Originally posted by superbully
and how do I improve my consistency? Mine varies quite a bit.
I have a 99 cocker with palmer reg, 3000psi preset DCI sports bottle.
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The best thing you can do to improve shot-to-shot consistency is to buy really good paint.
The next best thing you can do, from what I've seen is to regularly grease your regulator (
) and lube your gun and make sure everything is moving smoothly.
You might want to make your hammer heavier (do this after you've tried everything else).
You also might want to make sure that your regulator is in that "sweet spot" zone for better efficiency...if you had an adjustable bottle reg, I'd say to make sure that you have at least a 200 psi "cushion" above what the gun needs...I know someone who sets his tank output at 1000 psi but I wouldn't recommend that (he avoids shoot-down but then his gun gets starved quicker than someone who's tank output is about 400 psi, and his gun regulator gets overworked).
If you've done all that and your gun seems very sensitive to the paint you're shooting, try using a larger bore barrel. Don't get wild, you do have a 'cocker, just try a few hundreths of an inch larger. What you're hoping to do by this is eliminate having the occasionally larger ball slowing down by dragging on the inner wall of the barrel. With openbolt guns, this seems to be even more important and I really like a 0.694" on my 'Timmy and I go as large as 0.700" for really bad, large paint on a hot, humid day but for my '99 STO I like to size the barrel (or barrel sleeve) so that the ball doesn't take any effort to blow through the barrel when I am testing it ("...Just put your lips together and blow...").
On the flip-side of the barrel bore coin, if your paint is too loose in the barrel, the paintball will tend to start in a different position on every shot so your velocity will always vary with the starting position, so for a closed bolt gun a too-loose barrel is bad for consitency also.
If your gun STILL is inconsistent after all that, then you might want to check the diameter of the tube that the hammer sits in, and/or just replace the WHOLE hammer and valve setup. I've run across the situation where the hammer had a little too much "play" in the tube it sat in and it was enough for the hammer to tilt as it moved back and forth, enough to catch a little and cause inconsistent travel. Also, the valve pin may be slightly deformed (you did say it's a 99) (some badly made hammers can deform slightly on the face also...enough to prevent consistent travel but this is pretty rare...it's more common to have the valve pin deform), it may mushroom just enough to stick just a little, causing inconsistency at the chrono.
As a last ditch effort, make sure the O-rings on your bolt (if you have any) are new and lubed. This makes for a better seal, giving better, more consistent air flow.
Also, if you haven't already done it, have your gun bored out for a larger air chamber, and either go with a high flow valve, or just bore out your stock one. One of my best cockers had an old Sheridan valve bored out with the valve stem trimmed properly. Yes, these particular mods will allow you to use a lower pressure but more importantly, it also makes your gun more consistent.
A really quick thing to try is to turn your Sledgehammer/Rock up a full half turn and see if that improves your consistency. If it did, then you had it set too low. You can turn it down a bit 'til you find where your gun gets inconsistent again, then turn it up just a bit more again. If your gun jumps around too much, or you start blowing LP hoses, then you didn't try any of the other mods first and your LP is too high. This technique seems to be more for openbolt guns but you never know...
If after all that, and your gun is still very inconsistent, then take it outside, grab it by the barrel and bang it on the ground a few times as you yell "Bad GUN!!!" and then use it as a doorstopper.
Oh, by the way, if my gun is +- 3 fps I consider that good, but when it comes to playing time, I'm happy if the tens digit is only one off...I tend to shoot really bad paint in practice...I figure if I can't hit them the first time, then I need to get closer.
Ray
