Chopping Paint

[LoneShark]

I have a Classic Mag with a level 7 bolt. I want to keep it as close to original as possible. Usually it shoots darts and doesn't break paint. This last weekend it broke about every 5th ball. I adjusted the wire nubin. Then it broke. I put a plastice nubin in but it still broke paint. The paint didn't seem brittle. I have a dye barrel. The paintball rolled between the feed tube and nubin. I backed off the reg to lower pressure. Any ideas besides getting the level X??

[michbich]

Do you have a force feed hopper? The bolt doesn't care if the paintball isn't fully in the chamber. Also, I'm assuming you have the stock AGD bolt. If not, change it back.

[deathbypaint1213]

Get yourself a very good force fed hopper. Some agitating loaders may work, but a force fed would be most effective - like a vlocity, halo, pinokio, rotor, etc. For maximum performance, grab the lvl 10 bolt. I run an Apache LED with a lvl 10, and it is great.

[Coralis]

were you getting chops which is going to blow paint back up into the hopper or barrel breaks ?

[DamianTC]

he just has a classic mag, don't go out and get a halo for that... go on ebay and find yourself a revy.. You be perfetly fine with that

[Watcher]

Get yourself a very good force fed hopper. Some agitating loaders may work, but a force fed would be most effective - like a vlocity, halo, pinokio, rotor, etc. For maximum performance, grab the lvl 10 bolt. I run an Apache LED with a lvl 10, and it is great.

The Pinokio isn't force fed... it's just a well built agitator like a Fasta or a Ricochet.

If a better loader doesn't fix the problem, then you might want to switch to a level 10 bolt, asothers had suggested.

I'm willing to bet it was just a bad batch of paint, though.

[Old School 626]

My last outing I was breaking paint in multiple mags, bad too! I have a theory about this, it was either the cold weather, 60-ish or that the economic downturn has slowed paint consumption to the point that even the "fresh" paint was manufactured a long time ago and is in fact stale. And, this will continue until the paint pipeline has a chance to deflate to normal inventory levels.

Just my two cp.

[Spider-TW]

My last outing I was breaking paint in multiple mags, bad too! I have a theory about this, it was either the cold weather, 60-ish or that the economic downturn has slowed paint consumption to the point that even the "fresh" paint was manufactured a long time ago and is in fact stale. And, this will continue until the paint pipeline has a chance to deflate to normal inventory levels.

Just my two cp.

The last bad paint I had was "Made in Columbia". How they expect freshness and quality control between the US and Columbia is beyond any assumptions I can make.

While at our truck we were observing a ball that fell from the tail gate to the top of an ice cooler, which was about a one foot drop. The top quarter of the ball popped off and it all sat there like a coconut with the top chopped off.

The guys next to us were laughing at a ball that they could not mash hard enough with their fingers to make it break. They finally threw it away.

In that same batch you would find balls with seams that were not sealed but were holding the paint inside. You could push them open and they would re-close. Others you could walk on like they were rocks. They also varied in size on a bell curve centered around .692. You would get a one sometimes that was less than .684 and one that was larger than .696. You get an occasional roll out and sometimes your level 10 would keep choking on a fat ball. The extremes seemed to hit about every 20 balls or so, but I was shooting a .696 insert, so a lot of them escaped notice. It was still hard to make it through a full loader with a clean barrel. It was 'cold weather' 'Storm Ice' ; the temperature range on the box said something like 75 to 105 F. We were playing in 55 to 65 F weather.



Anyway, the economy may be to blame in the end, but it surely kept us from buying more event paint. Before you blame your marker, check at least a handful of paint.

[DamianTC]

If your mag has shot fine in the past, and now your chopping paint with the same setup that worked fine for you before.. Its not your gun, its not your loader, its the paint.

Take a look at this video of mine. I wasnt even gonna put it on youtube, but this thread made me decide to put it up so you can see the difference bad paint can make.

I been looking for some cheap priced paint that is reliable enough for rec play. So I been testing a few different brands. In this video I tryed out Nelson HotSpot. Its horrible. My setup is an Xvalve, Level 10, and ULT. My tank has an I-reg with 1000psi output. At the beginning of the video my tank barely had 1200psi left so after shooting the full loader I was at 700-900psi. I cant remember for sure. I can't even count the number of chops I had in one loader full. I also did Tom's paint test in the Tech Tips on this site. Good paint can be dropped from 6' on concrete 2-3 time before it breaks. This paint would break on the first drop. This paint wont even survive if I put a ball halfway in the breech and fire the level 10. This paint is so brittle and cheap. Totally not worth it.

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[LoneShark]

I have a Ricochet AK hopper supposed to go 12 balls a second. I've heard the human max trigger pull is like 8 balls a second. So I don't think I out performed the hopper. The paint breaks were down the barrel not back into the hopper. Thanks, I appreciate your help.

[DamianTC]

The paint breaks were down the barrel not back into the hopper.

what type of paint were you shooting?

[Watcher]

I have a Ricochet AK hopper supposed to go 12 balls a second. I've heard the human max trigger pull is like 8 balls a second. So I don't think I out performed the hopper. The paint breaks were down the barrel not back into the hopper. Thanks, I appreciate your help.

I can pull my single trigger tippmann 12 times a second...

The AK isn't the most consistant of feeders, you may max out 12bps but it will fluctuate between 0 and 12 constantly so anything can cause a hiccup(sp?) in the feed rate.


Also, Draxxus is made in Canada and in the winter it is kept cold all throughout shipping. When it gets to it's destination and is warmed up it gets very brittle.

Knowing where the paint comes from is important, especially with severe climate changes.

[LoneShark]

The paint I was using was JT Fluid. Weather conditions were warm sunny with a little humidity.

[Coralis]

If the paint breaks were down the barrel then you either had, bad paint or bad paint to barrel bore match or a defect in the barrel /something in the barrel like dried paint.

[athomas]

If the balls are rolling past the detent, it could cause your problems. Dye barrels are known for being a bit loose. That means the plastic nubbins may not be held in far enough to prevent the balls from rolling forward. You can fix this by wrapping some electrical tape around the base of the barrel where the little knob is on the back of the nubbin. It may fix your problem.