No you didn't miss anything. I misread Sniper42's post. I thought he meant his bolt face was sitting back .150" from the forward face of the body (largest piece, not the removable breech). This is why I want to verify who's measuring what from where.
Can you answer some questions if they don't involve taking the thing apart, please?
1. Look at this post. It's the best picture I've found to use for my understanding thus far. Other than the breech being backwards (detent holes should be forward of the feed tube), I think it is fairly accurate. Is the breech keyed, so it can only go in one way?
It is keyed, but I cannot honestly remember if it is both sides or only one side of the breach. Is it a straight-shot diameter all the way through, or is it stepped?
Appears to be the same size to me. If push comes to shove, I could take it apart and use calipersI'm wondering if they're not keyed and have a stepped diameter, if some of them got machined backwards.
https://www.automags.org/forums/showt...ighlight=mm2k9
2. Can you hand load two balls into the feed tube without a hopper? When you fire the bottom one, does the top one shoot out of the feed tube as Sniper42 described?
Yup. Second ball in the stack shot up and out.
3. With a ball all the way forward against the detent, you have about a .300" gap from the back of the ball to the face of the bolt as well?
Yes. Approx.
As far as slightly higher velocity with your hopper off, the only thing I can think of is you don't have the forcefeed pressure on the ball stack. This makes it ever so slightly easier for the Level 10 to complete its stroke. Any bit of less resistance lets it complete its stroke slightly faster, losing slightly less pressure through the bleed hole in the shorter cycle time. I would think this would be negligible, but it hypothetically could translate into higher velocity.
Kinda my thought. Which made me think perhaps there was something wrong/weak about the detents being used. Perhaps the loader was pushing past and causing the low FPS? But Sniper said he had the same issue with hand feeding. What about taking the detents out and hand feeding?
Anyway, I'm sure I'll come up with some more questions.
-Nathan