Superpolishing L10 piston

[legion]

The only reason i wonder is wouldnt I want some kind of abrasive polish? Right now the bolt has what looks to be a brushed stainless finish.... I'll take you up on the brass polish though, we'll see how that works... I'm pretty much open to any suggestions

Legion

[ShinyGuy]

It is posible to get the piston too smooth. The surface of the piston should hold a little oil. If the piston is too smooth the oil will wipe off of it and friction will actually increase. You can look up the correct roughness for the weight of oil you lube your mag with... but then you'de need a roughness tester and those aren't that cheap.

[legion]

Welp, I took some brasso to it today, with some tools of my own invention, got the thing hooked up to my hand drill and spinning, then proceeded to brasso the piston. Final result of trouble:

1 level 10 kit with 0 problems and a mirrored piston ;-)

Legion

[Cypres0099]

Have you noticed any difference? I'm very interested in this.

What exactly did you use to polish?

[AGD]

High polish works best for orings thats why the on/off pins are so shinny.

AGD

[Lone Gunman]

Is there any other reason to polish the piston other than to prolong the life of your o-rings? If there isn't, I'll still do it when I get my LVL 10.

[Cypres0099]

Would it make any difference in the size of carrier we should use?

I'm using the 1 carrier right now but could stand to use the .5 I wouldn't want to go lower than the lowest carrier offered.

[legion]

It seems that the bolt travels smoother, and has a tighter seal. If you're close enough to using a .5, I would say polish, and try using the .5 ...

Legion

[Cypres0099]

Is the actual name of the polish Brasso? Where you able to polish the piston all the way to the top? Have you noticed any less bolt stick?

[legion]

Yeah, the name of the polish is brasso. I basically made something to cup the piston while I spun the bolt very quickly, with an amount of pressure it was able to polish very nicely. I have noticed quite reduced bolt stick from this, bolt always resets now.

Legion

[Lone Gunman]

Could you post a picture of your polisher? Thanks

[complicationjack]

polishing the piston seems like a good idea...

were you able to use a stronger spring with the polished piston?

if so...did you end up tooling with the velocity or not?? (turn it up or down)

last but not least, i too would like to see a picture of your setup for polishing/actual bolt as well!

thanks

[legion]

I will take pictures as soon as I can locate who I lent my digicam to ;-). Otherwise, Yeah, i was able to switch up to the next spring with minimal adjustment in velocity (up a little bit)

Legion

[Cypres0099]

I just finished polishing my piston. One thing I noticed right off the bat was it seemed a lot smoother.

Before the bolt caught a little bit at the begining which would seem to cause more bolt stick. Now it now longer catches.

All I had was one carrier so I wasn't able to put a smaller one in so I'm not sure of the full effects.

[Lone Gunman]

I just got around to polishing my bolt piston. I can't test it yet since I can't fill my nitro tank, but I will tell you how I did it.

Ok, all you have to do it get a Bic pen (ya know, the white ones) or an other similar tube. Take it all apart and then cut about an inch and a half section off. Put about a half an inch of the section in a drill and tighten the chuck.

Cut a 1" square out of t-shirt material and stuff it in the tube. This piece will add friction to the polishing patch. Then take another 1" square of t-shirt, center it over the hole in the pen section, and push the patch down the pen with the bolt piston.

You should be able to turn the bolt without the cloth turning in the pen. If the patch will not go into the pen, make the patch a little smaller and vise-versa.

Now you put a little bit of gun-metal/jewlery polish (what I used, not as abrasive) or Brasso. Put the bolt in the pen tube and spin the drill up, moving the bolt up and down.

If you have anymore questions, PM me, I'll be glad to help.