Super Bolt Update with PICS (you guys are driving me nuts)

[Gunga]

Originally posted by Zarak
RiceRocket and Gunga beat me to it. I was thinking of the same thing... rounded spring and/or some kind of metal cover over the delrin sleeve. Are you guys reading my mind or what?

Tom, would this be possible?

Of course we were reading your mind. I dunno about RiceRocket, but I work for Miss Cleo!

Miss Cleo is getting really annoying, isn't she?

[BlackVCG]

The problem with a rounded spring is that it wants to coil up on itself when compressed. The square spring is able to compress so that the coils compress on one another.

[ang310fd347h]

maybe a delrin spring or something or sort of softer than deltrin material springs are cheaper than bolts :)

[ang310fd347h]

hey Black Vcg u have one of these bolts that i can test?

[BlackVCG]

No. Also, using a softer spring material will result in more broken bolt springs. When the bolt spring breaks, your gun is useless. Where as, with the bolt sleeve wearing out, it's something that happens over time and even if it's very worn, the gun will still be able to fire. As for putting a wear sleeve on the outside of the delrin sleeve or wear rails, for one you'll run into manufacturing problems and the cost of the bolt will be much more because it's more difficult to produce and you'll have the problem of your wear attachments falling off and causing gun malfunction. Your metal sleeve would have to be a certain thickness to keep it from cracking under use and I should think that the thickness you'd need to make it durable would put enough weight on the bolt that there wouldn't be much difference in it and the SS bolt. See, if you're going to put a metal sleeve on it, you're going to have to turn down the delrin sleeve to keep within the diameter tolerance of the bolt casing. So now you have less delrin and metal in place of what delrin you took off, thereby the weight will go up more than just putting a really thin sleeve on the outside of the delrin sleeve.

[ben_JD]

How much could the sleeve be?

I think, naively perhaps, that we should just buy the upgrade (if not made a standard option in the marker) and buy several replacement sleeves. I don't know a lot about machining delrin, but how expensive could they be? Seems that we could buy batches of 3 or 5 and replace them as needed just like the O-rings, bolt springs and foamies.

[Webmaster]

Instead of delrin - can you use a harder composite. What about some of those high tech ceramics?

[Gunga]

How about milling away some of the excess stainless on the outside of the bolt in order to lighten it up? Mill in some wear rails. Or I maybe they could be extruded in a star pattern and fastened onto a stainless base?

If it's milled, you might have to temper it to relieve the stresses from the machining...might even have to heat treat it to harden the wear rails too. More complicated...which means more $$.

Here's an idea of what I was thinking of. Sorry it's so rough, but I don't have AutoCAD. :) You could get away with as few as 3 wear rails I'd guess.

We could call it the 'Super Star Bolt'. Kinda cheesy, but... :)

[SIGSays]

would we have to pay for these new bolts?? are they like an upgrade or an improvement??

[krafty]

I'm sure we'll have to pay for them. Who knows, maybe Tom will use them as party favors and give a few away at the anniversary party on the 3rd?

[SHAG]

Gunga's idea

Hi,

Gunga, your idea is along the lines of my concept. I thought about some form of ribs milled into the bolt. That would make it lighter. Also I was figuring Tom to be using some unusual material like an Al/Mg alloy with some milling. I was not expecting to see a Delin sleeve. The wear on the Sleeve looks bad after about 3 tourneys.

keep at Tom and use the Ao suggestions wisely. My the AO be with you!

Later,
Alan

PS I m not into Star Wars so don t start :)

[Russ]

My guess for the use of a squared coil spring is that the spring must go "solid" (fully compressed) upon each firing cycle. Round stock springs just can't handle that. They will lose their "springiness" and collapse rather quickly.

Perhaps Tom could mold the Delrin (or a more wear resistant carbon-fiber impregnated polymer) to get the cost per part down. I JUST happen to know of this little mold shop...

[AGD]

Guys,

All good sugestions but we are way ahead of you. The stuff is the glass filled wear resistant "super delrin" but I forgot what it's called. If you mill wear rails you have no way to hold the delrin in place. You can't do a sandwitch the stainless gets too thin and a would cost a fortune.

We were thinking about trying an aluminum sleeve, most of the weight savings with none of the wear problems. See, you guys need to think more out of the box :)

AGD

[krafty]

Well, what do you expect with a research budget like we've got right now? You've got us all working for pretzels and cheese!

[ProjectMag]

What holds the delrin on the bolt as of now? You could put notches in the wear rails that connects the delrin so it's all one piece still.