Offical LVL10, Reports from the Field Thread

[oldsoldier]

Well, kit arrived wed, played a little w/it on thursday night, started my installation today. How long; about 1/2 hr, once I figured out what I need to do. Set it up on my stock emag. Used the 1.5 carrier, no shims, and the middle (cut) spring. havent had a chance to chrony it yet, or shoot paint, will get to that this weekend.
As a side note, I too still have pressure in the line. I screwed up one of my connectors getting in off, and had to install another one. I dont really think that there is anything you can do to correct it boltwise, but, like Cphilip said, maybe add a slide valve or something. If I wiggle mine around, I bleed of enough air to safely disengage it.
I will post the firing test later. Cant do it today, no where to go and fire it.

EDIT: Just added a slide check valve onto my steel line. Several other ppl here had too much pressure in the lines to safely disconnect the air when changing out carriers. Anoyone reading this that hasnt installed theirs yet, check out cphilips thread on the pressure in the lines.

[BlackVCG]

With respect to the left over pressure issue, ALL guns can have some sort of quick disconnect inbetween the tank and gun to bleed the residual pressure.

Macro and microline guys can take a straight fitting, screw that into a female QD fitting, and then screw a 90 degree elbow for SS hose into the valve or output of the tank, screw the male end of the QD into that and you now have a quick disconnect for Macro/Microline.

It's even easier to put one on SS hose.

[FatMan]

Originally posted by BlackVCG
With respect to the left over pressure issue, ALL guns can have some sort of quick disconnect inbetween the tank and gun to bleed the residual pressure.

Macro and microline guys can take a straight fitting, screw that into a female QD fitting, and then screw a 90 degree elbow for SS hose into the valve or output of the tank, screw the male end of the QD into that and you now have a quick disconnect for Macro/Microline.

It's even easier to put one on SS hose.

You are certainly right, but I think the point is a marker that previously had very little residual pressure might suddenly have too much. We don't know if that is an effect of the L10 design or something we're doing wrong or what. If it IS an effect of the L10, then you might want to consider RECOMMENDING a bleed valve of some sort. The amount of pressure left is nowhere near what is normal for a mag - and the first time (during L10 setup) it is potentially damaging or dangerous if you aren't expecting it.

FatMan

[cphilip]

Yes Fatman! That is truely the point. It's a new situation and frequent degasing is nesiscary to install lvl 10 and many may not expect it nor be prepared for it. Prior to this on all my mags a simple macro fitting was sufficent for degasing and now its not. Heads up!

[DarkPhoenix]

It took me around 40 minutes to install my Lvl 10. I presently use the No. 2 carrier, no shims and my original bolt spring on a E-mag (converted RT Pro).

It took a long while because it wouldn't fire the first time, at which point I completely disassembled the lvl 10 and found the shims had been mangled. It is my recomendation that the shims be made to the inner diameter of the power tube to prevent the shims from accidentally slipping during the installation procedure. After 8 minutes of gently coaxing my mangled shims out of the power tube, I decided to go shim-less, which ended up working very well.

I have only tested it out on objects inserted into the breach, as I will be proceeding to the paintball store tomorrow, so me and my freinds can test out the modification, I will edit my post then.

[triggerman]

10 mins. to install
type of gun: 68 minimag

only problem i had installin it was that i couldn't rapid fire the gun. After raiseing the imput pressure it worked fine.


I had several peolpe put their finger in front of the bolt and were shocked at the result. there not even a cocker in this world that is as gental on paint. with my z-grip i decied to wait on an rt valve till i get a new warp its just not nessary. Thank you airgun.

[Russ]

LVL 10, MeLikes!

-How long it took you to get it installed and what your configuration was to get it working properly
About an hour...

-Long Silver Mainspring
-Carrier w/2 lines (.308"?)
-2 Shims

Basically the "default" set-up

I had to turn up the velocity adjuster about 3/4 of a turn to get the gun to stop leaking and shoot at 280fps. I turnrd 'er up to 295ish and fired away!

-The type of gun you're using it on
E-Mag, set at 16 bps (H/L mainbody), stock barrel w/new design plastic nubbins. 68/4500 Flatline set @1000psi output pressure and a HALO loader.

-Efficiency
Dunno yet, and I don't really care, cause I'm not breaking ANT paint!

-Number of breaks/chops and type of paint used
I shot a bag of old BigBall I had for 3 months. No breaks. I bought a case of Viper Venom yellow, 500 shots, no breaks. I went to a local PB store, and bought 2 bags of "discount" paint (old stuff, brittle stuff that the owner just wants to get rid of) 1 bag of 32* blue/silver...no breaks, 1 bag 32* brown (cleveland?)...ONE break, in the barrel, about a third of the way down.

The paint was fired by me & my Son, pretty much as fast as we can pull the trigger. E-Mag is set on 16bps. Hopper was fired 'till empty over and over. I couldn't chop a ball!

As a control, my son shot about 50 or so rounds of each paint through his Gen-X 3 'Cocker, with no breaks.

I'm stoked!


-Any problems you encountered
I had a bit of leaking at first, the power tube "O" ring in the carrier just needed breaking in. A couple hundred dry-fires took care of it. I may need to drop the carrier down 1 step as the "O" ring further wears. The foamie fell off the bolt during the first few dry-fires. I re-glued it with a 2 part epoxy.

-Other general comments
So far, so good. About 1800 rounds fired, ONE barrel break. Accuracy with the BigBall and Viper Venom were outstanding! Gotta get LVL 10 for my classic mag now!

EDIT: and about residual air pressure in the lines, I use a Q/D, mounted near the Flatline's reg, to speed up field stripping & gun maintainence. Just release it, and the air escapes safely. It's a good idea, LVL 10 or not.

Russ

[Army]

HOORAY

It took exactly 29:47 to fully install (stopwatch), and test fire. I used the new standard size bolt spring, two shims, and the "one stripe" carrier. All parts simply dropped in with no resistance. The carrier was given a nudge into the power tube with the cap of the KC Trouble Free oil bottle, it's a perfect fit as a plunger. The foamie left the building on the very first shot, but I foresee no trouble there.

It has been installed in Big Red. I chose to use the Minimag and Co2 to give it a fair shot. My Emag isn't having enough troubles to really have a true test of the system. I used up a new fill in the 16oz just playing with it, by shooting a pencil through a soda can (pencil fully in barrel, hit by bolt at end of travel so as to get the full speed and air blast), then pressing the soda can against the point of the pencil ,eraser against the bolt...yup, psssst is all I got! I even did the finger trick, heck, who of you haven't yet?

I had to increase the velocity to get it to fire off the new spring, but do not know the true speed yet. I'm playing tomorrow, so I will edit this post then.

*EDIT* Ok, it's tomorrow and I'm back from playing.

With the 8:30AM temperature 85+F, I chronoed at: 285-285-289-290-285-287, which for Co2 is superb! I did my best to break/chop/misfeed/crap on/totally screw up the gun................didn't happen at all/not once/what-so-ever.

Turned off the Revvy, shot it sideways, upside down, fast as possible. No chops. I made no changes to the internals, although I may put in one more spacer for S&G.

So, I decided to do the most evil of deeds.....I raised the 20oz upside down and above the gun.

You could watch the slinky and expando frost up, then the AIR valve...then I started shooting until the snow was flying, and the gun absolutely locked up and was leaking hard out the barrel. Ice is now flaking off tank, slinky, AIR valve, and body tube.

The on/off was frozen open, and the bolt was stuck forward, so when the valve thawed slightly, the remaining high pressure in the slinky rushed out in a pretty cloud of snow and smoke, just like a fire extiguisher, that made everyone back off a little with a look of fright! Of course, this mad rush of Co2 liquid out the bolt and barrel totally froze the LX componants AND the ball that was still in the chamber. Waiting another 3.5 minutes resulted in the bolt spring finally pushing the bolt back to sear lock.

Immediately after hearing the "click" of the sear, I got back on the trigger and started wailing away. Despite the great blizzard that erupted from the barrel, LX kept on shooting without any chops or stops.

I let anyone who wanted to, shoot the gun AND stick their finger in the breech! The universal response from 'Mag owners was......"I'm DEFINATELY gonna get me one of THOSE!" I can guarantee the first week sale of ten LX's at the local Pball shop.

BTW: OOOOOOOUUUUUUCH! I got hit way too often today

[Evil Bob]

Update.....

Chronoed up at the field, all three markers (1 old HR RT, 1 newer RT, and 1 EMag) are in the 320+ from the initial setup, most likely the reason why I broke paint during the initial setup as well as it was plain ugly paint to begin with (egg shaped, dimpled, swollen, etc.)

Put 1,000 rounds (bought 2 cases of fresh RPS Marbs) through each of the Mags I added the LVL 10 kit to before lunch. Field has us chrono under 270, all three dialed right in at 265-269 without much effort. Found that if I dialed below 260, I'd get alot of coughing and bolt stick. Seriously thinking about upping the input from 750 to 800+ to compensate. Field conditions are pretty dusty, and one of the RPS bags in the second case had really gritty balls in it, some fine powder was on the surface of the paintballs, never seen this before. Ran into bolt stick problems with my EMag (input at 750) after putting 700+ rounds through it (including that bag of dirty RPS paint). Cured the problem by putting in a few drops of KC Trouble Free into the quick disconnect after each game. If I didn't oil up, I'd run into bolt stick the next game. It was definitely worth taking the time to do it after each game. Going to send a nasty gram to RPS about dirty balls... someone in their QC dept needs to be slapped around...

0 breaks/ 0 chops... flawless.

After lunch I put away the RT's and put the remaining 1,000 through my EMag.

0 breaks/0 chops... flawless.

Gas Efficiency...

Found I could get 750-800 easily on a single 3k fill in my Armagedon 68/4500 with LVL 10, Without LVL 10 I used to get close to 900... so there is a marginal loss, along the lines of 15%. If I don't chop paint as a result, so be it. If it becomes an issue, I'll get that mega booster I've been drooling over.

Best quotes of the day...

"What the HELL is that??!!" a player exclaimed as he pointed at my Emag/Warp/HALO combo...

Showed LVL 10 to everyone who would listen, including the field owner who is a die hard Mag convert, his words were "it's about damn time!"

"That is so damn cool! Man, I gotta get me one of those. I want your's, how much you want for it?" he says as he's digging out his wallet.

"I was torn between getting an Angel and an EMag" a player said looking down at his shiny new Angel, after I showed him how LVL 10 works he said "it appears I have chosen poorly."

-Evil Bob

[AGD]

EB,

You are too close to the edge with your setup. Rasing the input pressure will not help the bolt stick. You need to go down to the next size mainspring to cure the problem.

On the other had you probably have it setup to be the most forgiving that it can get. The way you have it now would be a pro tourney setup but you do have to oil it often.

AGD

[DarkPhoenix]

UPDATE! After wearing the o-ring in, I have switched to the 1.5 carrier and added 1 shim, two shims were causing a steady leak and after fishing out another mangled shim (this makes three)I have had absolutely no other problems since. My set-up still has the original bolt spring that came with my RT Pro, before I had it converted to an E-mag.

My only recomendation is that the shims need to be made to either the inner diameter of the power tube or a touch smaller, to facilitate ease of removal. I have severely mangled 3 shims despite my careful following of the install instructions, not a major problem just a very minor inconvenience. Now all I have to do is buy 3 more shims for my kit...

PS Thanks Tom and everyone from AGD, who helped in the creation and manufacture of this incredible product.

[E-SFL]

Level 10 and ACE

Tom Kaye is the man! I received my SFL last week Friday on the 28th. Couldn't play with it because they shut us down, because of the extreme fire danger in the forests, in our part of Arizona and there is no private fields where we live. So today, the 6th we travelled to play on a private field and played against some other speedball teams and lit them up with the new SFL. The Level 10 and the ACE were amazing, no breaks, no burps, no smiles from the other team. Everybody wants one. The SFL with the Level 10 and the ACE in it showed up Angels and Cockers all day. I put 1200 rounds of Marbalizer through it. There was one drop in velocity at the chrono station. It dropped from 272 to 227 from one shot to the next and never did it again after that. I am very pleased with the new gun and its performance.

[jb1363]

hey guys i am new to the forum but i order a beta level ten and that was like 2 weeks ago and it still isn't here is there a large supply and demand or what.

[oldsoldier]

my update

Well, went to the field for official testing today. First, I switched springs, running the short spring in my emag. No problems at all. Chrony'd a little high for my field...297. Had to crank it way down to get under 25. Finally settled on 277. Good enough.
I put almost a whole cae through it, shooting Worrpaint. One barrel break-thats it. It did actually hiss twice, I was firing hybrid mode, and the first time I heard it, I thought it sounded pretty cool. Well, no breaks either time it pinched. Great product, and, my only suggestion when it is officially released, is like everone else; make sure they know the pressure in the lines are higher than normal when you degas. Other than that, I love this!
Oh, one other thing; I was running the original superbolt in this, and didnt notice either a recoil or weight difference at all.

[Russ]

Update #1

I put 500 Viper Venom (orange) balls through the gun today. I TRIED to chop a ball. Held the gun sideways, no chop, used the VL200 (plain 'ol hopper) shooting in hybrid, shooting as fast as possible, No Chops. No Breaks, period!

The gun just goes "pftt" when there is ball caught half-way in the chamber. The bolt re-set EVERY time!

I did loose another foamie, and did most of (?) the shooting today WITHOUT a foamie on the bolt!

once again...

#2 carrier
long silver spring
2 shims
1000psi input pressure

Yes, I am excited about LVL10

Russ