Paintball

[Eli]

I just got a very cherry VM off of ron-asp on eBay. I prefer to run the bottle on the front, like my old VM. I intend to feed her liquid, but I'm not sure if there are any special considerations when doing so. I live in Southern California and it gets quite hot here during the summer. I remember reading somewhere that liquid doesn't perform as well in hot weather, but I can't remember where, and Doc took his liquid article down. I already have a surplus of o-rings, and three extra cup seals in case there are any leaks. I also keep my guns clean and well oiled.

Would I just be better off throwing an anti-siphon on a couple of my bottles?

[Duzzy]

In hot weather Co2 can spike causing an imbalance in your valve springing. Meaning it well push against your cup seal so hard that your hammer won't be able to open the valve fully and you'll lose velocity.

Other than that, there are velocity spikes to worry about. But this all pertains to non-liquid Co2, I don't know how much it will change if you run straight liquid. Hope I helped a little.

[pizzaluvr]

I thought straight liquid was pretty solid as far as consistency.. It's only the gas that over expands and cools. I might be wrong, though.

[Chappy]

The benefit of running liquid in the summer is that you'll shoot low instead of hot when the co2 heats up, as long as the gun's fps is set when the valve is flooded. When running liquid, you have to make sure your valve is saturated when you chrono. When its hot, and you don't have liquid in the valve, you'll get a low fps reading on your first few shots. Instead of turning up the gun, just take a few more shots until you get fog from your barrel, and chrono again and you'll see a higher fps.
The main drawback to liquid in the summer time(over 85-90 degrees) is those first few low fps shots, until the valve is saturated.
Hope this rambling helps...

[HP_Lovecraft]

I ran my VM on liquid for nearly all of the 90s. The original cupseal is pretty beefy, since the ASA orientation meant that it would see incidental liquid contact.

I never had any performance problems. In fact, it ran pretty amazing all year, from sub-zero, to very hot days. Never had to adjust FPS since it was spot-on every time.

Like Chappy said, on VERY hot days, you might see a drop in FPS. What is happening is the liquid co2 is actually changing its state to "Supercritical Co2". In a normal gun, you would see a spike, while in a liquid gun, you would see a drop.

Generally, I never think about it. Just fire a quick string of 20-30 shots. That will chill the co2 down enough, and flood the valve. So, it sorta fixes itself with a liquid gun.

The only problem you might have is effeciency. My VM was horrifically ineffecient. A stock VM is already pretty bad, and on liquid, it is worse. Maybe 400-500 shots from a 20oz? Plenty of a single game, and it was worth it to have all the benefits from liquid co2. But it does help to have a spare tank to avoid waiting in line between every game.

Also, it is a thrill to run a liquid VM on a humid, wet day. You will literally become enveloped in an instand smoke-screen!

[Schmitti]

Also.. you will need to tune the gun for liquid. Pull the valve and reinstall it with the smallest port facing up... the big port is great for gas... but poor for liquid. You can probably also restrict the bolt choke adjuster a bunk. Basically you are doing everything to turn down the velocity as if you were using gas.

E

[Eli]

Yeah I was gonna turn the valve down. She's shooting 400+ FPS on liquid with the bolt almost fully choked off. Better hot than not, eh?