I was really anxious to pull the gun out of its box and fire some shots. All I could do was pull the trigger with no air while it was sitting on the wall in my local store. It had an ultra-light trigger and I really wanted to see how fast it could fire. I gassed it up, put some paintballs in it and took it outside. First shot I broke a ball. Cleaned it and fired another. It broke also. I was kinda helpless right here cause I knew nothing about the gun. I adjusted the solenoid on times from 6ms (what it was currently on) up to 10ms. I found the cycle rate a little slower but it didn't bother me. This little adjustment cured the problem right away and have broke very little balls in the breech since. Breech breaks are hard to clean too. Not hard they just take up time. You have to pull the ram out and wipe it off, wipe off the bolt, run a squeegee through the main body and reattach everything. Well over all my gun works great. If you just fix the little things they can make a big difference.
Review of Armson barrels done by Bush2K
I have recently got an Armson internally rifled barrel for my Bushmaster 2000. I first noticed the insides of the barrel right when I compared my proball lite to the bore size of the barrel. Pretty good fit. The insides of the barrel have little ridges on the walls of the barrel which put a small amount of spin on the ball making it more accurate. The barrel itself has no porting which makes it a little louder than the stock barrel but I will sacrifice a little silence for more accuracy. Despite the spiril rifling throughout the barrel, it is fairly easy to clean with a squeegee and has a nice and tight fit into the gun and does not vibrate loose like my stock barrel tended to do once in a while. I would give this barrel an 8 out of 10.
Review of 47ci ACI tank done by Bush2K
I have now had my 47ci ACI adjustible Bulldog tank for around a month and had nothing but problems with it. First of all I shot about 100 rounds of paint through it and had the pressure drop from 3000psi down to 1700psi. thats 1300 psi over only 100 shots! Not normal if you ask me. I should be getting 500+ shot from the tank I figured. So I called ACI (1 week before Christmas) and they assured me they would have someone pick it up. it has now been almost 2 weeks and no one has come by yet. Pretty poor service. I am not impressed with ACI or their products at this point at all. Thats all I got to say about that. ACI was a little slow on responding to my requests but the tank is being taken care of as we speak.
Review of Wet Worx bolts done by Bush2K
I fairly recently got a blue Wet Worx bolt in from Wet Worx Paintball products, Inc. and liked it so much that I decided to sell them on my site. The guys at Wet Worx were also very personable and friendly which makes it even better but anyways... I popped it in my gun and first thing I noticed was that it made a different sound when it dry fired. More of a scrathing sound that is hard to explain unless you hear it. It is quieter than the stock bolt though when dry fired. The next thing I noticed when I went to take the bolt out, the hex screw in the back was turned in too tight and the bolt pin took some pulling to get out but loosened that up and everything is great now. The bolt raised my velocity a little bit so I turned my guns input pressure down to accomadate for it. That means I will get a few more shots per tank. It increased my accuracy too so now I don't have to spend as much money on paint. I can hit that person down field easier and in less shots than with the stock. I also noticed that at longer distances and shorter distances my bolt shot a tighter pattern thean the stock bolt did. (Not sure about the Smock bolt yet. Check back soon for it) And to top it all off I havent broken one ball since I got my new Wet Worx bolt. I have shot all paint from Diablo, marballizer, all star, big ball, and nelson and not broken one since. That makes life easier. These bolts can be purchased from Wet Worx directly for $39.99 for white or black and $42.99 for any other color or can be purchased from me for $34 for black or white and $37 for any other color not to mention free shipping if you are a BDM/BDO member. Check the sales section for more info.
Review of Wet Worx High Flow Valve done by Bush2K
I just recieved a Wet Worx High Flow valve a little while ago and popped it in as soon as I could. I have to tell you, these valves are amzing. had a tourny to go to so I didnt get a chance to troubleshoot it till I got to the chrono. I was shooting 260 fps witht he stock valve, and chronoed with the new Wet Worx High Flow valve at 340 fps! I never changed the input of my reg on the gun or the output of the tank. This is just how much more flow these valves have. I am using the stock reg by the way too. Ihad to turn the inpit reg down at least one full turn before getting it under 290 fps and still got no shootdown. Thsi is really good since I was testing a 47 ci Bulldog. Turning the air pressure down coming into the gun, resulted in the option of lowering the pressure coming out of the tank which then results in more shots per tank. These are absolutley awesome! These valves can be purchased from Wet Worx directly for $30 or can be purchased from me for $27 not to mention free shipping if you are a BDM/BDO member.(Not COD) Check the sales section for more info. Theere is alos a picture of the new valve in the Mods section. Compare the new High Flow valve to the stock valve. there is a very large difference.
Review of Bushmaster done by Andrew Chee
Wow. I finally got to play with my new Bushmaster! I got it back from ICD yesterday aster sending it to them to get reanodized. The finish came out pretty well except the colors don't match very well. This is a warming. If anyone ever wants to have a type 3 hard anodizing, don't expect the different parts to match unless you do it black. If you want a good color match, do a type 2. It will be less durable but you will get a more aesthetically pleasing finish.
With that said, onto the function of the gun. It rocked! The only problem I had with it was that it would not go up to pressure at the beginning of the day. That was weird. I gassed the gun up the night before and the pressure into the gun came at a good 300psi. I gassed it up at the field with the same output pressure from my tank and the gun would not adjust to more than 100psi, even with the adjustor cap screwed all the way in. I took off the cap and dropped in a washer and the problem was solved. This perplexed me though as to why it would happen.
The gun rocks! I had the trigger pull down to about 1/2mm and it fired as fast if not faster than anything out there (Check out my post on fun supply's B2K faq on easy to do trigger mods). The velocity stayed within + or - 5fps of 290. I could fire as fast if not faster than the Angels, RTs, and Shockers out there. I definitely think I won some converts out there to this gun. The barrel I was using was the stock 10in. barrel that comes with the Desert Foxes and Cats. When I sent the gun in the ICD, I told Jerry that that was the style of barrel that I preferred so he had that anodized to match my gun (sort of). The range on that thing was awesome but the accuracy was only good. I'm thinking of trying a J&J Ceramic. I want my accuracy to be excellent. The only other thing about that stock barrel was that it was loud! Very distinctive sound also. It's got no porting so that might explane things. As for ball breaks, I had one or two all day (using Proball Platinum) but they were all in the barrel. That's around or below normal. The fact that all the breaks were in the barrel and not in the breech bodes well. Breech breaks are a bitch to clean. Barrel breaks only take a squegee to run through.
All in all, the Bushmaster was an amazing paintgun that I will venture to say will keep up with the other tourney guns out there today. The last semi that I owned was a Blazer and while that gun was dead on balls accurate, the fire rate could not keep up with the new guns nowadays. The Bushmaster 2000 takes the intimidation out of playing against the Angels, RTs, and Shockers. That plus the fact that it costs much less makes it a gun that definitely should not be overlooked. If you have any questions on the gun, let me know and I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Click here to email me
Further reviews done by Andrew Chee
The gun operates on a fashion almost identical to the Angel
and a lot like many blow back semis. The air coming into the gun is
regulated by a primary regulator to about 300psi. A part of this air
then goes to a secondary regulator that regulates the air down to
about 90psi. This air goes into the solenoid valve. A solenoid valve
is basically a three way valve like on the autocockers but is operated
electronicall rather than mechanically. The solenoid then directs the
air to either push a ram forward or retract it back. The ram is also
connected to the bolt so it moves the bolt back and forth as the ram
itself is moving back and forth. The bolt is moved forward by the ram
and loads a ball into the chamber. When the bolt is all the way forward,
the ram is also forward and opens the main valve which lets air out to
propel the ball. That's it. Very simple design. Ram and bolt retracts
and another ball is loaded.
Well, I've used the gun several times now. Even played a rec tournament
with it. I have to say that the gun performs extremely well. Rate of
fire on this gun will match any of the other electronics out there.
The advertised rate of fire for the B2K is 13bps on semi mode. This is
similar to that of the Angel and other's. Usually, the limiting factor
of fire rate on paintball guns is the trigger. Different paintball
guns have different trigger characteristics that suit certain people
and the way their fingers work. Some triggers are longer than others
because of the mechanical work and movement that needs to be
accomplished. But with all electronic guns, the only work that needs
to be accomplished is the connection of a switch; the closing of a
circuit. With that said, all electronic gun's triggers are pretty much
the same. The limiting factor than is simply how long the gun itself
needs to cycle. You basically want it to be fast but not so fast that
it chops balls. The Bushmaster 2000 has solenoid settings that allow
you to select the rate of fire that you are comfortable with. The
fastest settings may chop balls in certain circumstances if the gun
fires too fast and your loader does not keep up.
The stock trigger on
the Bushmaster does leave something to be desired. There really should
be adjustable trigger stops but that is offered as an aftermarkter mod.
Also, the trigger piece is too narrow for the slot in which it sits so
there is a great deal of side to side slop. You can read the mod
section below on how to take care of this. Also, Check It products
should be coming out with an improved trigger piece. The quality of construction on this gun is excellent. There is a very
solid feel to the piece in whole with no parts wobbly or loosely fit.
The profile of the gun is very narrow (less than 2 inches) but is
quite tall. I have my nitro tank set up bottom line and when properly
shouldered, my sight line runs along the barrel of the gun instead of
on top of the gun where it usually should. I've added an offset nitro
cradle adaptor and the sight is now located on the side of the gun so
sighting is now not a problem. As many will notice, sighting over the
top of a center feed gun is pretty much useless since the feed tube
gets in the way. Gas usage on this gun should be noted. I get about
800 shots from my maxflow 3000psi nitro tank. Certain steps can be
taken to increase shot count such as lowering the secondary regulator's
pressure to just enough to properly operate the gun's ram. Also
setting the solenoid on time to as low as possible. More on this as
I have time to tinker with the gun.
Now, onto the problems. I have encountered two. The first one that I
and several others have noticed is that the gun shoots very low on
the first shot of the game. After you take two shots, the gun's
velocity is fine for the rest of the game. The low velocity happens
after long waiting periods between games. Second
problem that I have encountered. I use a Viewloader revolution on my
gun. When I turn the loader on, it responds immediately. But when I
have the loader pressed into the feed adaptor on the Bushmaster, it
takes the loader one or two seconds from the time I turn it on till
it responds. It seems that the tight fit of the feed port is somehow
pinching the circuitry of the viewloader so that it takes a second or
two to build up a charge to move the paddles. This renders the
revolution pretty much useless cause it cannot ensure a constant flow
of paint into the gun. I don't currently have an answer for this one
but am working on it.
Well, I hope that this little bit helps. I will be writing more as
more things come up. last I heard, there are several exciting mods
being made right now. As mentioned, Check It products is working on
an improved trigger piece that should decrease or eliminate side to
side wiggle. Also, they are working on an adaptor that will allow
users to use aftermarket regulators as the primary regulator instead
of the one provided. This will allow owners another added bit of
custom look at performance.
I've finally been able to play with the gun extensively now for a few
months and here are my impressions on it. The configuration of the gun
is far from stock. I have done extensive trigger work, added many new
parts (see parts page), and have done a lot of fiddling with the gun
so this is by no means a review of a stock Bushmaster. With that said,
I'd like to say that I am extremely impressed with the gun so far.
I have had great success with the gun and it is now working flawlessly.
Ball Breaks
In my previous review, I had mentioned that one of the main problems
that I was having were ball breaks. I've looked into the problem and
I have it fixed now. Basically, I found that my ball detent was in
too far and it was ripping some of the paint as they moved by.
My suggestion is that take the detente all the way off, take off the
barrel, and just roll paint down the feed tube. Then slowly screw in
the detente until just the point when it stops the paint from rolling
out the front. At that point, the detente is in as far as it needs
to be and you can then eliminate it as a possible cause for ball breaks
. In the past few weeks, I have played with the gun in semi, burst,
and full auto mode with only about three breaks in the last case and
a half of paint. When I go to check on these breaks, I find that the
paint residue starts about half way down the barrel. This means the
bolt and detente are not causing the ball chops. The paint residue
leads me to believe that my barrel may be too tight. I use a J&J
Ceramic barrel and it has been measured at about .684 (that's really
tight). I will move to a DYE aluminum soon and I believe that the
breaks will end there.
Velocity Consistancy
Another issue that I and some other owners have experienced have been
with velocity consistancy. When I was playing with the original
regulator on my gun, I was getting consistancy in the +- 5 to
10fps range. OK but not too great. This last week, I replaced the reg
with an Air America Vigilante (on low pressure springs) and the
consistancy came up to about +-2fps. I was getting 276, 274, 275 at
the chrono. I spoke to Bob Long and his experiences with consistancy
and he mentioned that he tried a Palmer Stabilizer on one of his gun
and also got greater velocity consistancy. If anyone is having
problems with velocity consistancy, this is where I would suggest you
might want to make a change to your setup.
The two issues above were the two that had most plagued me when I
first started using the gun. Now that they have been addressed, I
am extremely happy with the performance of my gun. The next thing
that I am going to do is try out a larger bore barrel. I will
probably be getting a DYE aluminum barrel soon and I will see
how that affects my accuracy and ball breakage. Hopefully it will
further improve both. I am now, more than ever, fully convinced that
this gun will match in performance, any other high end semi. This gun
will keep up with the Angel, the Shocker, and any "super semi" out
there. The rate of fire is way up there. And with the new Bob Long
turbo board coming out, it will be able to compete with the Shocker
turbos as well.
