Bushmaster Breaking Paint: Fixes

[Myrkul]

Yep, I tried a bunch of different hoppers on this, revys, halos, spires, ricochets, and probably a few more I'm forgetting about. It was still breaking paint like mad with every single one. My defiant had the same issue, as did my friends B2k4 and a random players B2k4 at the field. All of them were just handling the 0.682 field paint like shit. Not one of us has had a stack clip or barrel break since switching to the home brew cure bolts, and we are at least 2/3 cases in at this point.

[glaman5266]

I see you have a Rotor on there. Have you tried an agitated or semi-force feed on it? I'm sure an Egg 3 or Egg 2 cranked up would feed fast enough. Ran an Egg 2 on my BKO for years with good results. Old Spyders have some of the same issues, especially when using force-feed loaders, and are almost completely cured by using a "slower" loader.

A good newer option would be the Protoyz/PE Speedster loader. Basically a Revolution on steroids. It'll hit 10.5 ramp & isn't force-feed.

[Myrkul]

Is this helpful?

[BrickHaus]

Well, send me some pics yo. Ill fix em for ya.

[Myrkul]

They aren't complicated at all, anyone with even halfway decent soldering skills can do it, I'm just bad at electrical. The boards always hold up just fine, and the old Skinner solenoids last for freaking ever. Just crappy old wires, easy fix in most cases.

[BrickHaus]

What do these harnesses look lime? Maybe I can fix em. Im good with an iron. And or I may be able to find the right plugs to make new ones.

[Olsson]

Well that made me smile and feel sligthly sad at the same time, since it very much validated my gut feeling that every last one of those little buggers seem to need repairs on the wiring harness.

The last X-Mill I bought - for cheap, as mentioned - worked for a day, and then the harness gave broke...

[Myrkul]

Probably not, but bushmasters aren't exactly the easiest gun to sell, despite their phenomenal performance. Hell I picked up the above for $60 in 2012. That and I've never encountered a bushmaster that doesn't need a new wiring harness, I'm not good enough at soldering to even attempt something like that on the scale it would take for it to be worth while.

[Myrkul]

You got that right, the Y-Frame feels so wrong, but at the same time so so so right.

[BrickHaus]

Fair enough. But what if you snag up old bushies, and do these mods then re sell em? Think he would go for ya then?

[OpusX]

It is an odd beast, but certainly a beast. Shot great for the game I played with it. Who would have thought that simple angle cut makes all the difference.

[Myrkul]

There is no way I'd sell these bolts, they'd have to be pried out of my cold dead hands. He's mentioned before he is cool with people ripping the design for personal use, it'd be commercial bolt mods he'd have a problem with.

[BrickHaus]

Cue jack wood to come atchya like cleopatra.

Lmao, awesome work buddy!

[Myrkul]

Well, I FINALLY managed to get my old bushmaster (Serial# 1417) shooting the way it's supposed to with modern paint (D3fy, approximately 0.682). There was a lot of trial and error that went into this so I figured I'd pass along what ended up working for me in case anyone else has the same issues with their bushy always breaking paint.

Step one:
The old tried and true polished Ram Shaft & Autococker Valve spring. I went with an SLPS autococker valve spring on this on and it is LIGHT. Polished up the ram shaft as well. This makes the gun smoother and enables you to drop the LPR pressure.

Step two:
Drop a #011 "O" ring in the back of the ram. This causes the bolt to sit further forward in the breech, and helps compensate for small modern paint.


Step three:
Modify the bolt by ripping off Planet Eclipse's cure bolt design. I tried a few different styles, and a 5 degree ramp on the top edge of the bolt seemed to work best. I went with Vapor bolts to minimize blowback up the feed neck and improve the velocity more, (which in turn lets me set the LPR even lower). Special thanks to the member here who made the cuts for me.


Step four (optional):
A lot of the later model bushies came with dual "o" ring style detents. This one did not, single autococker style detents. I was getting double feeds with a single detent, so I'd recommend adding the second one if its not already there. I did drop down the BPS to 10.5 and turned off ramping on the Chaos board as well, didn't want to press my luck too hard with this tiny paint.

And that's it. Made it through approximately 1,400 paintballs this weekend and didn't have a single chop, barrel break, or stack clip. Nostalgia hit me right in the feels ripping it up with this monster again. Just wish there were some angel owners playing that day so I could make them feel bad all over again...but you know proprietary batteries & time...