Paintball

[tencent]

Just got my Black Magic half blocked and setup with one of Jcurt's kits so I thought I would do a full review on service and kit. I haven't played with the marker on the field yet but in my shed I just did a quick timing (gun was timed before so just adjusted the lpr back to pressure). I'll update the post tomorrow to confirm p

Short Review
* Time to chop the body and return it to my door - 21 Days
* Time I was quoted - 3 week (21 days) - Awesome
* How the body looks - Exactly how I expected, edges and faces of the cuts are crisp and appear to be well machined and not rushed.
* How the Kit looks - Kit looks great, the sled lays perfectly flat on the body of the marker and the bolt sits flush with the sled so they are a perfect match. My only complaint is the bolt pin is not delrin however I am not sure that delrin is a good material for the bolt pin and I also knew before hand that it would come this way so its nothing negative just a personal preference that I wish was an option with the kits.


Long Review
I bought the half blocking service 2nd hand from a member that changed their mind. I believe the service is normally 80 dollars + shipping to Jeremy, he pays shipping back. I requested the gun be shipped with insurance both ways, obviously I paid the insurance to Jeremy and I sent him additional funds to cover the insurance back. I was pleased to to see that it was shipped with insurance on its return trip as requested so I was very pleased to know that he keeps very good track of his requests to remember something like that.

Upon receiving the marker and checking it over my drive spring (hammer spring) is missing from the marker, Jeremy hasn't found it yet but I think this is a pretty small matter. It was only a stock spring and even spring kits themselves are fairly cheap anyways. Furthermore if I had been able to properly disassemble the marker to only the pieces Jeremy needed this would not have been a problem so I feel like this is more my fault of sending him extra pieces because I did not have the proper tools to full disassemble my marker.

While checking the marker over one thing I did notice the hammer did not seem to slide freely inside the body anymore. I checked it over for any rough edges but I was unable to find any. I believe the cuts in the hammer either caused an edge to push out a little making the hammer not fit as well as it had or the hammer had always been like this and I never noticed. When I reassembled the marker to test it I still wasn't happy with how the hammer was sliding so I removed it and dremeled all the new edges on the hammer to a rounded shape. After hand sliding it in and out, the hammer now appears to fit and operate much more smoothly so that was only a very small detail.

The kit that Jeremy provides is the sled, bolt and pin. You must provide the pump arm/cocking arm which he cuts to size and rethreads for you. He appears to of taken a good amount of time making his kits, the inside of the bolt is fairly clean of drilling marks and I did not have any 'flakes' hanging inside the bolt that I have seen with other custom nylatron and delrin bolts I have owned in the past. My only question would be why Jeremy only threads about 1/2" of the pump arm when his sled can take what looks to be about an 1" deep of threads before you arm would start to protrude out the back. I may be way off on this as I only eye balled it but I think the overall look would be nicer if the pump arm threaded evenly straight to the back of the sled however again this is a tiny detail that I do not believe would effect performance in the slightest as his current method feels very solid and I do not believe this will cause problems in the future either.

I will be shooting the marker tomorrow (cocker gods willing) and I'll update this post with how I felt the marker shoots now as opposed to the stock BM bolt and if I encounter any issues with the half blocking which I seriously doubt as the kit looks very solid and I feel the cutting and milling of the body was done very professionally making a clean fit and great look.

So in conclusion I have to say great work Jeremy. For any work I need in the future you will definitely get first shot at receiving the work and of course my money.

[tencent]

Just got back from playing today and the marker shot great. I did have a hiccup with one or two double feeds because the marker failed to cock but I just increased the LPR pressure a little more and everything was back to normal. I feel like I am running the same LPR pressure as I was before the half blocking which is slightly troublesome to me. I assumed that the reduced weight would make it easier for the ram to cycle as prior I had to have my LPR set just below the pressure my eblade solenoid starts leaking. I believe that my hammer may be to blame for this and maybe the issue I was having with it not sliding very freely when I got it back from Jeremy may have in fact been a preexisting problem that I did not notice before.

As a solution I am going to try polishing the inside of the lower tube reinspect the hammer for any rough or sharp edges. I am also going to try and find a bright flash light to put down the low tub and see if I can see any scratching that might help indicate where the problem lies.

If anyone has any other suggestions or comments about their hammer not sliding freely I would love your opinion and suggestions on a remedy.

[tencent]

Completely forgot to update this thread.. but after cleaning out my lower tube again and some light sanding on the hammer everything is smooth as butter. Again I just want to emphasize that I don't know if my hammer was rough in the lower tube before I sent it to jcurt so I can not say that the machining caused the issue. Whatever it was though its gone now and im super happy with the work he did and the speed that he did it.

[mxmtl]

Thanks for the review!

I just sent mine in today for the halfblocking and kit. I really like the kit, and I'm hoping to be able to run with a lower LPR setting as well. I didn't ask for a turnaround time, but I hope it will be home in time for Christmas.

[AyoPrayer]

Thanks for the review bro,
I'm contacting Jcurt about it right now.

[washington]

the extra frictin is just a sid effect of half/mid blicking. pulling the hammer straight back with a cocking rod is very smooth but pushing it from the top like half/midblock milled hammers do is going to put much less even pressure on the bottem tube

[tencent]

Originally Posted by washington

the extra frictin is just a sid effect of half/mid blicking. pulling the hammer straight back with a cocking rod is very smooth but pushing it from the top like half/midblock milled hammers do is going to put much less even pressure on the bottem tube

I thought about that but the only problem with that is the fit of my hammer to my tube. Granted there is still a slight 'roll' causing more friction, for the most part the hammer fits very snug in my lower tube after the half blocking. Now that it has been sanded and polished on the edges and every so slightly around the lug and the lug hole on the hammer it slides very easily even with the increased tension of having the IVG farther in now which I plan on fixing with one of the hammer slugs sold on this forum to get the weight back up.