Gen E/DM3 Matrix resource

[warbosschoppa]

I bugged him today about it too haha

[zinger565]

Bones sent me all the info, I am rebuilding the site

reviving this thread...any progress on this? Any chance of a raw dump to a google drive, dropbox, or even megadrive file?

I get the desire to format everything, but the info might be worth it even unformatted.

[lew]

yes or freeflow. the hollowed out milling on the back cap and bolt stop are the two parts that make the biggest impact.

Interesting. I'll keep my eyes peeled for either one of those bolt kits. I'll probably try the tophat and bolt stop mods and see what kind of efficiency boost I can get out of these. First, I'll get them out to the field and decide if that's even necessary. I have one 68 ci, one 77, and two 90's, and I might get a new bare 90 or 98 ci tank for a Crossfire reg I have.

I'll probably try the tophat mod since that will be cheap and easy. From there, I can Dremel the bolt stop if deemed to be necessary. Modifying the back cap is beyond my humble means.

[latches109]

Speaking of bolts, I ordered a stock DM3 bolt kit in good or better condition off fleabay for cheap cuz why not. That said, I've seen Evolve bolt kits come up for sale once in a while. With all day air, and me soon to have my own compressor, is there any sense getting an Evolve bolt kit?

yes or freeflow. the hollowed out milling on the back cap and bolt stop are the two parts that make the biggest impact.

[lew]

No they're not bad on air at all.

They're honestly probably the best gun from that generation, no doubt. I mean they were up against the Impulse, Angel, Intimidator, and only later on the Shocker SFT. The 03 Shocker and Intimidator were actually like half a generation after the Matrix as it was conceived in 1997 or 98 and put into production in 2000 IIRC so really it was a contemporary of the Rainmaker, Angel, and shoebox Shocker. It obviously aged well.

I had a early Gen-E for a while but ended up selling it and getting medium-well used DM3 as a shooters gun so I didn't have to worry about being the one to scratch the Gen-E's beautiful gloss black finish. I like the DM3 a bit better just due to the slightly more jazzed up body cuts and the eyes aren't a bad feature at all though probably not needed. My DM3 wears an AKA SCM III and 2 Liter HPR and absolutely shoots money. The consistent design of the spool valve along with top end regs make it +/- 3-5 fps easily with even crummy paint. With the dwell cranked up it's so gentle on paint I can use well into October when temps drop and paint becomes so brittle that force feed loaders start turning into blenders.

That's a good point about where it fit chronologically. The only gun getting great efficiency back then was a Cocker. The anodizing on these Gen E's is brilliant. On par or surpassing my Angel LCD.

The DM3 I had six years ago had a Sidewsinder and SCM. The Max Flo I threw on this current Matrix should provide similar consistency. I'll eventually replace the PBC LPR, but I'm not in a rush.

[gabe]

No they're not bad on air at all.

They're honestly probably the best gun from that generation, no doubt. I mean they were up against the Impulse, Angel, Intimidator, and only later on the Shocker SFT. The 03 Shocker and Intimidator were actually like half a generation after the Matrix as it was conceived in 1997 or 98 and put into production in 2000 IIRC so really it was a contemporary of the Rainmaker, Angel, and shoebox Shocker. It obviously aged well.

I had a early Gen-E for a while but ended up selling it and getting medium-well used DM3 as a shooters gun so I didn't have to worry about being the one to scratch the Gen-E's beautiful gloss black finish. I like the DM3 a bit better just due to the slightly more jazzed up body cuts and the eyes aren't a bad feature at all though probably not needed. My DM3 wears an AKA SCM III and 2 Liter HPR and absolutely shoots money. The consistent design of the spool valve along with top end regs make it +/- 3-5 fps easily with even crummy paint. With the dwell cranked up it's so gentle on paint I can use well into October when temps drop and paint becomes so brittle that force feed loaders start turning into blenders.

[lew]

Thanks for the history, Tracker. I never paid much attention to Matrices when they first came out. I don't know why the PBN Vintage Matrix section never crosses my mind. I'll look into the mod, but it doesn't sound like I'll need it.

Good to know that they aren't terribly inefficient markers, but that wouldn't stop me. In fact, I just snagged another red Gen E off of fleabay. Two is one, one is none and all that razzmatazz.

[gabe]

TBH I could be off on my shot counts. The Matrices aren't all that inefficient but I've never shot a tank anywhere close to empty. I normally run through a hopper and one maybe two pods in two games (we normally play a game and then "walk it back" and switch sides). A hopper and two pods leaves me with about 1800psi left in my ninja 68ci so maybe up to 700-800 shots in my heinously inefficient high dwell tune? You could probably get a half case no problem with a lower dwell.

PBN has pretty good archived threads on tophat mods and shot counts before/after.

[Tracker]

i never thought they were THAT inefficient, but its been so long since ive tried to shoot a tank empty with one.. i dont know anymore

as far as the top hat mod goes, its a volume constriction mod, the matrix has 2 shot volumes, the one thats going to fire the ball, and then one thats going to fire the next ball, the idea is, if you use less gas to fire the ball you'll save air over time, and it does work to an extent, but to compensate for the reduces volume, you had to run at a higher pressure, which increased the recoil

the mod was accomplished my increasing the volume of the "top hat" part of the bolt, some people used tape, o-rings, pieces of vinyl hose... you name it

interestingly enough the very first "mod" sold for the matrix was a delrin sleeve by shock tech that was thicker, to improve air efficiency, everyone hated it because it meant you had to turn your pressure up. and it was not on the market for very long

that being said, you can remove some of that air volume and not suffer anything for it, you just keep eating up the space until the velocity drops, and go just a little bit back from there to give yourself a buffer, might only give you a dozen extra shots, but in that arrangement, it wont hurt anything either

[lew]

Depends how much paint you shoot per game. I don't shoot more than 500 balls in a single game so the regular bolt works just fine for me. You can eek up to 700-800 shots out of a 68/45 with careful tuning. If you shoot more than that definitely go evolve or better yet just do a tophat mod.

The previous owner of my gun put a bunch of o-rings on the outside of the tophat and while I don't know that it increased the efficiency much, it probably does to some degree. Even the Evolve Gold bolt will only increase efficiency by about 10% in my experience.

So, about the same efficiency as my Shocker Sports, and no big deal. I can't remember the last time I went through more than a hopper and a pod in one game.

I remember looking into the tophat mod when I had my first Matrix years ago. If you don't mind, could you run through that?

[gabe]

Depends how much paint you shoot per game. I don't shoot more than 500 balls in a single game so the regular bolt works just fine for me. You can eek up to 700-800 shots out of a 68/45 with careful tuning. If you shoot more than that definitely go evolve or better yet just do a tophat mod.

The previous owner of my gun put a bunch of o-rings on the outside of the tophat and while I don't know that it increased the efficiency much, it probably does to some degree. Even the Evolve Gold bolt will only increase efficiency by about 10% in my experience.

[lew]

Speaking of bolts, I ordered a stock DM3 bolt kit in good or better condition off fleabay for cheap cuz why not. That said, I've seen Evolve bolt kits come up for sale once in a while. With all day air, and me soon to have my own compressor, is there any sense getting an Evolve bolt kit?

[gabe]

ooooh, 3 port bolt.
your talking about 2 different bolts from 2 different kits, that bolt belongs to the original bolt assembly that were black with brown viton o-rings that everyone looked at as inferior to buena, buts they stopped putting those in anything by the time the LED came out they called it the "image bolt"


all of the bolts that were stock post LED were all direct copies of the Aardvark "red" bolt, and thus interchangeable

all of the add on and mod parts out there (leethal mod, C4 back cap, Freeflow bolt.. etc..) were based on the "image bolt" spec so even the evovle gold bolt can be mixed and matched if necessary

Just a data point here. Don't know what the serial of that gun was but it was an LED frame with smoke stack high rise feed and had the Matrix branded OTP barrel. Regular rubber Matrix marked grips and a push button on/off NOT a slider switch. Don't know if that was an early one or what. Got it as a project for less than a bill. Apparently it had the non-LPR front plug with it but I must have thrown it away with the packaging; I will never forgive myself for that.

If anyone needs seals for the PBC lpr's, Doc hooked me up with some and he might still have some that he made available.

[lew]

Lulz. As much as I like Shocktech, and most of their wares are solid, they've released some dogs. I can't remember what FGP stands for, though I do remember it being something vulgar.

[Tracker]

That good, huh? If you happen to know why, what was the problem and why did it suck when the FGP is the gold standard for Cockers?

Thanks for your help, too.

i guess that is all subjective, i dont recall ever hearing that about the FGP outside of shock techs own marketing. you do know that FGP stands for, right?

anyways, as the story goes (im paraphrasing here)
the shocktech LPR was the first hoseless LPR to market, someone was doing a victory lap about it to the person from aardvark
aardvark said "its a crap design, my design is coming, but you should have waited"
first event after both regs were out the guy who was gloating was in line waiting for a trinity.. because the FGP did exactly what aardvark said it would (bad recharge)