"Self Cleaning Barrels", aka "You're Full Of Shit"

Ran into this while browsing the forums:

http://www.lapcopaintball.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=40

"Self-Cleaning:  Shoot through the occasional ball break -- no need to swab."

I have never seen a barrel shoot itself clean.  NEVER.

This falls under the larger category of "Barrel Bullshit", but I do not recall seeing a single published accuracy test relating to "self cleaning barrels".  Because then people would realize it's bullshit.  Just like Hammerhead barrels.

Your accuracy goes to crap and will remain crap until you run a squeegie through it.  Paintballs are not squeegies.

The only way you can possibly claim that a barrel "shoots itself clean" is if you constantly run your barrels in filthy condition, in which case you never notice the difference in performance.  And if you're one of these folks, I think we're all better off if you just learn to shut.the.fuck.up.com.  .org.

And yes, I did own a aluminum Bigshot way back when.  For my Automag.

Revamped Automag Classic, Part 2

The changes I've made to the components surrounding the Automag would make it cheaper, lighter, and arguably more functional (three things I was told were impossible). Sure, there is the "quality" argument. So I have to make the quality counter-argument: if I reduced the quality, how much did I reduce it by? How much "quality" was lost by removing the retarded ass wings? Say an aluminum rail has a lifetime of X. I reduced the lifetime by what? Half? What if the rail lifetime is 50 years? Do you care when you can hop right back onto Shapeways and print a second one up after 25 years? Do you know how much a fucking decently milled aluminum rail costs, particularly if you include the anno?

How does that argument pan out against the original composite frames, which are still in use today? How much quality was lost switching from the aluminum single-finger triggers to the composite ones? Because we all know that people love those composite frames (don't forget the plastic triggers too!) and continue to use them to this day. Except for the fact that they didn't have an option for double triggers, so people resorted to shitty hack jobs. Something which I addressed.

It should be somewhat obvious by now: those guys are fucking talking out of their asses.

If a user wants to throw money at the heavy duty (and decorative) aluminum upgrade parts, by all means, let them. Otherwise, a perfectly functional low cost alternative is available.  That’s how you make money.  This seems to be something that a few manufacturers don't understand. Maybe that's why "there's no money to be made in paintball."

Anyways, I'd like to do the same with the valve. It obviously won't be plastic, but I think that modern production methods as well as, quite frankly, not making the fucking thing out of stainless steel (hey dickhead -- how much "quality" was lost going from stainless steel to aluminum?), will bring the cost down. I'd love to take the design, hand it off to a machine shop, and get a price for a run. And then make a few changes and see how that affects price. But I can't. I don't have the design. Nobody but AGD does.

What I think should happen is that the Automag design should be opened up, or licensed in some similar fashion. I do value IP, so I think that the community should consider getting together and paying off whoever needs to be paid off to release the design. That allows either a large manufacturer to give it a shot, or maybe a small group of individuals to commission small runs of stuff, as we have seen a lot of in paintball. Or something like what I did, which was just draw up non-critical parts and just have a 3d print shop make them. I mean, if there's "no money to be made in paintball", and the owners clearly don't give a shit about any of this anymore, why wouldn't they take their money now and let the next sucker have a crack at it? There is just something not mentally right going on with the involved parties.

I've mentioned this idea, notably on AO, and some fucking shithead keeps trying to shut the discussion down. He has no interest in Automags or anything else. He has no business data, no manufacturing data, no technical data... absolutely fucking nothing. The only thing he has is some anecdotal stories from nearly 2 decades ago. Really, he only seems interested in being an apologist mouthpiece for TK's really shitty decisions. I'd call him a fucking shill like the others, but that's being too kind.

But he IS interested in some fruity fucking project that involves gluing superfluous steampunk bullshit to his gun. That's real fucking interesting. Fucking LARPers. Or hey you know what would be great? A forum for discussing religion!

WHAT THE FUCK?

Is this guy fucking for real? I'm over here proposing what should be obvious, trying to improve stuff, drawing shit, getting stuff made, and actually testing it, and he's doing WHAT? Why the fuck am I even addressing him? Fuck him. Throw him on the ignore list where he belongs.

But what does the community do? It fucking sends money to ... I want to say "buy" the forum, but they didn't even do that. They just paid for its relocation. FUCKING RETARDED.

It's fucking foolish to contribute to saving AO when we should be trying to buy the IP for the Automag and find a way to open or license it out somehow. All of those guys just threw their fucking money at a bunch of nothing. They won't even export the fucking forum databases for some unknown reason. I mean, it's the data that the community wants to protect, so why not fucking export the tables? If he had offered exported media of the databases as kind of a perk for donation, I would understand. But this was just fucking layers of stupid upon stupid.

I think we'll have to simply accept the death of the Automag as a foregone conclusion, which some people seem more than happy to help usher along.

Revamped AGD Automag Classic

WORK IN PROGRESS (Need to upload pics)

I've been somewhat reticent in the last few posts because I've been actually working on stuff.

Well, stuff finally came in.

Regulator Back

AA vigilante aluminum replacement. You guys have seen this already, and know it cuts the weight down considerably.

The Main Rail

The main rail is the single most overlooked part of the Automag.  It really only has two places to go: either it needs to achieve its full potential (see below for an example), or it needs to be folded into the grip frame.  Meanwhile, everyone else is obsessed with (mostly) decorative milling of aluminum rails for some reason.  Milling some fruity pattern doesn’t make the rail more functional; it just makes it lighter.

This rail removes the stupid wings, uses a press-fit sear axle, has ULE cuts, compatible with classic pim, and has the classic ASA adapter mounting geometry. 1.3oz, which puts it very close to the lightest known aluminum rail. (It costs $55 to print at Shapeways, which is kind of spendy, but then again, check how much a good ULE rail will cost you, including the anno).

The Trigger

This was my first trigger ever; it’s totally functional, but I’m not exactly happy with it.  In fact, I think the next one I draw will just be a simple stick, like on my Tiberius, which I am perfectly happy with.  Having drawn one of these, I have to say that the original design of the trigger mechanism was actually quite clever.

The Barrel Adapter

The mag to cocker adapter I drew up is roughly based on Doc’s adapter, except:

• It’s made of plastic
• It doesn’t need a twist lock pin - the threads are undersized so when a barrel is threaded in, the end expands to press against the body
• It has two detents

That yields a $16 part that’s 0.3 oz and locks pretty damn securely into the gun while still being removable without having to disassemble the entire marker.

The real beauty of the design is that if you can draw the threads, you can make nearly any mag to whatever adapter.  Just upgraded from a janked out Tippmann?  You can keep your barrel.  Or Ion?  Spyder?  Just get the right $16 adapter.

The Trigger Guard

The trigger guard was just made from the Intelliframe specs.  I think I’d go with a no-kink version next time.  It attaches to the hole which was recently vacated by the twist lock pin, via the mag2cocker adapter.  Yeah, it’s pretty ugly toward the back.  I just slotted the rubber grip to cram it in there.  There was no standard for cutting the single-finger triggers, so it’s hard to accommodate for that.  The real answer is to design the grip frame correctly in the first place.  Tippmann and BT did it correctly, and they’re borderline retarded.  The wrong side of the border.

The Top Rail

The top rail was grabbed from an Empire Trracer as some of you know.  The feed neck was cut off the body (another cost reduction).  A properly designed part, in my opinion, would just wrap around the Automag body and screw (or otherwise mechanically attach; it might not need to be screws) into the main rail itself.  Kind of like the useless sight rail of olden days.  Then the feed neck or spring feed or Rip Clip is securely attached to the picatinny on top, as it always should have been.

The Material

This nylon material is surprisingly durable.  It will tend to melt/fuse under high temps (like getting hit by a strong laser or a Dremel), and still has some flex when it’s thin (which I use to my advantage in the mag2cocker adapter).  But otherwise I’m actually quite pleased with it.  I have gone into the field with it, and will continue to do so.  The “black” material isn’t really black, as I discovered after sanding the trigger because I made an error.  It’s actually the white material, which I think they just impregnate afterwards with your color of choice.  The layer of the dye is reasonably thick and should hold up to some wear and tear, and if it gets scratched, you could probably just dye it back anyways.

Summary of Cost Reductions

• No twist lock
• No twist lock hole
• No feed neck welding
• No threading anywhere on the rail; just a press-fit sear pin which isn't threaded either
• Reg back is aluminum instead of steel
• Plastic rail
• Plastic trigger guard
• Plastic trigger

All of this is just proof of concept.  3d printing production parts would be foolish unless you intend to allow people to custom choose their options.  (Like a ULE rail with a built-in Gopro mount, or a mag to cocker adapter with 2 Ego detents and a Spyder detent because you’re ultra paranoid.)