few loose ends were tied up: The missing and stripped grip panel screws were replaced, as was the sight rail, battery interrupter pin and burst mode jumper. A new bolt foamy was glued in place, and a new spring washer was put on the grip frame screw. The mode selector switch was installed in the correct orientation so all modes could be selected like they're supposed to.

The electronics were first tested with a classic valve (done while I was waiting on parts), and they worked fine. It was hard to walk in electronic mode, as the trigger pull was too long. So, I adjusted the trigger to try and tighten it up a bit. The sensor magnet in the trigger was moved as far back as it could without interfering while in mechanical mode, and the trigger stop was adjusted to stop just after tripping the sensor. This was an improvement, but it could be better with a forward trigger stop. That might be added later. At this point i'm out of air, and have not cronographed the emag valve yet (it did air up and fire fine for the few shots I got though). All modes and safeties work like they should.

In the end, I decided to swap the black body and barrel out for a polished stainless vert feed and stock centerfeed emag barrel.



I think it looks better, and has more contrast with the black. The black body went on an rt pro for the same reasons (the black contrasting with the rt pro's stainless steal pieces). There were several scratches as you would expect though, so I spent a few hours polishing the body and barrel tip with the dremel. They got three passes using black emery to get as many of the scratches out as possible, then a pass each with tripoli, white rouge and a finer stainless steal-specific compound. Finally the parts were hand-buffed twice with Mother's mag and aluminum polish. The grip panel screws, sight rail screws, mode selector switch screw, hall-effect sensor cover screw, sear pin and both field strip screws were polished as well for good measure. Here are the results:







So that's it for now...strongly contemplating sending this off to precision powder for a paintjob lol. I did want to swap the black ASA plug out for a polished one, but that thing is IN there. I bent my cheap allen wrench trying to get it out. Blah! Anyway, I plan to play next weekend and give this gun a proper shake-down! I'll post an update then.