My A-5 shot perfectly and never broke paint.
When I began tournament play I installed the Cyclone TechT mod.
It began to break paint in the hopper and breach while ramping to 15 BPS.

I finally found the problem by accident.

After a practice I found a broken ball on the curved finger of the receiver.
A hopper break isn't un heard of so no big thing... until I noticed the paddles were out of place. Intead of the paddle tip holding the new ball in the breach, they were on either side of the loading hole.

What I found was that the cyclone would load a ball at 15 BPS and actually overrun that position and bring another ball into the opening and squeeze it against the bolt. Once this stacking happens it stays like that until a ball breaks on the finger or gets split by the bolt.

I replaced the vortex mod with my stock ratchet and axle assembly and the problem vanished. I only ever shoot 15 BPS, so it wasn't faster or slower.

If your having similar problems try this.
Hopper empty, push the plunger all the way in and quickly slide your thumb off of it so it snaps back.
Did your paddles go past center on the breach hole?
Now imagine it with 5 or 6 balls in the paddle area.
For me it seems the axle ramps were so smooth angle wise it would over rotate.

Nothing against TechT or other cyclone mods, I know people who swear by them. This may even only happen to me.
Just thought someone may be having the same issue.

Mark

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Interesting. Good to know and watch out for.

I'm guessing you did, but just in case:

1. Did you grease the parts they told you to grease? (using grease and not oil... white lithium grease for example).

2. Did you contact TechT about this problem? If so, what was their response? Perhaps yours was defective and they could send you a new one?

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My A5 Marker Setup & Pics

Good info Mark. Have not seen that problem myself but will keep it mind.

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So, I just tried that on my stock ratchet, and interestingly enough: if I cycle it manually at a slow speed the paddles close the breach. If I let the piston snap back like you suggested, it lines up open-breach.
Wrong symptom?

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Signature removed due to exceeding pixel limit for images.

Really. My stock ratchet will not move past center, even dry firing and or snapping the ram.

I'm happy, it seemed to have fixed my problem.

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Just a quick note to close this topic.

This past weekend I played the Halifax GT speedball tourny with the stock
Cyclone setup.
I shot just under a case of paint with no Cyclone problems and only one
barrel break.

Awkes is my team mate, and he didn't have any breaks, so it my have been
the paint.

We won by the way, Tippmanns won the tourney!

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I seem to have this problem also, I just posted a question infact.

I think that its the internal spring to the ratchet. The spring guide in the ratchet can be different lengths. You may need to cut another turn off the spring. Id start with a half turn and make sure you are using something other than Sleek Lube. People have been having issues with it lately.

You may have cut too much off the ratchet spring too....If you have a stock spring you could try that one as well. Over spring can be do to either too long or too short.

I hope this helps.
Todd
TechT

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For more info on the parts I make please go to www.techtpaintball.com

Please email me at todd@techtpaintball.com rather than private message me here. The message system takes too long to respond to messages.

I would like to see some photos of when it over turns and when it doesnt. So i can compare it to mine and see if i have that problem. Photos would be a lot of help. Thanks