EV cup seals still bad?

[iamthelazerviking]

As many of you may recall, not too long ago a lot of players reported issues with the cup seals Extreme Velocity was selling. Curious if that's been resolved

[Impactfour]

I haven't ordered from them since pgpjunkies started stocking cup seals. I ordered a bunch and they work in my pgp, my cci bucket and my phrame pierce pin, they also worked in someone's random bucket changer today.

I like EV and try to support them when I can, but to me it's not worth it when the last batch I got from them were problematic.

[iamthelazerviking]

Oh yeah, pgpjunkies!

[Myfeetupontheground]

Thank you for mentioning PGP Junkies!

[The Jayster]

Jessie from EV told me that they're now using a different supplier and thus have urethane seals.

[flyweightnate]

Jessie from EV told me that they're now using a different supplier and thus have urethane seals.

Oh that's good news!

Pierce too, or just cup seals?

[The Jayster]

Good question - I would assume piercing seals as well but I could ask him in our next round of exchange.

[Chuck E Ducky]

The thing that pissed me off was instead of fixing the issues. They made excuses and still sold them to customers as HPA only. Like really!

The original ones lasted forever and worked perfectly. Why change the material? To save cost? What's reliability of your brand worth.

[Impactfour]

Yup. I like that EV exists rather than phantomonline disappearing when Mike retired but I'm not going to buy something from them when I can get a more reliable or better product from someone else.

[The Jayster]

A charitable soul on MCB (Araphel) sent me urethane seals he punches himself (at a nominal price). I just got back from a family vacation and they arrived while I was away. I'll test them out ASAP. Also, Jesse from EV offered to send me a set of the new seals at his own expense. Since I was thinking of ordering a few parts from EV anyway, he'll throw them in. I will also test them whenever I get them.

[Impactfour]

I'd be really happy to hear they work, maybe I'll get lucky and get a few in my shipment of spare parts and seals

[Chuck E Ducky]

His seals work awesome I use them in my markers as well.

[The Jayster]

UPDATE

EV has new seals, which were tested in all sorts of conditions: high or freezing temps, long exposure to CO2 pressure, water exposure, etc. EV also made sure they'd work without having to polish the cup or do anything else.

They graciously sent me 4 samples. I conducted a test: No leaks upon gassing up, fired the gun several times, degassed, re-gassed, fired again, etc. Worked perfectly every time.

[flyweightnate]

UPDATE

EV has new seals, which were tested in all sorts of conditions: high or freezing temps, long exposure to CO2 pressure, water exposure, etc. EV also made sure they'd work without having to polish the cup or do anything else.

They graciously sent me 4 samples. I conducted a test: No leaks upon gassing up, fired the gun several times, degassed, re-gassed, fired again, etc. Worked perfectly every time.

Awesome news.

Any word on pierce seals?

[Chuck E Ducky]

About time.

[The Jayster]

I did get an answer:

While the material used for the cup seal works fine, it is not quite rigid enough to stay in place under some circumstances as pierce seals. Hence they're still using the nylon ones for the time being.

[flyweightnate]

Glad to know they're trying, but I still prefer my CCI to the nylon.

[flyweightnate]

One more data point to add to the mix. Last weekend I brought a pair of Phantoms to the field. One worked perfectly with the old CCI clear urethane cup seal. The other struggled mightily.

I bled the 12g a bit to get the pressure from 1200 psi down to 800 (yeah, it was a hot day) and it did better temporarily. Once it got back up to 1000+, the problems returned. It'll hit 1000psi at 84 degrees. Any hotter than 85 and it's supercritical, so it gets deep into those elastomers and can cause swelling and flow/ extrusion.

That Phantom had an aftermarket thick, soft, black cup seal. It crept into the gap between the powertube and valve nut.

High pressure + soft seal = problems.

[flyweightnate]

I spoke to some nerds at work (yeah, we travel in packs). "What material would you recommend for a poppet handling supercritical CO2?"

"Are you TRYING to destroy your seal? PTFE, definitely. Or TFM. Supercritical CO2 will flow through anything else, and if it finds carbon, pick it up and keep it. So you want to avoid nitrile, polyurethane, things like that. So yeah, TFM... you'll get a better surface finish than virgin PTFE."

Since Phantom cup seals are under a ton of pressure (relatively) and are well supported, I just went with virgin PTFE since surface finish and stiffness aren't especially important. I threw away the black PU seal that swelled my PT shut, and installed a PTFE washer, and so far so good. Haven't had another 95F day to test yet but some of my older Nelsons and Bushies have white seals, so I did a bunch and have some on my site now too.

I always thought PU was the way to go. I guess it's all relative. Anyone able to weigh in on ester vs ether PUs and whether there's one that can do the job almost as well as PTFE but with less creep and more rebound?

[Chuck E Ducky]

Just grabbed some to try. I love over engendered stuff

[flyweightnate]

Thanks! As always, I'd love to hear your experiences after a few games/ years with them. Totally different up north than down here on the fringes of the inferno.