Calvin's POP 2026 Build

[StaticShocked]

Thats awesome! At this rate, I think you will end up making replacement detents for most markers!

My take on them is that they suck. As evidence, I submit the original condition of these markers.

That made me laugh. These poor markers sure had a rough life.

[Calvin]

Its possible. I do love to print stuff. My skills have been honed on 10 years of making other hobby stuff before I got back into paintball. I am going to make a bag of these for you. I hope to be up to play either tomorrow or the following Saturday.

[Calvin]

Wife just told me the forecast for tomorrow. It's gonna be a week from tomorrow!

[StaticShocked]

Thanks! I look forward to playing with you

[Calvin]

Still waiting on new seal kits for bolt assembly and reg. Started playing with some air libe possibilities. Looks like I can use the original 4.5" braided line and asa into a 45 fitting. Ergonomics is good, except the sharp top edge of that 45 fitting against my thumb. I will need to do a little file work there. At $1.39 for the fitting from Kleindorfers, it fits the budget nicely.

[Hellion360]

This looks so good dude. Nice work so far.

[Magmoormaster]

Dang yeah that looks awesome!!

[Calvin]

Oring rebuild kit came today. After dinner I sat down and installed my best two valves with fresh orings in the fittings.



Then I worked through the bolt assemblies. The can that was welded into a body by paint also appears to have damage inside that prevents bolts from sliding through it. The other two cans were good to go, and I think I have both assemblies oringed and lubed properly.
I put a fresh layer of Sharpicote™ onto my two best ASAs so they look OKish from 6 feet now. One more 45 fitting and I will have the twins assembled. As soon as the Max Flo rebuild kit gets here I can finish it. I am already imagining all the leaks the first time I air them up.


The weirdest thing tonight was inspecting the hose on the 2nd ASA. There was dried paint inside the hose itself. I'm still trying to figure out how thats possible.



In a few days I will either have a couple decent loaner spares, or a couple basketcase hangar queens. Time will tell.

[Calvin]

With a few days of down time waiting for the Max Flo rebuild orings, I figure its time to take a look at the trigger. Its really not that bad, but I can see that it can be made better. There is 2mm of takeup between the trigger and the valve actuation pin. Taking up about 80% of that distance should result in a nice crisp trigger. It also could use a stop behind the triggee to limit pull past point of firing. I have one cracked trigger frame, so I removed the trigger from it. I downloaded and printed the one trigger file I found online. I love 3D printing, but there are many things that are not good use cases for it. My gut instinct is that this type of thin pressure part would be one. Nevertheless, I printed it out. Its actually really robust in PETG. Might break someday, but probably not. I put the two triggers on the same pin for comparison.
It looks like the creator made it further back so travel is limited by that. Doesnt look like the takeup was changed at all. I have seen other printed triggers offered on ebay that do have extensions for that. I may change this model, but I'm thinking that a TPU sleeve with 1.5mm walls slid over the contact area of the stock trigger might be just as effective. Next I'm going to work on a press fit trigger stop. It worked well on my classic mags, so I will give it a shot here.

[gnarlynick]

I printed the same trigger. It does feel that it is contacting the actuator with less travel than the stock trigger, but that may be a result of the further back positioning of the trigger on the whole assembly.

Does the safety engage your trigger when pushed into safe? I don't really notice any change in travel restrictions when the safety is engaged vs not; may need some additional modifications to the model to fix that. I figured when I gas the gun up next I can better test both the trigger travel and the safety engagement.

[Calvin]

Made test cover for trigger actuation pad. I realized the design can also act as trigger stop. Its gonna be awhile before these reg seals get to me, but, the good Lord willin', I can start testing this part once they hold air and fire.

[Calvin]

Did a couple tweaks to the trigger adjustment sleeve. Moved the pin contact point to take up a bit more of the pre-travel. Also placed it so that it is centered on the pin mid travel to minimize it tilting the pin. Moved the stop contact point to account for the earlier pin contact. I *think* it's gonna work well. Cleaning up all the stock reg parts so I can hopefully get one working to test whether the guns hold air and operate, and whether this trigger mod works. I was originally planning on epoxying this sleeve onto the trigger, but it is pretty tight once pressed on. Its not going anywhere without being pried off with a flathead screwdriver.

[tyronejk]

I'm not sure if you're already accounting for it, but there's likely some slack between the rocket and the actual valve too.

[Calvin]

I havent accounted for anything yet 🤪. This will be a starting point till I get these aired up, and then I will see what changes are needed.

[Calvin]

Against my better judgement, I decided to attempt a rebuild of a stock reg. Two of the regs were filled with rust powder. Looks like most of it came from the mainspring of the regs. I managed to clean and re-oring the "best" body. It had, as they all did, a significant amount of damage on the stem around which the bottom cap rotates. Upon airing it up, I had a slow leak through both sides of that cap. The good news is that the reg was outputting properly and the gun cycled perfectly! That is a good omen. I will patiently await my Max Flo rebuild kits and go back at it with strengthened morale.

[Calvin]

The claim to wait patiently was just a ruse to catch the Max Flo regs off guard. I slipped off early this AM to Kleindorfers and pieced together the orings I would need. Upon return, I jumped them both and administered the beat down they so richly deserved. The result....?



Both regs are up and, against all odds, both markers are cycling perfectly. I ran outside I throw paint over the chrono and got them both firing in the 290s within 10 shots. It appears that they have very good shot consistency with a 5ish fps deviation range on both over a pod of balls. I used a .691 barrel to chrono figuring I could easily tune down on smaller bores. What surprised me is that the first marker had the reg up pretty high, and was shooting at 315. That indicates a pretty good amount of overhead to make velocity with any paint.

I'm impressed with the Max Flo regs. They are
a little large, but very simple and well built. Rebuilding them was a breeze compared to the stock regs. They are already showing good consistency, and I expect that the improve slightly as the seals break in.

The new detent design is working perfectly. Very pleasing after fucking around with them over 4 iterations.

I gently sanded the contact points on the new trigger shim covers. They work perfectly. Shown are the current spacings when aired up.



There is some more pre-travel I can take out, but I wanted to be conservative on this first try. I moved the spring 2 spots down to try and make the return snappier. Doesn't feel much different. The shim covers definitely make the trigger shorter than stock without them in place.

I guess I am almost done. I have some weird off brand forrest green PETG coming today that I am going to try out to add some color to these. It was one of the only greens I could find that wasn't neony, so who knows how the quality is. I am also going to experiment with sanding and painting the bodies. If it sucks, I will just stick with the bodies as printed. They seem work and look just fine. I'm super pumped as these turned out to be markers I will be happy to use or lend out. I really didn't expect that to be the case.

[RPP]

Max Flow regs are great. Even the ION, SFT and NXT Max Flows are really consistant. Ive not really tested enmey regs, but they have not really given me any fits.

[Calvin]

My only issue with the design of the stock Regs is that the two seals of the cap have to ride down and seal on the long surface on the outside of the adjuster. All of mine in that area were badly scratches on the end where it is exposed, and below the cap from many tool marks. Thats were I was getting leaks from, and I dont think there is anything I can do about it. The ones I have are junk due to that damage.

[StaticShocked]

That is amazing! Great work! Creativity and ingenuity are present in all of your builds which make them so wonderful to follow and you write thorough and entertaining build threads. Keep up the good work, Sir!

Now, i will go reflect on my lack of progress and how far behind i am in my POP build... Not to mention yours look so good.

[Calvin]

Thank you, Sir. I have been having a blast working on markers again after so many years. Didn't realize how much I missed it. Its really nice to have a community to get excited about it with.

[Hellion360]

Calvin What program are you modeling in?
Really good work on these builds they look sweet and quite different with the low rise necks.

[Calvin]

I do all my work in Autodesk Netfabb. Its not 3D design in the way of Fusion. It's more like modelling in 3 dimensions. I especially like it because I can place multiple parts into 3d space in relation to each other and work on them till they all make the whole. This tonearm assembly is one example. It has about 15 pieces that all print well on the plate, but assemble like a kit.


Tonight's project is a good example. I'm working on a feed elbow for a warp feed left mag.


I realized that I could possibly make one that placed the hopper behind the neck and lower. I played around with assemblies until it was done and then merged them into a singe model followed by the repair utility to correct any mesh issues from cuts before the merge.


Its not something alot of people use, but it makes sense to my Gen-X brain and allows me to do the types of work I like to do. Been using it since 2018.

[Hellion360]

Neat! I bet it can. Curious to see it in action.

[Calvin]

I posted in my other thread, but the question has been answered. The LTR has no issues whatsoever pushing a ballstack through that shape. I need to figure out how to post a video here. The forum wouldn't let me insert an mp4 of the gun shooting.

[Hellion360]

I always post a youtube link for that.

[Calvin]

I got some green PETG to add some color. I love the grips in green, so I printed up a body in that color. The green body looks gawd awful, but the contrast with the black aluminum body core revealed a flaw I hadnt noticed before. The aluminum body core has a beveled edge around the feed drop hole. The original modeller of the body had placed the feed drop hole 1 mm too far forward. This left the whole bevel on the front edge exposed and the whole bevel on the rear covered. The resulting gap for the balls to drop is a bit smaller than the feed drop hole on the feedneck clamp model. It hasnt happened during my test firings, but I think an oblong ball could get wedged there, so I decided to correct it. I moved the hole and feedneck backwards 1mm to center with the body hole. I then cut the hole larger to match the outside diameter of the bevels. This allows the bevel to guide the balls into the breech. I then cut the bottom of the feedneck down 2.55mm to the aluminum body to allow the feedneck to come to rest on the aluminum body. I also did a relief cut in the feedneck to allow the last tapered part at the top of the neck to go into the feedneck for a completely flush fit Now the hopper feeds directly into the aluminum breech. There can be no closer fit. This setup is the way.

[Calvin]

The printer gave me some problems last night, so I printed off some small parts as tests to tune back in after repairs. Did some of the trigger shim caps for the Enmey so that they took up all the space between the actuator pin and the cap. The Enmey didnt like that, so I sanded both contacts down until there was a sliver of light under the actuator pin. Perfect. The trigger is now very short, but also reliable. I needed to test the new body's feed, so I loaded up a hopper full and went out. The thing is a paint hose. Absolutely love it! Fantastic addition to the stable. Now I need to do a 2nd of those bodies and the 2nd Enmey will be up to date as well.

[RPP]

Ive ran into that also. The rocket does need a slight amount to reset and that distance seems to vary between setups/valves/bodies.

Looks great with the maxflow.

[Calvin]

I have used the Emneys on 2 game days so far. I absolutely love them. Talking with StaticShocked at days end on Saturday, one of the topics of discussion was a metal trigger to eliminate the trigger flex. In the interest of science, I crudely hacked one out of scrap 1/8" aluminum stock.



I printed up a new trigger cap for it and used spacers to center the much thinner trigger.



After assembly, the trigger works, and does indeed feel more solid than the stock one. I was planning on making a custom shoe for this, but the feel of the rounded and sanded 1/8" wide aluminum is actually really nice. It has great feedback. I think my next one will angle downward a little more and will take up all the space down to the guard. Other than that, I think this is just fine as is.