Last Thursday (5/15) was my first game of the season.  Took the A-5, Ion and 68-Special to the game.  As I was chronoing the A-5 it broke a ball in the (Apex) barrel.  Nuts.  Swapped it out and put the 12" J & J.  Fired a few shots while making adjustments.  This time the paintball got chopped in the Cyclone.  Ugly mess.  Not wanting to miss any game time, I chucked the A-5 into the trunk and broke out the Ion.  (sigh)  Still had a good time.

Next day, I decided to break down the A-5 completely.  Cleaned everything out, did a thorough re-lube and reassembly.  Took the paddles out of the Cyclone to clean out all the paint goo.  Slapped everything together confident that any problems were solved.  Put some paint in the hopper, gassed her up and headed for the back deck for some firing.

Started doing the one trigger pull per second.  On the third pull got a ball break.  Removed the barrel and rinsed it out and ran a squeegee through.  Pulled off the hopper to check for paint in the Cyclone.  Nothing.  Put the barrel back on and started firing again same as before.  20 rounds and no breaks.  Ok, the board was set to Rampage Mode (top ending @ 20bps) so I decided to let it rip.  Three seconds later I was blowing paint confetti out the barrel.  I didn't have to look to know the Cyclone was a mess.

Took the marker back inside figuring that the Cyclone must be the problem.  Broke that down completely.  Cleaned everything up, removed the old grease, and re-applied the Synco Super Lube grease.  Reassembled the Cyclone and put it back on the marker.  Filled the hopper and gassed the marker back up.  Didn't bother with going full Rampage and just did single pull firing.  20-30 shots later, I get another break.  It's about this point I thought about throwing the marker up on the roof in a fury to let it sit until Winter.  Had to go another round of removing the Cyclone and paddles to clean out the broken paint shells and paint.  The only thing I hadn't done up to this time was change out the battery.  Took that out and looked at the date.  Use before 2008.  Hah!  Perhaps that could be the problem?

Put in a fresh 9-Volt and tried again.  It worked better, but I still suffered more breaks.  Defeated, I took it to the local shop since I had to pick up my leaky Automag anyway.  Told the tech what was going on and what steps I took to figure out the problem.  He asked me what paint I was using.  I told him the RPS Premiums I bought there last week.  He said that was more likely what the problem is.  He told me the the RPS Premiums had a fairly brittle shell to them and the higher pressure markers were having problems with them.  He cited the weather conditions (temp/humidity) probably had lent a hand in it as well.  I was stunned.  I have almost always used RPS Premiums when available and have never ever had a problem with them.  Out of the 5 cases of paint that I used last year, I probably had one ball break per case on average.  Just plinking in my back yard I've probably broken 10 times that.

He told me he'd break down the gun, clean it up, chrono it and test fire several brands of paint including the Premiums to find a culprit.  The paint problem does make sense because I was getting breaks in the barrel as well cyclone chops.  Hopefully it'll be that simple.  I'll feel funny that I'll have to pay a $35 bench fee just to figure out that the paint I'm using just plain sucks.

Still haven't heard back from the shop.  I'm inclined to believe that the paint is bad.  I was breaking nearly as many in the barrel as in the Cyclone.  I figured it'd be better to find out for sure.

Even though the shelf life on paintballs is a lot better than it was 15 years ago, they should have 'Born On' dates on the boxes so you'll know how old the paint is.

Well, I got the marker back on Tuesday.  The tech told me that he did indeed break a few balls in the barrel, but none in the Cyclone.  He chalked it up to the barrel (12" J & J) and the fact that the paint was brittle because of temperature and humidity.  I told him that I never had any problems with that barrel or RPS Premium paint.  He also said something about paint to bore match kind of eluding to the paint being bigger.  So, I'm tired of listening and pick up some Diablo field paint as I leave. 

Get home, put the Flatline back on, and fill it half way with the new paint.  Get on the deck and aim at my favorite apple tree in the back yard.  I fire 10 shots without a problem.  Ok, time to step it up.  Ramp it up to full auto to the point where I think the hopper is empty.  Again, no problem.  I was noticing that the accuracy wasn't all that great given the range I was firing and remembered that I had the marker last chrono'd at 280fps with the J & J barrel.  Decided to fire off the remaining paint and get an allen wrench to unlock the RVA so I can fine-tune the barrel.

So, plinking one shot at a time at the tree when all of a sudden the paintballs just start flying in all directions.  Safety the marker, look and feel for paint at the end of the barrel.  Nothing.  Only one thing makes paint fly squirrelly like that, and that is wet paint.  And it had to have been a chop from the Cyclone.  Turned the marker up-side-down and removed the hopper.  Sure enough, there was paint residue inside of the hopper's feedneck.  Looking at the Cyclone, it was covered with goo all the way around.

Displeased, I march into the house, back down to the basement where I take off the barrel and the Cyclone Feeder.  I look down the barrel into the light from both ways and was surprised there was no visible paint residue.  It was all in the Cyclone Feeder.  I flip out the paddles, cleaned them and wiped out the Cyclone.  Was really too mad to do much else.  Went back upstairs and fired off a 'not-so-happy-with-your-service' type email to the owner of the shop.  I'd put it here in it's entirety, but I've got a pretty big post going here.  I will, however post his reply sans name.

I do apologize for the issues you are having with your gun. The main cause of this issue is still going to be brittle paintballs. It was cold this morning and you are going to have breaking issues at some point. This is caused by the shell of the ball being very brittle, the shell itself will absorb moisture from the air and make the shell softer and less likely to break when shooting it. With the colder and dryer weather we are having you will run into more and more of these types of issues. I can not fix this problem. However i would be glad to look at your gun again and see if there is anything I can do to fix this problem. There will be no service fee as you are having the same issue as presented to us when the gun was brought in. I will do what ever I can to get the gun to work in properly for you.

I have never heard of this before.  I've been playing this game with some of the worst paint you could ever buy in various weather conditions and never had a problem.  I replied as such and got this reply from him again:

The temperature is not as large of a factor as the humidity and the
shell on the ball. The best thing you could do for the paint at this
point in time is the night before you are going to play take the paint
into the bathroom with you if you are going to take a shower. Open up the bags of paint and let them absorb some of that moisture and soften the shell up a little bit. By making he shell a little more on the soft side you will greatly reduce the chance of breakage. It has been
relatively dry so far this year as far as humidity in the air goes and
the paint breaking issues has been much more of an issue this year than in the past 3 to 4 years from what I have seen. When the great Michigan weather kicks in and you step outside and sweat right away you should not run into the paint breaking.

So, is there any truth or validity to what this guy is saying?

• My experience has been that humidity causes paint to swell, no become more brittle,
• Such swelling could cause breaks if the ball doesn't fit through the chamber opening, but you would expect paint in the chamber in this case.
• I think the idea of intentionally getting the paint humid in the shower is amazingly asinine.
• That's asking for paint that swells or deforms in the hopper.
• It is impossible to ensure that each ball is equally exposed to humidity on all sides.
• Of course you could get out of the shower repeatedly to rotate your paint, but I prefer not to think about that.
• If the paint was manufactured and bagged correctly, it still should have the relative moisture level it came from the factory with.

Mack wrote: Of course you could get out of the shower repeatedly to rotate your paint, but I prefer not to think about that.

C'mon Mack.  Where's your sense of adventure?  I'll take pictures for you if you want. 

Mack wrote: StormyKnight wrote: Mack wrote: Of course you could get out of the shower repeatedly to rotate your paint, but I prefer not to think about that. C'mon Mack.  Where's your sense of adventure?  I'll take pictures for you if you want.  Take all the pictures you want . . . just don't show them to me.

/sigh

Rejected again.  : (