Worn bolt spring?

[dahoeb]

The other day I participated in a big game and about half way through the day, I began encountering a problem in which my bolt wouldn't completely cycle back to it's starting position. It would fire the round, it just wouldn't reset. It was pretty random in it's occurrence, but it seemed to happen between every 5-15 shots, during both rapid and slow fire. Luckily, I was able to remedy this on the field by venting the gas from the ASA and then re-airing up the marker. When I did that, the bolt was brought back into it's resting position.

In the first half of the day, before I had these problems, I was shooting inconsistently (crappy paint, bad paint/barrel match, and fluctuating weather) between 250-265 using the smallest spring. During the 2nd half of the day, my consistency tightened up as conditions improved and I turned my velocity up so I was shooting between 260-270. An hour or two after these adjustments is where I started having the bolt issues.

I figured that the gun just needed a little lube (though I always keep it well lubed anyways) and maybe an extra shim, so I took it back to the staging area, broke it down, lubed it, threw in another shim and it didn't have any effect on the situation. After that failed to work, I returned the LVL 10 back to it's original 2 shims.

I'm guessing now that it's the bolt spring. I've had it for about 5 years, though actually it's only seen 2 1/2 seasons worth of actual use. However, I've never really heard the exact symptoms of "bolt spring wear", so I'm not certain. Can anyone offer some advice and experience? Thanks

[Coralis]

it could also be that you might need to re-tune your level 10 as you might need to go up to the next carrier size.

[Mindflux]

Still having this problem? Ugh.

:cuss:

Try tuning up or down a a spring and see if you can get it to shoot consistent at whatever velocity that spring works best at (gold at 260 ish?). Then at least you can rule out a spring.

[factoid]

It does sound like it's probably spring wear. You can easily identify this by the length of your spring. As they wear they get shorter. A fresh gold spring should stick about half a coil in front of the bolt. A middle spring is a bit longer and the long grey spring is about a full coil longer than the bolt.

A spring is past its useful life, in my opinion, when it's lost half or more of the amount it originally stuck past the front of the bolt.

So if it stuck out half an inch and now it sticks out 1/4" it's probably time for a new one.

[dahoeb]

Still having this problem? Ugh.

:cuss:

Try tuning up or down a a spring and see if you can get it to shoot consistent at whatever velocity that spring works best at (gold at 260 ish?). Then at least you can rule out a spring.


haha yeah, I'm just trying to get some feedback to make sure I'm on the right path. With all my local fields closed for the winter it's a lot harder to do my normal trial and error testing to confirm it's fixed.

[athomas]

I would say your spring is worn out. They get weak after a bit of use and are a consumable item. It depends on how much you shoot and dry fire as to how long the spring will last. I would say you should be replacing your spring at around 30000 shots. It will last longer but the consistency of operation will decrease and at some time you will find out that it doesn't cycle properly. I do it as a matter of principal, knowing that it is going to fail soon and that it is a consumable item that should be replaced as part of regular maintenance.

[dahoeb]

thanks for the input guys, I'm feeling pretty confident seeing that we're all getting similar conclusions. When I get my emag back, I'll throw in the new spring and post results. :cheers:

[Mindflux]

going to ano?

:ninja: