Theories on paintball maker efficency?

[turner]

Does anyone have and clue of why a paintball maker gets less efficency when dry firing rather than shooting balls? Punkworks did something about the efficeny loss and I have experienced really bad efficency with my ion

[Mr.Sandman]

Well more info would help. How many shots do you usually get per fill? what paint do you use? What pressure etc? My guess is that the paintball allows a slight gas build up before it is shot requiring less gas to recock the bolt. But i all depends on your upgrades. Post some more info about your gun and we can help you out a lot better.

[turner]

http://www.smartparts.com/Manuals/Ion_Manual.pdf for the manual. i have a cp regulator, ion firebolt,http://www.paintball-online.com/shop/Sm ... d_BTSPFION and 14" cp barrel. im pretty should be a spool valve but many other guns use poppets.

heres punkwork's data table http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... Egg52Xdwbg

[psycix]

Because the hammer valve now vents to atmosphere more air will come out each shot.

[twizi]

ions use less presure stock they use 180psi but an ego10 would use 400psi the ion uses more air to copinsat it to push the pb down the barrel
but the ego uses a more high presure air but less of it
the reason your gun has less effincy without paint is because when u shoot a pb it basicly seals thay barrel but without it it a pipe so it helps recock the bolt with that clog in the barrel but with just the barrel it use even more air to recock understand

[POLAND_SPUD]

lol I spend quite a lot of time thinking about spudguns and various designs but when I read about paintball guns I realize that some of ideas flowing in my mind have are already in use in paintbal; gun

remember my and iknowmy3tables' idea to modify QDV into a 3 way valve and actuate it using an air cylinder? lol guess what that's pretty much how pintball guns work

sorry for mentioning it.. but just think how cool would it be to have a valve with an adjustable dwell time

[al-xg]

I dont believe this is true on an ION.
IONs use a blow-forward exhaust valve piloted by a 3/2 solenoid valve.
The bolt does not rely on blowback to move back, and there is no hammer valve.


Have you adjusted your dwell since you changed the bolt ?
The firebolt adds chamber volume so you should be able to drop the operating pressure (although it really isn't the best design as far as air flow is concerned).

The QEV makes a quite a difference to the IONs efficiency, it will drop the operating pressure some more and the bolt moves faster so you can lower the dwell.

Adding a second o-ring to the tail of the bolt also saves air (and although not entirely usefull, the ion will fire until the tank is empty instead of just leaking air once the pressure gets low) the only reason a second o-ring isn't on the SP bolts is that Dye owns the patent for that set up.
The stock bolts geometry can also modified for better air flow and extra chamber volume.

[turner]

I haven't messed with the dwell time and I need a new gauge to see the opperating pressure. For the dwell do you basically put it to zero then increase till the valve actuates or something like that?

[al-xg]

Yeah, dwell is the amount of time the valve takes to open + stays open.
The idea is to keep the valve open only while the projectile is accelerating so no air is wasted and it also increases the potential rate of fire.
So yeah, start from zero and increase until the marker cycles and shoots consistantly.
I think there are quite a few guides for this on the internet.

If you have not ajusted the op pressure since you changed the bolt you might be shooting slightly hot.