Paintball

[Invictus]

Here's my review of the Delrin Blazer Bolt I bought from Alamo City Paintball:


Customer Service:
The service was very good, and every email I sent was responded to in a very quick manner.

Shipping:
Shipping was super fast. The bolt was shipped priority mail and was packed very well. In addition to the packing, the bolt and pin each came in their own container.




Pros:
It's an aftermarket bolt for a marker that rarely has parts not made by Palmer Pursuit. You can choose between several different colors for not only the bolt but the pin as well. They also offer the pin in metal if using a delrin pin scares you. In addition to this they offer several oring configurations depending on how you want your bolt.

The pin retention system is a very unique and stable design. It uses a metal BB to retain the pin which has a spring behind it to allow constant tension on the pin while also allowing easy removal. The spring tension is then controlled by an adjustable set screw on the rear of the bolt. So removing the bolt is just as quick if not quicker than the stock Blazer bolt.




The bolt has a milled groove in it to help reduce wear from the Ball Detents. Also the air inlet on the bolt is angled which helps with airflow and caused a slight increase in velocity.

The overall accuracy seemed to be the same or slightly better, and the overall cycling noise of the marker seemed to be only slightly quieter.

Received what I order, and was also sent a steel pin and two spare orings.


Cons:
Because this bolt is lighter, it threw my timing slightly off. This was easily fixed though and should not deter you from getting one.

Ball Detent groove did not match up with the ball detent. My ball detents rest in the breach at a slight angle while the groove on the bolt was level. A review of the ACP site didn't reveal a no groove option for this bolt, but it may be possible by contacting them.




The Delrin pin did not seat far enough into the ram arm, and looked as if it would break and/or wear prematurely because of this. During testing of the bolt with this pin, the pin held the bolt in for a total of two shots. While it did not break, it more or less just slide out due to lack of material to hold it into the ram arm. Due to a possible safety issue I have chosen not to use it.




The face of the bolt has a straight cut off face rather than being rounded off and counter sinked to create a cupped effect on the ball. This could possibly lead to balls being broke or cut while feeding into the marker


Conclusion:
All in all this is a decent aftermarket bolt. I wouldn't necessarily call it an upgrade due to a few slight manufacturing issues that need to be corrected/updated. However, I especially liked how they offer the bolt in several colors, and that its made from Delrin.

Dispite the Delrin bolt pin being off, ACP had included a steel pin in addition to the delrin one I had ordered. So on this aspect I believe I came out even.

While I have not contacted ACP on the issues I have encountered, I believe that because of prior contact with them that I should have no issues with getting the previously stated issues fixed.

All in all I would rate the bolt 6.5 due to the issues I encountered.

[Drum]

Did you try it with the metal pin yet?

Imho, the bolt pin is the most important part and most abused point in the Blazer operating system.

As one who has sheared off each of the prior, thinner, PPS bolt pins, I cannot believe that the delrin pin here would ever work, even if the geometry of the pin/bolt were corrected.

Likewise, I would be interested to see if the metal pin provided with this kit is the same or fatter than the PPS offering. If not, I can say with some certainty that this pin will fail after hard use.

Thanks for trying this product out and letting us know your impressions.

Cheers,
D

[Invictus]

Yes I have tried out the metal pin, and it is alot closer to that of the stock pin. It seats in the ram arm quiet nicely, and so far I've had no issues with it.

[Drum]

Give it a workout and report back.

A few cases fired ought to give you an idea how well this design will hold up to such abuse.

Thanks,
D.

[hs2000]

way, way, way back in the day... when I still owned semi's, I sent my blazer to ACP for them to use as a prototype to make the first delrin blazer bolt. Mine was perfect, with none of the defects you talk about. I really liked how it reduced kick by being so much lighter then the stock piece.

But at the time all they gave me was a delrin pin, which was snapped in a few hundred shots. I called and they sent me five more for free, I snapped all of those. Then I just sold the blazer all together.

[ISplatU]

I have one of these bolts, and do not recomend. The First test fire shot the bolt in my face. The pin did not sit in the grove proper. I think is was my blazer having a smaller grove than others, but still I have not used it since.

[MadCat]

I have two ACP blazer bolts, one standard o-ringed bolt and the "low-blow" bolt (air channel set to impart a backspin on the ball).

I originally had the delrin pins, but I immediately broke both of them. ACP sent me steel pins as a replacement (at that time, free of charge) and they worked fine until I snapped one in my e-blazer at MMG last year. It was such a PIA to extract the bolt from the blazer body that I haven't used the bolts since.

With some refinement, this could be a good product. It's not there yet

[Invictus]

Just as a update on this review.

I contacted ACP in regards to the issues, and received an email back. The email addressed the issues and that they have corrected them, and that they would be willing to send me the corrected bolt and delrin pin. They also stated that they DO offer the bolt without the ball detent groove. So I will be contacting them back, and hopefully will have a new bolt soon. Once I receive it I will post a follow up review on it.

[minimag03]

I had one of these in my Blazer. The SS pin broke in the middle of a game one day. I never used it again...good luck.

[Invictus]

I got the replacement bolt from ACP yesterday. They have fixed all the issues I originally noted. I will update my original review post later today as I will be testing the bolt this afternoon.