FINAL UPDATE:

I like to say thanks to all our sponsors for all their help. And Congratulations to Paul Cudjik for winning this Sniper. Nun Notes* This sniper is quite a nice shooter. Lapco barrel. Polished pump arm guide. Polished hammer. Nice. About 28-30 useable shots from a single 12-gram. Not bad for using a stock valve. With the Palmer's LT valve that we could not get to fit (body fault, not Palmer's), efficiency would have been even higher.

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FINAL PROGRESS REPORT: Sunday, 9:00am

MARK THIS OFF AS COMPLETE! The Half Block Sniper project is no more. Done. Finito. Raggazo!

Nun Notes* Good shot of the pump rod in the pic below. It is the stock piece, reused. The length was right considering the pump handle placement in the forward position and the amount taken off the body for the 1/2 block. See, a little foresight and planning do quite a long ways, or, errrrr...luck.

Sheridan style SC feed (debating which to keep on, the black or acrylic one...). Half block with top cocking pull pin. LAPCO Bigshot barrel (amazing barrels I must say), this thing's a beast. Nun Notes* In the pic below, shot of the pull pin, back block, and bolt. This pic shows the relief on the back of the bolt for cosmetics. The two visible black o-rings border the valve hole in the bolt. From the placement, it shows how close the back body cut is to that hole. The o-rings will help with blowback/blowby. That nice shiny ball detent is from Palmer's Pursuit - they have a very good selection of cocker parts. High quality stuff. They also provided us with one of their legendary Low-Turbulence Valves for the cocker. We tried to get it to fit, but had tolerance issues on this body. So, it just would not seal right. So, we had to go with the stock valve.

Nun Notes* Good shot of the back block. This piece was milled down from the stock back block. There really is no reason to make things completely from scratch, when stock modified parts fit the bill just fine. It rotates out of the way to deal with breach problems. Check out hate first pic to see how much material was milled away. We wanted it light and small. Will get measurements at RE 1.2.

Nun Notes* First shot of the stock class feed in place. It just slip fits over the slip fit piece in the vert feed. MMM, nice Lapco goodness in this pic. Also, check out the micro line. Since we will be using this in 12-gram configuration, we use micro line to limit expansion and increase shot count. Air-Soldier products provided this for us. They are a great source for all kinds of paintball related air fittings.

Oh, and it is convertible to Vert feed, too! Yeah that's kick arse and a half. Nun Notes* Seen here with the vert feed in place. I need to get a pic, but the feeds are held in place by one set screw. Yep, that's it. Comes stock on the PB bodies and makes doing a convertible easier. Here's the first shot of the pump handle, again, custom cut for this project from stock delrin. First shot of the back block, too. More on that later.

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PROGRESS REPORT: Sunday, 5:00am

Finally got to it. The parts are in the ano. 'Bout bloody time. Nun Notes* This is actually not the ano bath. This is the prep bath, right after degreasing and right before the ano bath. More notes on ano process in RE 1.2.

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PROGRESS REPORT: Sunday, 3:50am

The anodize had to be stripped first off the original body. From here we can then re-anodize it. Only it's one of these psycho ballistic fockers so it's taking longer than it should. But we finally got the original ano off. Nun Notes* Meph, that was an understatement. Getting this ano off was a female dog. Took an extended bath in the stripper with tons of rubbing. Due to the very rough blasted finish, the decision was made to not polish and re-ano to any color. The work involved would have not been worth it. So, dust silver for this marker it will be.

And they say you can't make a "white" anodized marker! After this stripping it turns the aluminum this white, and you can leave it that way if you chose. Sort of a "clear coat" if you will.

Next stage will be some final cleaning and anodizing.

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PROGRESS REPORT: Saturday, 11:25pm

We have a fully functioning Half Block Sniper. It's actually going into the ano right now as I type this....Nun Notes* Below, the clear silver slip feed neck is visible. This it the same dimensions as the stock vert feed, with the top hacked off. By swapping out the vert feed and this slip feed, the stock class feeder can quickly be put in place when desired.

Yes, that is a LAPCO barrel that we will be anodizing with this. It'll match the cosmetic sexiness. And with Lapco's quality barrels it'll be shooting darts. And fat kids. They don't run as fast. Nun Notes* Thank you to Colin for providing with this Cocker Microshot. While his tech is considered "older" by many of the kiddies, Lapco barrels are often the barrel of choice for people who know better. His shop holds tight tolerances. He also does a superb job on the interior finish. The end has what consists of porting, followed by a slight step out, called a Lamellar or Laminar flow chamber. Helps quickly release propellant and stabilize the ball as it exits. This pic shows most of the parts, ready to go into the striping bath. Parts to note in this pic - the small blue knob - that was the end of the cocking Rod. It will not be the new vertical bolt pin. So, yes, we used the cocking rod as the bolt pin. Just cut it and turned down a bit in the middle to lock into the ball detent. The bolt, which isn't seen here, is actually the stock delrin bolt from the parent marker. We cut off the back and drilled a vertical hole for the pin. For the pin retainer, drilled a hole in the back of the bolt and tapped for a set screw. Insert ball bearing, spring, and set screw. Turned down the back a bit for cosmetic appeal, and viola - stubby, pull pin cocker bolt. See, we are resourceful! Also visible is the pump arm we made for this project. Turned down from cylinder stock. The front portion is turned on a lathe with threading to fit directly into the cocker front block screw area. Front of the rod is solid. Also seen is the front block. We cut this from scratch as well. Started off on the Band saw then saw some milling time. Simple, clean lines. We will get measurements on these pieces at RE 1.2.

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PROGRESS REPORT: Saturday, 9am

HEY HEY HEY! The cocker is being hacked up right now. We threw it at the band saw and just waited. This was the result... Nun Notes* The band saw is quick and dirty. Cuts through aluminum like butter. Be careful not to cut too far, easy to do. You can see roughly where we made the cuts. About 1/16" forward of the front of the top tube for the front cut. Back Cut, right along the horizontal line that separates the two halves. Vertical cut on the but, just a bit back from the air outlet hole from the valve. Need to leave material here to prevent blowby/blowback. I will get measurements in more detail at RE 1.2. BTW, we took a break on Saturday morning from about 7 am - 9 am - just long enough to be really tired, yet slightly rested when we started on the Sniper.

Yeah, it'll be mini too! w00t! From here the next stage was to smooth out the areas that fell off.

Not too shabby. This one should NOT take as long as that damn Spimmy! Nun Notes* Top pic, milling off the area of the front cut. Bottom pic, working on the rear portion of the body we just hacked off. Just trimming as much as possible to still have a still functioning marker. The mill also allowed us to really smooth and square off the rough cut of the band saw.

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Here is our BEFORE picture so we know just how ugly it is! Give it a few minutes in our hands and it'll be HOT BLOODED (I got a fevah of a hundred and three!)... Okay so screw you too not my fault I grew up in the 80's. Foreigner still rocks. Nun Notes* Ahem, thanks for that rendition, Meph, cough...We started out with a Psycho Ballistics Lightning cocker clone. It has all of their proprietary parts. Gun doesn't look that bad. However, the tolerances on this piece are straight crap. We found out later on, the hard way, that some parts we had that fit other cockers did not fit this body, at all. However, they were on sale for really cheap for a while...Cheap = Our Daddy at this point.

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We are going to take a stock full-size, vert feed autococker body and convert it into a half-blocked convertible stock-class marker. We will chop it to mini-sized, chop it to a half-block, and mill the body to our specs. We will ano everything. We will custom modify a stock hammer. We will make a custom delrin bolt and pull pin. We will modify a stock valve. Then we will chop the top and make it a convertible feed – convertible between stock class feed and vertical feed. We will custom machine a pump handle. 12-gram powered, tuned for efficiency.

We will fabricate the following parts:
•Half-Block back block
•Pump handle
•Adaptor for stock class/vert feed
•Delrin short bolt
•Custom pull pin
•Custom pump arm

We already have the following parts:
•Stock Autococker Body – 2k+ – Vert Feed
•Stock cocker valve
•Stock front block
•Stock springs
•Pump Arm
•Ball Detent

We will need to have donated or purchase the following:
•12-Gram Quick Change Adaptor
•Cocker Swing Frame