Ions and reballs

[Devrij]

Over at UWE we have 5 club Ions that we give to new players when they come reball with us so they don't have to shell out on new kit for their first time. A long standing problem that seems to be getting worse is that after a few shots they stop cycling properly. With no reballs in them they cycle just fine, but fire 10-30 reballs through and they eventually die. Usually we'd just crank up the input pressure to compensate, but it's gotten to the stage where we'd have to be shooting really hot with the ions and it'd be unfair. I've tried upping the dwell to compensate for the low input pressure, but to no avail. We clean the ions regularly, but this doesn't help that much. So far, the only solution I can think of is to clean the regs/bolts often and clean the reballs to stop crap getting into the bolts (which seem to be stickier than I would expect). Anyone know what the issue is?

 

[John C]

The problem is the ion bolt has a very low force which is too gentle to load the reballs.

Reballs have alot more friction than regular paintballs. If the bolt cannot overcome the friction of the ball then the gun wont fire.

Also as you have noticed you cant increase the bolt force on the ion without increasing the velocity.


If you dont want to use the guns for paint, just reballs, try taking out the SFT oring (the one in front of the breach)

Or you could try the old greasing up reballs with paint fill.

You could also try to fill up some of the volume inside the ion to allow higher pressures without increasing the velocity.
You really need to know what your doing to mod a stock Ion in that way.
But reducing the volume and increasing the pressure offers a big potential improvement to the way the ion (or any modern gun) shoots with paint and reballs.


Just thought of another one. Adding a QEV would help your problem alot. Although I advise you take the QEV out if you want to shoot paint through the ions.

 

[Devrij]

Thanks John, much appreciated. So basically we're stuck unless we get epiphany upgrades or QEV's for them? I'm pretty crafty when it comes to tech stuff, but as you said I don't really want to try to mod them without really knowing what I'm up to (unless you can clearly describe a simple procedure?). I think I'll give the reballs a good clean and see if that helps any, maybe grease up the breaches a bit to allow the reballs to move more freely (although I can see that ending in an accumulation of dust/pubes in the grease making matters worse)? Thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

[John C]

We did volume mods to ions using a bit of plastic plumbers pipe.
But with non BOB ions its just plain irritating setting it up.


Your stuck with greasing up the reballs and taking out the SFT oring.
That should help quite a bit.

John

 

[rewind]

the only problem with taking out the oring is that they will also be used for live paint training (in which the ions normally shoot fine).

When you say about using plastic plumbers pipe to insert into the firing can, is this as simple as cutting it to the right size to fit in the rear can? or is it slightly more complex, as this could be something that could help, and im sure me and dev could sit down together and do this one evening...

I coach along with dev at UWE

 

[John C]

There is nothing stopping you putting the orings back in for paint.

Just try not to lose them


Yes the pipe mod is pretty much as simple as that.

But, upping the pressure should be an incremental process, to prevent anything going bang.
Cutting gradually increasing pipes and fitting the right one to each ion can take a long time.

We started with BOB bodies which had stupid amounts of volume. With a L7 my ion would get 300fps at 90psi.
So for me, leaving them at the stock pressures was out of the question.