Paintball

[Diomedes]

So I have an old Piranha SB that only has one problem: the rearward pump stroke is fine, but it jams upon bringing it forward. For what it's worth, holding the marker at an angle or upside down make it less likely to get stuck, however it's happening. Also, any way to remove the bolt from an SB without a quick strip slot? I'm not terribly familiar with the quirks of the older Sheridans...

[Long Beard]

I haven't been tinkering with Sheridans long.....but here's what I did for the same problem.

My guess is your problem is the ball barrings inside the bolt. There may be a way to fix it, but quite frankly, I just took them out. It smooths out the pump stroke both ways.

If you slide the bolt clockwise, a small pin should appear on the side of the slot. If you take a small screw driver or allen key you can push it in which will allow you to pull the bolt out the back of the gun.

[Diomedes]

Got the bolt out, cool. It only has one ball bearing, which I knew, but it doesn't seem to want to come out...any more tips for me?

[Long Beard]

I'm guessing it's a speed demon bolt....two working parts? If so there's a little pin that holds the two parts together. You need to tap that out (3/32 punch) and once that's out the two pieces will come apart and the ball bearing will drop out.

[Diomedes]

That's exactly what I was looking at...there's some deformity in the bolt on either side, so this could take a bit of work, but thanks, I appreciate the help.

[Long Beard]

There's probably some goo or grit in around that. If you have a punch it'll just pop out. Good luck.

[ThePixelGuru]

FYI, MassDestruction is making delrin sheridan bolts if you need a replacement.

[russc]

Check the bolt lug, it may be deformed.

[B]

Make sure you pump arm is aligned correctly this can be a cause also.

[Diomedes]

Thanks guys, I got to the bottom of the problem. The bolt only had one ball bearing, instead of two. With two, the rear part of the bolt wouldn't force them outward until the bolt is fully forward, but with only one, it would partially retract early in the forward stroke, causing it to kink. The best solution would be to simply remove the remaining bearing, but the bolt is a bit old and has some wear around the pin that keeps the two parts together, so I can't disassemble it at present. I'll be able to take care of that next weekend. Until then, a quick fix was to put a little piece of rubber, half of a pencil eraser, into the empty bearing hole to keep the rear part of the bolt from retracting at all, while still allowing the bearing to retract. Cheap, ghetto, and effective, until I actually fix the problem.