A bit of a mystery.....

That's the magazine/barrel assembly from my nelly. Now, if you look forward (left) of the ball drop (hole between the two tubes) you'll see that it's perfectly solid. This causes a bit of a conundrum. There should be a hole for a ball-stop there.... but there isn't! It's not something after-market because the receiver has the Nelspot "007" And nelson's manufacturing info stamped on the top tube (which the ball stop should be in). Anyone have any clue as to what is going on?

I doubt they were modified. If you look down the bore of the magazine (I'll post some pics from home) it looks like there are adhesive build-ups on the left and right sides of the bore just in front (to the left) of the drop-holes. The 007 is a rock-forward marker, so spring loading would have to be from the back (the 10 rounds fit in to the right of the drop-holes). If you look at the pictures of nelspots online, they have a bolt through the magazine to act as a pellet stop. Example:


I have found one image of another nelspot though, that doesn't have the ball stop, but the barrel appears longer. It may be an after-market barrel extension though. The date on it is 1975 (on the page), so I may have a pre-paintball nelly!

From Ken Draper, Store Manager at Nelson:

Wow Colin, you must have a very early-model 007. I've NEVER seen one without a ball stop in the magazine! I have no idea what would keep the balls from rolling to the front of the magazine. It could be that this was indeed a problem with the early models and the ball stop was added later in production. I have only been working here for 4 years and these guns were discontinued in the mid to late 80's. Anyway, I have attached some photos I took this morning to show how the ball stop is installed on the guns with the hole in the magazine. I don't know if you want to drill a hole in yours to install a ball stop, or keep it original to the early guns. Hope this helps. Ken Draper

As is, I've got an appointment with good old patent number 3,788,298 on Monday. The US patent office in Alexandria, VA is just up the street from work. They're procuring the drawings, etc for me so they're ready for me to pour-over.