F4 Illustrator opinions?

[Dusty Bottoms]

Well fine, ya'll talked me into it! I'm picking them up before I hit the field on Saturday. One of them is that graffiti ano, and they both look pretty minty. I saw a Youtube vid of one shooting, made by one of our members I think, and it seemed like a decent little marker. Certainly a faster trigger than my Pro Carbine.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Well fine, ya'll talked me into it! I'm picking them up before I hit the field on Saturday. One of them is that graffiti ano, and they both look pretty minty. I saw a Youtube vid of one shooting, made by one of our members I think, and it seemed like a decent little marker. Certainly a faster trigger than my Pro Carbine.

kevin qmto was going to recommend his vid cause i was almost positive it was a graffiti

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Definitely has its appeal

[Dusty Bottoms]

Here's a pic of them.

[pghp8ntballer]

Nice score for $50! Have fun playing with them!

[Dusty Bottoms]

I actually talked him down to $30 for both!

[Alexndl]

Even better price and nice funky ano on the top one

[gabe]

Wow, that's a steal for both especially the graffiti. Nice score!

[Nish]

Thats a beautiful GS.

Check the bolts. If one of them is a Venturi, (No don't groan yet hear me out) it's generally a pretty big upgrade for this gun. Not so much because of the bolt face design but because it also has a screw in there to choke off air flow for some fine tuning. One of the biggest weak points of this gun is it, like many STBB's, can be hard on brittle paint.

[Dusty Bottoms]

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I saw a used Venturi bolt on ebay, but didn't know anything about it.

[russc]

Venturi bolts get a bad rap. I LOVE venturi bolts because they're so easy on paint. Also, everyone forgets that Phantoms have a venturi bolt built into the TPC.

[lew]

Venturi bolts certainly have their place and didn't deserve to be maligned as bad as they typically were.

[kevin qmto]

I sold my Grafitti F4 for 120.

[Nish]

I made a shady deal with an unsavory character and am now bound to mine for all of eternity. If I loose it I forfeit my soul

[lew]

I made a shady deal with an unsavory character and am now bound to mine for all of eternity. If I loose it I forfeit my soul

You're illusion is that you ever had a soul to begin with.

[Nish]

If I don't have a soul where are all these voices coming from???

[lew]

You can get a case of voices at Costco, so probably there.

[Dusty Bottoms]

Well, I picked up both the F4's yesterday, and of course there's good and bad! They were kept loose in an ancient rubbermaid container, along with old loaders and tanks, in this guy's garage and hadn't been used in about twenty years or more. However, they were in remarkably good cosmetic condition, especially the ano'd one, despite being caked internally with old paint, dirt, and disintegrating orings. Neither would actually dry fire correctly when I cocked the bolt via the charging handle, but the ano'd one did at least lock the bolt back. I decided to concentrate on the pretty one! I did a complete take down, let all the parts soak in hot water and dish soap, and did a detail clean with a toothbrush and plastic pick. I replaced every single oring, and it airs up with no leaks. However, when I went to work on the trigger frame I found a problem. I had read here and in other threads on the internet that apparently these single trigger F4's have weak sears, or something in the design that causes premature wear. I found abnormal wear on the trigger sear and it simply would not engage the striker properly. That's probably one of the reason the guy quit using them, and he said he moved on to better guns. I also read that the F4 double trigger fixed this sear issue somehow, and is superior to the single trigger frame, so now I'm on a casual hunt for a F4 double trigger frame.

All in all, I quite like the marker design. It's different than my usual Mags and old Tippmann's, the build quality actually seems decent for what was a budget offering at the time, and even the composite trigger frame feels much more refined than the one on my Tippmann ProCarbine. It's a shame about the sear wear, because the trigger itself is quite nice, and has a very nice, smooth pull. I think the ano'd one is pretty nifty looking, and if I can get a working trigger frame on it then I would gladly use it on the field occasionally. That's all for now!

[Nish]

Can you use the sear from the other gun?

[Dusty Bottoms]

I did swap them out, and they look slightly different in design, but it does the same thing. I may swap out the strikers and see if the sear catches on that one. The original striker looks fine though, no rounded or worn down edges for the sear to roll past without catching. I'll figure something out.

[gabe]

I have a similar issue with my double trigger F4 where it is just full auto and never catches the sear until the trigger is fully released. I have a spare single trigger frame I'm going to try and see if that fixes the issue.

[Dusty Bottoms]

I know you said your a big fan of these. Do you often find these kind of problems with F4 trigger frames and sears? Hopefully I'm not detecting the reasons why these markers weren't more popular over Spyders and their clones!

[gabe]

TBH I have only had the one F4 so I can really say much in terms of technical experience. I'm a big fan of the series in general and have worked on a couple (including mine) and a few Raptors (very similar). I don't recall too many sear issues but I really have yet to dig into mine to see what the problem is. At first glance the sear looks just fine with a nice sharp edge.

I'm wondering if there's something stuck in the sear reset mechanism. Is yours going full auto or what is the symptom?