Welcome To P8ntballer.com
The Home Of European Paintball
Sign Up & Join In

Ion and paint problems

Marcus Geezer

Platinum Member
Gents,

I'm running a recently upped Ion, of which the relevant up's are SP QEV, Lucky Stage 2, Firebolt, Blackheart board, freak barrel system.

When the Ion was stock I could fire any kind of paint through it and would rarely get a barrel break. Ok, so it wasn't very consistent and not very accurate, but it worked.

My first up was a freak system, and from this got the odd barrel break. Maybe a couple in a day.

My next set of up's was the QEV and the Lucky Stage 2. After this I would get about a break or two per hopper. I've since put in a blackheart and a firebolt, and find that nothing much has really changed. I've tried stock barrel, twiddling with the dwell, twiddling with the fps, but nothing really made any difference.

Now someone mentioned that poor to average site paint might be the problem, so I put some Draxxus Frostbite through it and it works sweet as a nut, 20bps at full auto, ramping, semi, and not one break. Paint lasers as well with this paint, all straight as you want.

Ok, so good paint goes straight and has consistent paint to bore match, but why can't i just turn up at a site and use their paint anymore without all the hassles of the barrel breaks?

Now.... after my research I think I know what the problem is, and just wanted to see if others have been having similair problems, or have something to add.

It would appear the faster bolt action due to the QEV reduces the cushion of air in front of the bolt and causes more stress on the paint, therefore causing barrel breaks when using lesser quality paint.

I'm still experimenting with settings, and for my next day this weekend looking at dwell 20, ROF 50 on my blackheart to try and minimise stress on paint (prevously dwell 16 ROF 20). Also waiting for delivery of a lucky stage 3, to see if this helps.

Any thoughts gents?
 

tim_c

Member
Oct 12, 2006
59
0
16
Bizzarely my Ion seems quite contented on site paint. I'll get maybe 1-3 barrel breaks a day. Those are probably down to bad paint.

A worn detent used to give me a break every couple of hundred shots.

The location of the break gave me a clue... The paint was never in the breech - only the barrel back and beyond. Basically the detent was scratching the ball surface, which then went pop in the tightest part of the barrel - the back. From that I could work out it wasn't double feeding, chopping or exploding at the bolt.
 

speedbird_666

Old Skool Is Cool....
Feb 1, 2003
636
0
41
Bournemouth.
I'm not sure how the hopper would be contributing to breaks in the barrel?
Too powerful a loader setting = either crushed paint from the force of the loader on the ball stack and/or part feeding another ball into the gun as the detents struggle to contain that force of balls on them.
 

Skeet

Platinum Member
You are right about the QEV related issue.

When you say 16 and 20 on your dwell...is that "bleeps from bottom"?

You can run them as low as 8-10 bleeps, but...I think it was Olly on here, who suggests 25 bleeps from bottom is good...otherwise you can be abit too hard on paint..mind you, Ions are hard on paint, same as shockers and even ego's.
 
Adjusting the dwell on an Ion doesnt make the bolt any harder or softer on the paint.
Putting the QEV on makes the bolt move faster, thats what makes it harder on paint. As a result of the faster bolt speed you can lower the dwell and the gun will still fire.
If you put a QEV on but kept a high dwell it would still be just as hard on paint, but the bolt would remain forward for longer after the ball has been fired.




Also while there are a few guns that are arguably better on paint (Mini, Proto rail, Emag), I would say the Ion is particularly soft on paint. Especially when setup properly.

My ion is far easier on paint than the shocker and ego I have here.
One of our test ions had no detents, yet the bolt was unable to break a ball, even the top grade brittle stuff.
Try that with many other guns and you just get paint soup.