ADA: Ask Doc Anything!

[lew]

-Yes, it's 10-32.

-snip-

Thanks for the response and the thread specs. That will help immensely.

Regrettably, I'm very limited with tools, and someone else is doing the printing, so Delrin is out. I'll keep that in mind with the solid fill.

No worries on the parts. I'm set for solenoids and Max Flos. Cheers!

[DavidBoren]

Is there any significant difference in efficiency between using a heavy striker and light springs, versus a light striker and heavy springs?

Is it the opposite of strikers and springs when considering the mass/weight of the ram, and the pressure operating the ram? Not with Autocockers, but things like the Impulse or Intimidator (although I don't see much variation in Timmy ram mass).

I have a hard time believing that they are equally efficient. I also don't like to think that the best compromise is somewhere in the middle... that just seems lazy to me. Surely, when using efficiency as the metric by which they are to be judged, one combination is going to be superior in both theory and practice.

[DocsMachine]

Regarding the Shocker Sport and its associates:

1) Do you know the thread dimensions for the bolt stem to the back of the bolt head?

-Yes, it's 10-32.

2) Regarding the fire piston, what are your thoughts on this: 3D printing the entire piece as one piece with grooves for the o-rings on the ends, thereby omitting the Delrin glide ring and the o-rings underneath?

-An interesting idea. Personally, I think I'd be more inclined to machine it from solid Delrin, but that's my machinist bias. I do know the pushrod puts a fair amount of force on the fire piston, so you'd want to make sure the end is reinforced, maybe thicker/longer and with a nearly-solid infill if you can pull it off.

Try it and let us know.

3) Do you happen to have any spare Shocker parts floating around?

-Nope, sorry. Most everything I had has been slowly sold off over the years. Pretty much the only things I have left is an early Max Flow rebuild kit, which I want to keep as I still have three or four of those, and somewhere I have maybe two or three sets of a Parker solenoid very similar to the Sport units, but have a plastic plug-in assembly. They could be used in a Shocker, I think, but somebody would have to crack off the plug housing and solder on a set of proper leads- and I think you'd be risking breaking the fine coil wires.

I did have a guy ask about the little rubber bumpers that go in the tray and help hold the solenoids in. He saw my new-manufacture Mega-Z bolt bumpers and asked if I could make those too. I whipped him up like three or four, but didn't bother after that. If you need some of those I could make some, but I kind of doubt that's a high-demand item.

Oh, and somewhere I still have a small stack of RIP triggers- just the trigger, I don't have any of the leaf swtiches or the mounting brackets. The triggers would still have to be finish-machined, but I've got 'em.

Doc.

[lew]

Doc,

Regarding the Shocker Sport and its associates:

1) Do you know the thread dimensions for the bolt stem to the back of the bolt head? I don't want to take any of my bolt assemblies apart to measure them if I can avoid doing so.

2) Regarding the fire piston, what are your thoughts on this: 3D printing the entire piece as one piece with grooves for the o-rings on the ends, thereby omitting the Delrin glide ring and the o-rings underneath?

3) Do you happen to have any spare Shocker parts floating around? I've got a miniature fleet of them and am obviously stocking up on spares.

[Brew]

Hey Doc,

Thanks for the update. I figured there would be a longer wait during these crazy times. 👍🏻

Yes I did place an order. I sent payment via PayPal. I was the guy who just missed out to an online order. You gave me the option for a refund but I opted to wait for the fresh shipment from anno. (Shoot me a PM if you like).

Thanks, I'm looking forward to owning a finely crafted piece of your work! 😀

Brew

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[DocsMachine]

How's the anno coming on the L-stocks?

-Oh, don't even ask. I have two batches out for anno, to two different companies (one bulk, one fancy) and both are overdue. To be fair, both companies said there'd be a delay, as they have to sort of 'swing shift' people to conform to virus regs. I didn't think it'd be this long, though... I also have several orders out for product, and my supplies of those are also way behind as well.

Considering what percentage of my income comes from part sales, and on top of sales being generally depressed anyway because nobody's playing, I've run out of four of my five best selling parts because the CNC shop I've been dealing with has been shoving my small orders aside to work on more lucrative orders. That all puts a bit of a dent in the ol' pocketbook.

Fortunately I'm used to subsisting on dollar-store Ramen and expired boxes of mac & cheese-like powder substitute.

I've sent you a PM and an email concerning my order. Any info would be much appreciated.

-Did you actually place an order, or were you one of the ones waiting 'til the parts came in from anno?

I can't blame all the delays on other people. I'm WAY behind on email replies and other work, and I'm backed up in the shop too.

Getting things sorted as quickly as I can.

Doc.

[Brew]

Hey Doc,

How's the anno coming on the L-stocks? I realize Covid is slowing everything down. I understand. I've sent you a PM and an email concerning my order. Any info would be much appreciated.

Thank you sir! 👍🏻

Brew

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[DocsMachine]

Which Carter pumps don't have removable barrels?

-Another one I can't answer with any real certainty. I'm certainly not as familiar as I'd like to be with the Carter lineup.

That said, generally speaking, I thought pretty much all Carters were fixed-barrel, until the advent of the later stock-class Buzzards. Not sure on that, and Carter, being a custom shop that made the guns pretty much to order, and by hand, could easily have made early removable barrel versions, or later fixed-barrel.

That said, of those eBay Carters, with the possible exception of the first and last ones on the list, the rest are pretty much definitely solid-body. The bottom one might have a removable barrel, but I couldn't say for certain. The top one is a less likely possibility, but could be as well.

Sorry I can't be of more help. I'm a big fan of Carter pumps, but I've had very few of them filter through the shop over the years.

Doc.

[DocsMachine]

Which volumizer/low pressure chamber from another gun will work on a Brass Eagle Raptor?

-Good question, and one I can't immediately answer. I have a Raptor around here somewhere, but it's buried deep, and I couldn't even promise I know what room it's in.

One can always be custom-made, of course, but no idea what existing factory or aftermarket ones might fit Never really did much customizing or even repairs of the entry-level blowbacks.

Doc.

[Carp]

Which Carter pumps don't have removable barrels?

[dartamon]

Which volumizer/low pressure chamber from another gun will work on a Brass Eagle Raptor?

[PaintballTek]

Hey DocsMachine !

If you didn't off that to the other gentleman I'll still grab it! I totally forgot about that until I saw this post!

Send me a PayPal Invoice at Tim@PaintballTek.com or drop me a line there if you would prefer another form for payment or want some stuff in trade and I'll get it sorted out! Sorry for totally spacing on that :-\ completely my fault!

[DocsMachine]

The Boomstick looked cooler and IIRC came in longer lengths than available with other barrels at the time.

-Bingo. DYE got you for an extra $40 at least, simply because it looked cooler.

Don't get me wrong, I like cool-looking parts too- a fair chunk of my rep, I like to think, is because my stuff looks good as well as works good. But DYE (among others) took it one step further and added 35% to the price knowing that that helps drive sales.

Apple does the same thing. $600 Android vs. $1,000 iPhone? It's a status thing- the more expensive one is 'seen' as better, regardless of features and capabilities.

I used to run a Violator which I got used, but still crazy to me that the vig is a more advanced reg.

-It's nothing of the kind. All of them are based off of designs that date back to the 1930s. The Vigilante was simply designed to work reliably at somewhat lower pressures. That's not a radical change, it's simply juggling the area ratios between the primary and secondary pistons.

I believe that there's a mod that can be done to the vigilante to increase flow?

-Honestly, there's very little that needs to be done. Trust me, I've tried drilling bigger ports, or more holes and "porting" passages of all manner of regs- it usually makes no difference whatsoever.

I've run Vigilantes on 'shoebox' Shockers, which were both one of the lowest op pressure guns made, but also one of the biggest gas hogs. The situation was helped by the gun's slow ROF (the board was factory limited to 11.2 BPS, and I'm here to tell you it takes heroic efforts to push the gun itself to just 12-13 BPS) but the Vigilante, despite being an older design, is still a very capable reg.

The biggest trick to "flow" out of a regulator is to make sure you have as large as possible a pressure differential. That's usually easy, as most screw-in HPA tanks are set to around 850 psi, and if you're using the Vig on a 200-300 psi 'Cocker, for example, that's a pretty good spread. You wouldn't want to, for example, run a 450 psi tank and output 350 into the gun- the reg (all regs, really) work best when there's more of a pressure differential between the input and output.

Doc.

[dartamon]

The Boomstick looked cooler and IIRC came in longer lengths than available with other barrels at the time. I used to run a Violator which I got used, but still crazy to me that the vig is a more advanced reg. I believe that there's a mod that can be done to the vigilante to increase flow?

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Yeah fuck big city traffic. And yeah its getting pretty crazy over here in chi-town.