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Cat Modernization

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    Cat Modernization

    Last time I tried shooting a cat, probably 2018-ish, I ran into 2 big problems.

    1 They don't like HPA.

    2 They HATE small paint.

    While I was able to figure out how to get it working on HPA, I was unable to fix the small paint problem and would have a barrel break from stack clipping every 30-40 shots consistently.

    In a fit of frustration I stupidly sold my gorgeous splash green Alley Cat, because apparently I'm an idiot.

    Long story short, my brother's old Thunder Cat arrived in the mail today, and I "think" I've finally solved both issues this time around.

    Getting it to work on HPA was actually pretty simple, they like the extra volume a gas through front grip provides. This makes a ton of sense, especially because the VASA is pretty much right on the valve, so essentially it acts as a huge valve chamber. In the past, a gas through front grip along with some careful tuning of the Velocity/Recock Set screws and the RVA was all it took. This time around, I decided to drill out the VASA airflow hole with a 7/32nds drill bit as well for even better HPA compatibility. Stock that hole is tiny! Any larger then 7/32nds would have marred the edge of the VASA and it probably wouldn't have sealed.



    Now for the stack clipping issue.

    What was happening was that the bolt for the Thunder Cat sat too far back in the breach. With large old school paint this was fine, but with the tiny ass modern paint we have today, this extra room in the breach allowed the paint ball to roll back onto the surface of the bolt. When this happens, the next paintball in line sits lower then it should, so that when the bolt moved forward it would "clip" the bottom of the next paintball in the ball stack as well as fire the shot in the breach. This creates a consistent soupy mess, and for all practical purposes makes the gun unusable.

    You can get a good idea of how far back the bolt sits stock in this picture.



    So the obvious solution is to get a longer bolt, thus keeping the paintball aligned where it should be. For Spyder's there are tons of aftermarket bolts available (The Shocktech Super fly is my personal favorite) that are usually a hair longer then the stock bolts, and they almost completely eliminate stack clipping in my experience. To my knowledge cat's have always been too niche to ever receive any after market bolt upgrades, so a little bit of DIY was necessary.

    Enter two $0.15 1/4" flat nylon washers from the hardware store. I matched the outside diameter of the washers to the outside diameter of the center part of the bolt as close as I could (its was shockingly close) and used a dremal tool to grind out the inside hole wide enough to slide over the edge of the center part of the bolt.




    After both washers could slide over the lip, I threw them on and reassembled the bolt. At this point I was fairly certain that this wouldn't work, because while the outside diameter was close, it was still pretty visibly larger then the center part of the bolt. Figuring I had nothing to loose, I reassembled it anyway, gassed it up and gave it a few test fires. It sputtered pretty bad and machine gunned a bit..... and then magically started cycling perfectly🤨 I disassembled it again, and the bolt had "beat" the nylon washers into the correct diameter.



    You can still see the excess material peeling off in the photo above. I was able to clean it up perfectly at this point by just scraping the edge of it with my fingernail.

    And now the bolt sits MUCH further forward in the breach!



    As a final test I threw a gravity on, went into the back yard, and ripped as fast as I could pull the trigger. I made it through an entire hopper of D3fy flawlessly before I ran out of paint. Not a single chop, barrel break, or stack clip.

    I should be able to make it out to the field this weekend for additional testing, but I suspect this is about to become my new favorite blow back!




    Last edited by Myrkul; 10-29-2021, 02:41 PM.

    #2
    So what your telling me is I need to buy a Tcat.
    I could have sworn I had something important to put here...
    ​​​​​​Your friendly neighborhood Hive Tyrant. Convert to the cult Automag.

    Comment


    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Exactly. These things shot absolute money back in the day, I'm hoping this makes them viable again!

    • Headshotted
      Headshotted commented
      Editing a comment
      Once I offload the rest of this retro gear I just grabbed, I'll get myself a Cat I suppose.

    #3
    I may have missed it, but what size washers did you get?

    Comment


    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Honestly not sure, I just eyeballed it (and took the white nylon part of the bolt with me) I'll try and make it to the hardware store again tomorrow and get a size.

    • Headshotted
      Headshotted commented
      Editing a comment
      That was gonna be my next question.

    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Flat 1/4" Nylon Washers.

      If you are at an ACE it's these:

    #4
    For the bolt, could one glue an oring to the face of it? It's a common Spyder mod on stock bolts.
    FEEDBACK - https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/b...k-for-scottieb

    Comment


    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Maybe, I've tried the glue on "o" ring method several times, in my experience it didn't help much and didn't hold up very well over time either. The lip on the cat bolts is also MUCH thinner then on a Spyder as well, so it would be harder to get a good glue. This is a cleaner more long term solution that is also completely reversible.

    #5
    Hmm, Im gonna look into this, I havent used my cats a whole lot, but I didnt notice the ball clipping when I did. Ill be trying these this winter.
    https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/b...khaus-feedback

    Comment


    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      The stack clipping is going to be paint/field dependent. I was running Cats up in MI (2008-2017) they ran just fine with zero bolt mods. When I moved down to KC and Jaegers became my home field they suddenly became completely unusable because of it. Still, even if they are running fine with the paint you have now, I can see this making them even better.

    #6
    I don't think drilling the Puma ASA will be quite as easy... it's got that turn to make.

    Comment


    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      You shouldn't actually need too. Like I said this worked so long as there was at least a gas through up front. It just needs the extra volume close to the valve.

    • BrickHaus

      BrickHaus

      commented
      Editing a comment
      Pumas have even more restriction. I drilled my puma, but the front block has to be drilled from each side to meet in the middle, its not much harder. Then through the body tray to the valve is a longer drill. I cant recall the size of bit used. I just eyeballed as big as possible before hitting the face seal o ring on the body of the vasa.

    • Myrkul

      Myrkul

      commented
      Editing a comment
      I scooped up a puma locally today (it inexplicably had an angled Bob Cat VASA) It WAS much harder to drill, but the max size remained the same (7/32). I just started really small and slow worked up every drill bit size and was able to do it with a cordless. Seals up and works great!

      Drilled Bob Cat Angled VASA


      Drilled Bob Cat Angled VASA


      Drilled Puma




      Additionally, I should point out, the Puma only needed one washer, not two. If I placed two washers on it the bolt was so far forward that nothing could drop into the breach. Not sure if that was just my puma or all pumas, but it is worth mentioning.

    #7
    Update:

    I put 5 revy's of D3fy through the Thunder Cat today, and it shot absolute money. Zero chops, misfires, or failures to recock, and it felt like very few misses even. 😜 I had one person offer me cash on the spot after shooting it for a round, which usually means it's shooting correctly, so I'm chalking up this one as a complete success.

    One of my friends tried to run HK (<0.680 ) through it and never made it out of the staging area, but if I stuck with D3fy it didn't chop, misfire, or perform anywhere near less then perfect. The elongated bolt works and it works well for smaller paint, it just can't handle the crazy small paint (maybe add more washers??).

    Last edited by Myrkul; 11-03-2021, 12:53 AM.

    Comment


      #8
      I was reminded of this thread by the CO2 threads... one of which I necro-bumped.

      Will enlarging the air passages cause any problems if used with CO2? Will the balancing screws still provide proper recock and velocity adjustment on CO2?

      As for the long air passage from the back bottle... is it recommended to go up incrementally in bit size instead of all at once? Do you remember the length of bit needed?

      Comment


      • Myrkul

        Myrkul

        commented
        Editing a comment
        Should work fine with Co2 so long as it's not a liquid build. On a liquid build, you'll likely loose some efficiency, but it'll work. Balancing screws should still work fine, at least I've never had issues with them either way.

        I actually never attempted to drill the back bottle on either of mine. I would do it incrementally if I did try to do it though. Less risk of drilling something crooked or breaking a drill bit if you take it one size at a time.

      #9
      Myrkul. I was messing with my puma thinking I ought to do the washer trick. Then i got to thinking if your cure ramp idea. Have you ramped a cat bolt yet? Obviously AFTER resetting the angle from the washer stack, but i was messing with 2 paintballs loaded by hand looking at the bolt movement and it seems even with washers the second ball will semi falls in front of the bolt. Got me pondering on adding washers, THEN ramping the bolt. Ehh? Nay?
      https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/b...khaus-feedback

      Comment


        #10
        Not yet...there honestly hasn't been much of a need to, at least with mine anyway. The washers cleared up the barrel breaks completely on my cat and puma. I'd be concerned about the ramp causing recock issue issues since these need a tighter bore/back pressure to recock on HPA.

        Comment


        • BrickHaus

          BrickHaus

          commented
          Editing a comment
          Its not HIS idea, but he basically cut a few varying degrees of ramps in BKO bolts to make themmakeshift cure bolts. Made his markers shootable again. Pretty trick, but sucks that PE still holds their utility patent high, so we cant have aftermarket made.

        • Myrkul

          Myrkul

          commented
          Editing a comment
          Details are here: https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/p...ng-paint-fixes

          Legally I think I'm required to say it's Jack Wood's idea, I just shamelessly ripped it off to get my B2K & Defiant ripping again. Between myself and my friends there are 3 of these bolts out there now and we have collectively shot about three cases with them...in blind guns. There have been zero stack clips, ball chops or barrel breaks, so they work extremely well. In theory they can be made for just about gun with a true bolt. I've been hesitant to add them to anything without a front "o" ring though. There are defiantly going to be more, next one will likely go on my impulse once I get that dialed in. It's going to take a while to make it through my whole collection.

        • zinger565

          zinger565

          commented
          Editing a comment
          I will definitely be "cure"ing my b2k bolts as well. Working on getting a local hobby machinist set up to do the mod regularly or even turn out a few bolts for personal use.

        #11
        I'm running a gas through grip but not drilled out, and have the recock out 1.5 turns, and my Tcat shoots once or twice then farts like it's out of air.
        Would drilling the inlet help this?

        Comment


        • Myrkul

          Myrkul

          commented
          Editing a comment
          It certainly wouldn't hurt to try! Make sure you have a fresh "o" ring on the hammer and a good paint to bore match too. If it still is struggling to recock, you might need to increase your tank pressure.

        #12
        Very smart solution to smaller paint. My only concerns would be a) the step on the back end of the bolt is likely to keep it concentric with the hammer, and reducing how far it sits in that hole might reduce the bolt's stability; and b) the empty space between the rear face of the bolt and the bottom of the hole in the hammer might make the bolt more susceptible to stripping out.

        I'd be interested to know how this fares in the long term.

        Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

        Comment


        • Myrkul

          Myrkul

          commented
          Editing a comment
          Mine is still holding up just fine. The threads are pretty beefy for the screw that holds the bolt, and the screw is pretty long/deep. I don't have any concerns about a failure.

          3/11/23 update. Played about six or seven games with it today. It was perfect. Paint was D3fy (0.682). Just feeding it with a gravity and still didn't have a single ball break in the gun, zero misfires or failures to recock, and it was throwing absolute darts with a 0.684 insert.
          Last edited by Myrkul; 03-11-2023, 10:42 PM. Reason: Update

        #13
        So I just want to confirm, You are just opening up the port in the VASA. I have a build on hold waiting to find a sight rail/handle. It will be using the front vasa and a ptp intruder expansion chamber as a foregrip. Even with that, drilling out the vasa would still be benefical for HPA use, correct?

        And on your bolt mod, has anyone ever just 3d printed a new bolt?
        Last edited by Lextreme; 02-19-2023, 11:31 PM.

        Comment


        • Myrkul

          Myrkul

          commented
          Editing a comment
          Probably. Mine ran okay on HPA without drilling it out, but does seem to run much better after drilling it out.

          Not that I'm aware of.

        #14
        November 2023 update:

        Well, my local field has finally stopped carrying D3fy. This means I had to figure out how to get my ever multiplying number of cats to shoot the super tiny 0.675 HK Army paint that they didn't like.

        What I ended up working was also a simple and easy fix.

        I just beveled the front edge of the bolt with some 400 grit sand paper and a cordless drill.

        Stock bolt left, bolt with the beveled edge on the right.


        By smoothing that edge out it's more likely to push the second ball in the ball sack up instead of just slicing it off or cracking the shell.

        It worked perfectly. Ran the gun for multiple games today and was straight up abusive on the trigger to see if there were any issues with blowback up the feedneck, reduced velocity, or recocking issues.

        There were none. Gun was perfect. No chops, no barrel breaks, no failures to recock. These still reign supreme as the ultimate blowback in my opinion.




        This is actually a repeat, not a long version, somebody made this video like this. I just uploaded it on accident.

        ​​​​

        Comment


          #15
          I understand beveling the bolt on top to avoid clipping but wouldn't the rest of the bolt encourage pinching any shells between the bolt and body?

          Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

          I use Tapatalk which does NOT display comments. If you want me to see it, make it a post not a comment.

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