A piece of my bolt broke

[JOB711]

I was playing in a scenario game this weekend. My ULE RT-Pro (got it new about a year ago) was shooting prime. Suddenly balls started chopping like crazy or coming out at about 120 fps. I looked into my hopper and there was paint all over so I just figured there was a bad break in the hopper. I took it to my tent, cleaned inside of the hopper and also took out the bold to clean/oil it.

When I took out the valve, the power tube tip assembly piece was in two. It pbroke right at the end of the power tip. It was so weird because it was a piece that broke in the middle of my bolt while I had my gun completely together and on the field.

I have no idea how I am going to get the bottom part of the power tube tip assembly piece out of the power tip because it is in there pretty good. I'm most likely going to have to send the entire bolt in to AGD for them to fix which means my gun will be out of commision for at least two weeks.

Needless to say, I am really unhappy that it did that in the middle of play. Especially since \ the main reasons I got the an AGD product was because I heard how reliable they were and how they never go down.

[olinar]

thats odd.

[Spider-TW]

Can you post some pictures? Sounds like the brass tube tip was over tightened. If you have the brass threads still stuck in the power tube, you may be able to use an ez-out (bolt extractor) to get it out, available at the auto parts store. That may tear up your lvl 10 carrier though.

There is a recent thread here about stuck frame screws. You can epoxy a good sized allen wrench in the offending screw threads and let it harden over night and you should be able to unscrew it then. Keep the epoxy off of the stainless and clean the oil off of the brass before you start with rubbing alcohol.

[Tunaman]

The broken piece should come right out of there with little effort. Then just get a new powertube tip and you should be all set. Let me know if you need one.

[maglover728]

Has anyone else seen this before? is this common?

[Badmovies.org]

Has anyone else seen this before? is this common?

Never myself, but I would imagine that Tunaman has seen more AGD markers with repair needs than a whole group of us would in a lifetime.

You know, unlike steel, aluminum can suffer from metal fatigue. I was wondering if that was something you might have to worry about with the new all-aluminum design.

[Spider-TW]

The aluminum alloy is still a lot tougher than the brass power tube tip. I'd bet this never happened on the old 'coin slot' power tube tips. Those wrench flats on the new ones are just too tempting.

[Coralis]

yeah it was really difficult to over tighten the old ones with a quarter thats for sure :)

[FARMER00]

could it be one of those superbolts? with the delrin front?

[bad64chevelle]

My buddy had this happen to his brand new Level 10 setup, about 50 or so shots into its first game the FPS dropped and we couldnt get it to come back up, and it was leaking bad. Took it apart and the front of the tip came off in my hand. Took a wide flat head screw driver and got it out. Tossed the new one in from AGD and its been fine ever since.

[JOB711]

Appearently the bumper got cracked somehow and when that happens the power tube tip assembly piece just breaks AGD said. $20 + parts and 3-4 weeks without my gun.

[Spider-TW]

I guess that is another reason why that bumper is there. I thought it was just to cushion the bolt face on the valve body, not for any spacing.

I bet a bunch of valve body failures are due to frequent bolt impact. I couldn't figure out why those body welds would crack sometimes, but that makes a lot of sense. Not that I expect they are all x-rayed, but the fit and cleanliness of that laser weld makes it pretty consistent.

I'll be taking bumpers more seriously. That, and shooting 300 fps or less.

[Ecoastmotion]

My buddy had this happen to his brand new Level 10 setup, about 50 or so shots into its first game the FPS dropped and we couldnt get it to come back up, and it was leaking bad. Took it apart and the front of the tip came off in my hand. Took a wide flat head screw driver and got it out. Tossed the new one in from AGD and its been fine ever since.

Hahaha....i'm the buddy this happened to.....it can be fixed and its not too much to freak out about even though it looks pretty nasty

[Spider-TW]

Appearently the bumper got cracked somehow and when that happens the power tube tip assembly piece just breaks AGD said. $20 + parts and 3-4 weeks without my gun.

I checked a lvl 10 bolt:

The depth from the bottom of the bolt to the bottom bolt tube support is about 1.331.
The length of the assembled power tube without a bumper is 1.311.

0.020 inches should be well within AGD tolerances, so I expect that the bolt never bottoms out on the tip. This could be one of those body/valve alignment ailments (BVAA ) where the bolt is forced to run at an angle. Either that or the broken bumper causes the bolt to turn to the side as it hits the valve, knocking the tip around.

JOB711, did you notice if the center of the power tube tip was still round?