Paintball

[blair_heavenwood]

I've heard converting the Special to a pump is pretty straight forward. Has anyone here done this conversion? I'd love to see some good pictures or if you know where a good how-to article is, I'd appreciate it.

[Mayvik]

It would work similar to a pump Spyder (or other STBB), you're just de-linking the hammer from the bolt so the bolt moves independently, and the hammer is still mostly automated; trigger releases it, blowback gas returns it to a cocked position, and all the pump arm does is move the front bolt back and forth to chamber balls.

Edit: I highly recommend not doing this if you have a full-auto mod (SMG trigger group) on your 68 special or it will be a mess.

You could also try blocking blowback gas from the valve, but not sure how that would work. If you do that, you've basically got a Brass Eagle Nightmare, where the front and rear bolts are connected by a linkage on the side which also happens to be the pump arm.

[HurtCow]

A tricky part would be that the 68 Special requires liquid co2 in the valve to get any kind of velocity. Not a problem with semi-auto, but kinda defeats the purpose of pump if you have to shoot it a bunch just to keep liquid in the valve.

[blair_heavenwood]

Thanks for the info fellas. So it sounds like I can't turn the Special into an actual pump gun, just bastardized version of one? Are you guys aware of anyone ever disabling the automatic re-cock to get a true pump action?
As for maintaining a certain number of rounds per unit time to keep the liquid primed all the way to the valve, wouldn't this be a problem irregardless of marker action? If I don't fire a semi-auto Special for a few minutes, wouldn't the same problems arise? The reason I say this is because the gun seems to operate just fine with the siphon tank and the obligatory 2-3 dry fires before the start of a game. I'm not out there hosing down the field with my 68 Special, and I normally see significant lulls in action as is (I like the stealthy woodsball).
I understand the theory of the liquid vaporizing at the valve due to the surface area of the exposed gas line, but would this problem become moot if the hammer was re-cocked manually? I was under the impression that the reason the Special needs the liquid was due to the heavy hammer. Eliminate the need for an auto re-cock, eliminate the need for liquid CO2?
Thanks again guys.

[Mayvik]

Originally Posted by blair_heavenwood

I was under the impression that the reason the Special needs the liquid was due to the heavy hammer. Eliminate the need for an auto re-cock, eliminate the need for liquid CO2?

As far as anyone eliminating the blowback feature, not that I am aware of but that doesn't mean it hasn't been attempted/done. I think it would require some pretty significant valve changes to make the gas flow one-way only though.

I can't say for sure if the liquid is only needed to move the hammer; valve geometry might limit the flow down the barrel so much that liquid is needed to get a pressure boost to provide enough force on the ball to get it up to velocity. You could always try respringing the valve and using a lightened hammer (stainless slug with a delrin back, similar to the Alamo City strikers for STBBs) and try to tweak the whole system for regular CO2 or HPA.

[blair_heavenwood]

Oh boy...I guess the "easy" conversion I've heard mentioned just refers to disconnecting the bolt from the hammer. This has quickly spiraled beyond my skill level and time available. I guess I'll just rebuild the valve on my SL-68II that I have been putting off and work on getting the Special back into proper semi-auto order. Thanks for all your time!