The results are in, and not at all encouraging I'm afraid.
I tried first with my stiffest stiff spring, popped off nicely past 100 psi, but on the return stroke (just as judgement arms had predicted) it hung open and reset very slowly. Weaker springs were even more prone to this effect as there was less force to reset them. I can't fit a stronger spring, because that means it won't pop off at all.
My next solution was to reduce the diameter of the bolt piston slightly to reduce friction and increase blow-by, this improved the hanging issue but unfortunately now the bolt wasn't moving forward enough to seal the barrel.
So, in a nutshell,
one cannot prove this, but it "is" in the same sense that Mount Everest "is"... this would make a great semi-auto design if you removed the check valve and stem and simply hooked it up to a blowgun, it opens very fast and would be good for airsoft or similar. However, my aim was full-auto and as such this design was a failure.
Preloaded cartridges are looking like an even more attractive solution to achieve my objectives. I got some experience with fiddly little valves in this project however, which has got me thinking that perhaps
this design deserves to be built. The question is, will it suffer from the same "hanging" issues that the blow-forward breech does?