Lighter bolt question.

[Henchman]

Would a lighter bolt, mean a lighter spring, mean better efficiency?

And has anybody ever thought about making a lighter bolt for a mag?

[captian pinky]

lighter bolts were made. the agd super bolts. some were made with partial delrin but didn't hold up well. i have seen some people mill slots in the back of there bolts. i think hill did this not sure.

[Ando]

They made some out of titanium, they were called Venom bolts. They to apparently didn't hold up well. I still have one running in one of the many mags I have. Never had an issue.

[RST]

They made some out of titanium, they were called Venom bolts. They to apparently didn't hold up well. I still have one running in one of the many mags I have. Never had an issue.

A piece of history
The Venom Thunderbolt was made by Toxic Toys here in Germany by a friend of mine and his brother.
Back in the day it was a blast. It was made of Titanium, glass fiber-reinforced plastic and hardened stainless steel. Very expensive to make.
There where at least 3 versions in the bolt design (bolt face).
The weight was round about 25 Grams which was less then half the weight of the Level7 bolt.
I've never had problems with the bolt but some people had (seperating or wear).

The newer AGD Level10 bolt is just a few Grams more than the "exotic" Level7 style Venom bolt and has a big plus, it prevents chopping paint.

To get back to the first post questions:
A lighter bolt will reduce your recoil and increase your markers cycle speed.
The cycle speed is not a problem (RT/X-Valve with Level10 ), Recoil... well... not an big issue.
But a lighter bolt for your Automag will not increase the efficiency in any way.


Pics of a Thunderbolt V3 attached

[athomas]

A lighter bolt should increase the efficiency, but you would need a different spring as well. Using the same spring as the heavier bolt would only change the performance parameters very slightly such that it would be hard to measure.

A heavier bolt requires more energy to move it. Even though the energy to move the bolt is stored in the bolt spring and used to return it to its original starting position, there are losses. A larger amount of energy requirement of a heavier bolt means more losses. Plus, the slower movement of the heavier bolt means a slower air impulse curve, which results in less efficient use of the air to propel the ball. If a lighter bolt were used with a proper spring, the higher speed would be achieved and it would still have reduced kinetic energy for reduction of chopping. The air impulse curve for the air to propel the ball would be sharper, so the efficiency would definitely be increased.

[Arstron]

I have always wondered my self why such a heavy spring is needed to return the bolt. When the bolt is at rest with pressure behind it, the sear is holding it in place so there is no tension on the bolt. When the sear lets the bolt move forward the spring does slow its forward momentum. When the bolt returns the on/off shuts off the flow of air to the dump chamber so there is little/limited air pushing on the bolt, until its back in its resting position and the sear has it locked in place. So if the main purpose of the heavy spring is to slow the speed of the bolt down, what if you went with a lighter spring and added a oring to the bolt to work as a bumper. You could then lower the regulator psi, but im not sure what it would do to the efficiency. Just kind of thinking/typing out loud here..

[athomas]

^
That's a good train of thought. The heavy bolt spring is not necessarily there to slow down the bolt, but to provide reasonable response to quickly return the bolt. The air impulse from firing the bolt with a very light or no spring would be more efficient than what is used now. However, the weight of the bolt would cause a slow return with a light spring, even without any residual air in the chamber. Its a trade off for spring strength and return speed. If the bolt were considerably lighter, it would be much easier to manage with a lighter bolt spring and still maintain reasonable return speed. In this case you would probably use less air pressure and dump more of it out of the chamber when fired. The overall efficiency would be increased because you would be moving a lighter bolt faster. Even if you used the same spring with the lighter bolt, the response would be faster because there would be less potential energy required to start the bolt moving and less kinetic energy in the moving bolt once it got moving. When firing the gun, the air pressure would only be pushing against the force of the bolt spring and not so much against the inertia of the bolt.