do I need to replace my detents on my viking?

[rawbutter]

I feel like an idiot asking this question, but I've never replaced detents before, so I want to make sure before I order some and spend my money.

Anyway, my viking's been having an issue of suddenly not firing. It's happened a few times while playing when out of nowhere it just stops like there isn't a ball in the chamber and the eyes are keeping it from shooting. I'll flip it on and off... shake it around.... mostly that fixes the problem, but sometimes not. I've had to walk out of games because of it.

So then, last time I went out, my halo was giving me issues, so I switched to my revvy... and NO ISSUES whatsoever. This really got me puzzled, so when I got home I tried shooting it with my halo again, and when it stopped shooting again, I took off the halo carefully and looked inside the feedneck to discover that the last ball was pushed forward too far, right onto the front detent.

So, it seems to me that the halo is pushing with too much force, and it's pushing the paintballs past the detent (and past the eyes), thereby causing the viking not to shoot. But when I use the revvy with no forcefeed, it shoots find because there's no downward pressure on the stack.

Does that sound right? Like I said, this may be a noob question, but I don't want to spend money on something I don't need.

In case in matters, it's an '04 viking with eyes, dual detents, unmilled, bone stock. And except for this one issue, I love it.

[xero28]

Yes, sounds like you need new detents. I recently got a new-to-me 04 Vike. The first day I played with it I was having similar issues. I was using a Prophecy. When I shot strings, it would be fine. But when I stopped shooting and tried to shoot again the eyes weren't sensing a ball. I finally figured that if I push slightly on the bolt, the eyes would sense the ball again. The ball was actually rolling BACK into the bolt and out of the eye sight. When I got the new set of detents I found that the ones that were in there had about 1mm (maybe more) of wear on them. Hit up destructivecustoms.com to get them. AKA will charge you $10 just for shipping. Hope that works for you, good luck.

[georgeyew]

Before you buy new detents, try expanding the springs a little bit to see if you can make the detents a little stiffer to keep the ball from rolling forward.

[rawbutter]

Cool. Thanks for the replies, guys.

[athomas]

As the size of the paintballs get smaller, the problems with detents and/or eyes will become more of an issue. It does sound like yours are worn though. Take the barrel off and look into the front. Check the tension and how the ball sits with respect to the detent. Force a stack of balls with your finger to see what happens. Of course, make sure the gun has no air attached when you do this.