Cliffs:
NIB Sydarm had problems with the bolt sticking right out of the box. Tried everything for months to fix it and problem kept returning. Discovered that the hole in the body where the sear enters to depress the on/off valve was milled too far forward. Filed some material off the back of the sear (about 1mm) so that it easily cleared the hole without hanging up. Problem fixed!!
Long Story:
First: BIG thanks to RobAGD for his patience and willingness to help me out with this problem. I owe him a beer or 3.
I purchased a Sydarm from PC last May. Seemed fine out of the box but shortly developed a problem. The bolt would hang up after a few shots or even sometimes on the first shot. It was acting like "bolt stick", but it wasn't. It happened more often with a 12g but it would hang up with CA. However, when I used HPA the problem would almost go away completely. ???
I had a AGD tech look at it at a game that I went to last summer. He stated that it was the pressure regulator backing off a little from the valve body. It seemed that when the alignment notches were out of alignment that the problem was worse. I wrapped some teflon tape on the threads and some electrical tape around the outside. That helped, but the problem still appeared. So I chalked it up to it being a Sydarm that just didn't like CO2, which is useless to me. It was looking like eBay for this marker.
Out of desperation I took it to Robert (RobAGD). If he couldn't fix it, then it was going back to AGD, and then possibly eBay. He looked at it and clued me into the "bolt stick" idea. He said it was acting like bolt stick but checked it and said it wasn't. He replaced the power tube spacer but still no dice. On top of that he noticed that the trigger felt "funny". He suggested calling AGD.
So I decided I was going to spend some quality time with this marker. I did the full AGD function check, tore it down completely, down to the very last o-ring and spring, cleaned every surface, seal, and seat, reassembled it and it worked! No hang-ups. Sweet! Something I did fixed it. So did a quick field strip, oiled, wiped it down, reassembled and the problem returned!!! ARRRRRGGG!!!
OK OBVIOUSLY it has nothing to do with the valve now. So now I'm thinking this has GOT to be a manufacturing defect. I took a hard look at the body and whaddya know?! I found this:
BINGO! The hole where the sear engages the On/Off Valve was chewed up. Looks like the sear wasn't cleanly entering the hole. Put the body back on the rail w/o the trigger frame and sure enough the sear was dragging and hanging up to the point where the sear wouldn't even enter the hole to contact the On/Off pin. Looks like when AGD drilled out the holes for the On/Off on this body it was about 1mm to far forward. Off to the grinder! :) Rather than ream out the hole (b/c a screw-up there could cost me the body) I just ground off about 1mm of material from another sear I had. You can see the difference here:
Checked the travel on the sear, no problem. No hang ups and nice and smooth. Buttoned it all backed up and EUREKA!! No problem at all. Trigger felt nice and crisp, no bolt hanging, no problems. Used CO2 on CA and 12g, rapid firing, not a single hiccup.
Loving life. FINALLY I have my Sydarm up and running like it should be. So if you are having the same head scratching problem with a Sydarm it's worth taking a look. I may not be the only one that has this defect.
Cheers!
-Al
NIB Sydarm had problems with the bolt sticking right out of the box. Tried everything for months to fix it and problem kept returning. Discovered that the hole in the body where the sear enters to depress the on/off valve was milled too far forward. Filed some material off the back of the sear (about 1mm) so that it easily cleared the hole without hanging up. Problem fixed!!
Long Story:
First: BIG thanks to RobAGD for his patience and willingness to help me out with this problem. I owe him a beer or 3.
I purchased a Sydarm from PC last May. Seemed fine out of the box but shortly developed a problem. The bolt would hang up after a few shots or even sometimes on the first shot. It was acting like "bolt stick", but it wasn't. It happened more often with a 12g but it would hang up with CA. However, when I used HPA the problem would almost go away completely. ???
I had a AGD tech look at it at a game that I went to last summer. He stated that it was the pressure regulator backing off a little from the valve body. It seemed that when the alignment notches were out of alignment that the problem was worse. I wrapped some teflon tape on the threads and some electrical tape around the outside. That helped, but the problem still appeared. So I chalked it up to it being a Sydarm that just didn't like CO2, which is useless to me. It was looking like eBay for this marker.
Out of desperation I took it to Robert (RobAGD). If he couldn't fix it, then it was going back to AGD, and then possibly eBay. He looked at it and clued me into the "bolt stick" idea. He said it was acting like bolt stick but checked it and said it wasn't. He replaced the power tube spacer but still no dice. On top of that he noticed that the trigger felt "funny". He suggested calling AGD.
So I decided I was going to spend some quality time with this marker. I did the full AGD function check, tore it down completely, down to the very last o-ring and spring, cleaned every surface, seal, and seat, reassembled it and it worked! No hang-ups. Sweet! Something I did fixed it. So did a quick field strip, oiled, wiped it down, reassembled and the problem returned!!! ARRRRRGGG!!!
OK OBVIOUSLY it has nothing to do with the valve now. So now I'm thinking this has GOT to be a manufacturing defect. I took a hard look at the body and whaddya know?! I found this:
BINGO! The hole where the sear engages the On/Off Valve was chewed up. Looks like the sear wasn't cleanly entering the hole. Put the body back on the rail w/o the trigger frame and sure enough the sear was dragging and hanging up to the point where the sear wouldn't even enter the hole to contact the On/Off pin. Looks like when AGD drilled out the holes for the On/Off on this body it was about 1mm to far forward. Off to the grinder! :) Rather than ream out the hole (b/c a screw-up there could cost me the body) I just ground off about 1mm of material from another sear I had. You can see the difference here:
Checked the travel on the sear, no problem. No hang ups and nice and smooth. Buttoned it all backed up and EUREKA!! No problem at all. Trigger felt nice and crisp, no bolt hanging, no problems. Used CO2 on CA and 12g, rapid firing, not a single hiccup.
Loving life. FINALLY I have my Sydarm up and running like it should be. So if you are having the same head scratching problem with a Sydarm it's worth taking a look. I may not be the only one that has this defect.
Cheers!
-Al