Marauder G3, The Things I Do For Fun

[Pumacarl]

Decided to not take out the balanced valve. I have already seen pictures of it and removing it does nothing for me. It's in the HPA zone and this gun is lubed well and the machine work on this receiver is very nice, I haven't had to touch any of it. So, I took out the sidelever and probe, along with the SSG and hammer, removed the trigger block so that I could get out all of the oil in this area. I run my guns totally dry outside of the HPA zones. Oils and lubes only attract dirt and get sticky or change with the weather and increase your spreads. Everything gets covered in powdered graphite, that's it.

The SSG is really clever, and a clean design. The hammer is derlin with a steel face insert, much like what I have in my Gen2 mrod with its aluminum tube. I am going to put some teflon tape on the hs adjustment because it turns really easily. The trigger pack is mostly metal except one side of the pack has an access plate made of thick plastic. All the trigger parts are substantial. There's no tiny sears or anything. I might drill and tap in some extra set screws for extra adjustment , there's plenty of room and the parts are big enough to work on. I probably won't show that, or any trigger work, for obvious reasons, but if you're already into doing that kind of thing, this one looks like a good candidate. I have already adjusted the trigger to be very good but I think I could change the characteristics to be more to my liking. The pellet probe is finished beatifully. I thought that I would need to radius the inside, but nope, already done, nice job.

Still waiting on some parts to get back to finishing the stock so I might work on the trigger tomorrow. and now the pictures.









Less glare.

 

[Pumacarl]

I worked on the trigger tonight. I did not do anything major, just cleaned out all of the grease and used graphite. I am going to hold off mentioning more until I test it in the gun but I think it is a nicely done unit and easy to work on.

original state, lots of grease


taken down


cleaned up

 

[rayroz]

Thanks , a trigger pic is worth a thousand words ! Ray

 

[Pumacarl]

No pictures today. Nothing you haven't seen, just polishing the barrel and I put the gun back together. I left the barrel off for now.

When putting the plenum, with the regulator installed, back onto the block you have to make sure that they are clocked to each other. In my case, it has to be perfectly, or the bottle will touch because I've only got paper thick clearance between the stock and the bottle. The plenum is clocked at assembly with rubber and plastic washers, very well too. I had dropped a very thin plastic clocking washer and had't realized it and it was way off. Once I noticed it was missing I looked for it and actually found it right under my chair, got lucky on that one. I mention this only because you don't actually need to use the washers. Much like other bottle guns with guages on bottle-end regulators you can just clock your regulator block to your receiver block without actually tightening them all the way down. You just tighten down as much as you can and then back off enough to match and then fill your gun with air and the pressure will hold it in place. I have to do that with my Gauntlet so I know it works. Benjamin's washers worked perfectly for me and my bottle passed the paper test. I'm pretty happy about that.

Here is the big news of the day. I saved it until now so only people interested enough to read this far will see it. I am only mentioning this because I actually did nothing to the gun that I can't actually change back in a minute flat. I am of course talking about the trigger. First off, I think the trigger's side plate should be clear lexan so that you can watch what's happening when you adjust it, instead of black plastic. I mentioned that to @BenjeneerJohn and he said that they actually use a clear one at the factory but never thought to just send the trigger out with those. I thought that was pretty funny! Anyways, I adjusted my trigger with the plate off to what looked good to me, and it ended up being very good. It ended up being very good though becuse it was much lighter. I had originally had it adjusted down to 24oz which wasn't bad but it was all up front and I couldn't get the weight down any more. Looking at everything, I decided to put a lighter spring in, that's it. I did not stone or sand any parts or change anything else. I just took out one little spring and put in a slightly less stiff one. If there is a disadvantage to this or a safety issue, I don't know, but it's my gun and I'll do what I want, and pay the price. If you don't feel the same way, then don't touch yours at all, it's totally acceptable as is. And no I don't have any specifics on spring type or rate or even cut length and if I did it wouldn't matter because every gun is different, you have to know what you are doing and figure out that stuff for yourself. My trigger didn't actually change that much weight wise but I got a true lower first stage now. It is now 14oz first stage and 18oz second and the travel isn't bad either, I'm leaving it. Don't do anything at all to your trigger if you consider it any kind of a risk. I only decided to mention this because I am grateful that someone was kind enough to post about the "Lawyer Spring" in my Gen2 Marauder, and how to disable it, to end up with a truly great trigger, so I'm paying it forward. I'm not suggesting that you do anything, just commenting on what I did.

Tomorrow, I get back to installing my Arca Swiss plate.

 

[Pumacarl]

I'm getting ready this morning, to work on the G3 again, and looking at it in the morning light I decided that the color of the stock, and it's low sheen, is actually very nice. I am not going to paint it, well, not all of it. It matches the bottle so well, I don't think paint would do much more than distract, because I don't want to paint a carbon fiber bottle. The only change that I am going to make to the finish is the other thing I noticed that stood out a little bit too much and that is the shine coming from inside the honeycomb grip design. I am going to tape off those areas, and the cheek piece, and do a very quick bead blast, and then paint them a satin black. That's it.

All of that will wait for the Arca rail project to be over because that is going to look like a battlezone and need some paint too. Believe it or not, I'd rather fit two carbon fiber bottles to a stock, like I did, than mount an Arca Swiss rail. It's actually more work to get right and the setup is way longer. Before I had ever done both, I never would have thought that either. Live and learn.

 

[BBGunn]

I worked on the trigger tonight. I did not do anything major, just cleaned out all of the grease and used graphite. I am going to hold off mentioning more until I test it in the gun but I think it is a nicely done unit and easy to work on.

original state, lots of grease
View attachment 22017

taken down
View attachment 22018

cleaned up
View attachment 22019

I always adjust or modify my rifle triggers to single stage. This G3 trigger would be an easy one to make into an excellent single stage trigger! Nice looking trigger group.

Thanks for the pics.

 

[BenjeneerJohn]

I always adjust or modify my rifle triggers to single stage. This G3 trigger would be an easy one to make into an excellent single stage trigger! Nice looking trigger group.

Thanks for the pics.

Our QA guy adjusted it to a single stage for his life cycle testing. He really like it that way.

John

 

[Pumacarl]

I finally finished the Arca Swiss plate installation. Where to start. It was surprisingly difficult, for a number of reasons that probably only mattered to me, but then I am usually the architect of my own problems anyway. To start; it had to be level front to back and side to side, had to be in front of the trigger guard but not in the way of it, as far back as it could, to be near the balance point, and I wanted to use the rear mounting hole to access the bleed screw on the gun still. Then, I wanted to use the surrounding M3 holes for through bolting to the stock, in addition I was going to use the rear most m-loc slot on the front in combination with a central screw that I added to make use of a post in the bed of the stock.

There is a trick to mounting a plate using precise spacing with very small bolts that will be dropped down level on a stock with an angle in it, and I don't know what it is. So I did it the hard way. Oh, and I wanted the plate to be mounted as low profile as possible to stay in line with the end of the front of the stock. The only way to really do that was to get a plate that wasn't big and to further radius out the back to match the bottom of the gun. I showed some of that process already in this thread.

Anyway, where all the holes ended up being looked very tight but possible, it really wasn't w/o help from a lot of different tools and some luck. Some of the holes that I drilled were off a tiny amount when I mocked up the assembly, but there were eight of them, so I couldn't be off at all. I was really at wits end end at one point and I didn't see how I was going to move a small hole, half the radius of a drill bit over, without it breaking the bit, and then I remembered my new best friend, -my fancy high-tech soldering iron. Oh yeah! I melted those holes right into position. At this point now I could get everything into place, but not secured quickly enough to put down JBSteelStik first. The problem was the spaces where the bolts were inside the stock were very tight and the washers and the nuts weren't fitting. I thought about trying to melt away some of the plastic but there was not enough room to maneuver w/o melting other stuff, so I broke out the dremel. I HATE using a dremel (freehand) for projects, it's the quickest way to a disaster, but I do love them when I don't screw up. I had the perfect bit to give the hardware some room. The stock on this gun is very nice and pretty thick in spots, so I did have enough material left to do the bare minimum. The other time sink was that because I was mounting this plate level to the plenum and barrel and not the stock, I had to use standoff bushings, or just washers stacked up, to keep it in the correct position. There was no way to do this fast enough while using a fast setting epoxy. I had originally thought I would use the original JBWeld and putty everything around three of the sides and pour it in, but I have worked with the product enough to know that with how tight all of this stuff was, that would be difficult too, and I wouldn't be sure about how well it filled either.

I did a hard mount dry install of the plate. I had bought a M3 bolt kit from Amazon with all different lengths, and if the lengths still weren't right I just added extra washers, or even nuts to get the length right. I was mounting the front four M3's down into the plate from the stock and they could not stick out or they would get in the way of using the rail. Through trial and error I figured out what was needed where. Along with what lengths the standoffs I was making needed to be to keep the plate level. With the gouging out I did with the dremel I could get the washers on. The front most M3's were coming through right where the m-lok pocket was and they poked through half of that and half of the stock bottom, so I cut a thich plastic washer in half and put the halfs under the washers so that the base was even. The rear most M3's were going from the bottom up and use the exposed heads of the bolts as an equipment stop so you can't slide back into your trigger guard. Inside the stock where these came through I had to put washers and nuts. I could just fit the washers in but everything was so tight I couldn't fit any tool in there to tighten the nuts, until I remembered that I did have some weird little tools in a Kobalt case from Lowes, that I almost never use. That's the only good thing about getting old, I have collected a boat load of stuff over the years. The trick is remembering you have it, and where it is. I did manage to get those nuts tightened down, just. The front m-lok bolt had to be longer than standard to reach, and I had to use forceps to place the nut down in the channel and hold it to start the bolt. The final 1.25" wood screw that I drilled a hole for and countersunk into the plate to match a post inside the stock was another hole I had to melt a little into place. Tightening down on that, I knew nothing was moving on this thing.

So now I had everything installed and I put the stock in my Arca Sled and everthing was level and perfect. Like I said, this was not going to take a lot of epoxy. It was late, and I was grumpy about all of this taking so long. I broke out some frog tape and taped it off, put some modeling clay into the m-lok channel in front off the plate, and started mixing quarter sized cuts of JBSteelStik and cramming it in as best as I could. The nice thing about this stuff is that since it hardens in 5 miutes you know that even if you are starting late, you are not going to be doing it for long. Considering how spur of the moment it was, I thought it went pretty well. One side I barely had to touch at all, and the other I had to file out a bulge that I think occured from me pushing on the other side. Still, not bad at all.

So, today I figured to tape off the stock and bead blast the honeycombs and the cheek piece, and paint them a satin black to knock down the shine. Well, I did that but the "satin" paint looks just as glossy as before, so now I'm going to wait two days and hit it with a matte clear coat. If that doesn't work, I will just blast it again and leave it.

Then, I will start shooting.

Ta Dah! It's a good looking stock, and sturdy too!


It's the cellphone camera lens, the plate's perfect!


tight sneakers


solid


handy to have, so many different tools needed

 

[rayroz]

That darn thing is a work of art .
Solid but kept the lines of the original .
Great job , keep it up
Ray

 

[hameditor]

I finally finished the Arca Swiss plate installation. Where to start. It was surprisingly difficult, for a number of reasons that probably only mattered to me, but then I am usually the architect of my own problems anyway. To start; it had to be level front to back and side to side, had to be in front of the trigger guard but not in the way of it, as far back as it could, to be near the balance point, and I wanted to use the rear mounting hole to access the bleed screw on the gun still. Then, I wanted to use the surrounding M3 holes for through bolting to the stock, in addition I was going to use the rear most m-loc slot on the front in combination with a central screw that I added to make use of a post in the bed of the stock.

There is a trick to mounting a plate using precise spacing with very small bolts that will be dropped down level on a stock with an angle in it, and I don't know what it is. So I did it the hard way. Oh, and I wanted the plate to be mounted as low profile as possible to stay in line with the end of the front of the stock. The only way to really do that was to get a plate that wasn't big and to further radius out the back to match the bottom of the gun. I showed some of that process already in this thread.

Anyway, where all the holes ended up being looked very tight but possible, it really wasn't w/o help from a lot of different tools and some luck. Some of the holes that I drilled were off a tiny amount when I mocked up the assembly, but there were eight of them, so I couldn't be off at all. I was really at wits end end at one point and I didn't see how I was going to move a small hole, half the radius of a drill bit over, without it breaking the bit, and then I remembered my new best friend, -my fancy high-tech soldering iron. Oh yeah! I melted those holes right into position. At this point now I could get everything into place, but not secured quickly enough to put down JBSteelStik first. The problem was the spaces where the bolts were inside the stock were very tight and the washers and the nuts weren't fitting. I thought about trying to melt away some of the plastic but there was not enough room to maneuver w/o melting other stuff, so I broke out the dremel. I HATE using a dremel (freehand) for projects, it's the quickest way to a disaster, but I do love them when I don't screw up. I had the perfect bit to give the hardware some room. The stock on this gun is very nice and pretty thick in spots, so I did have enough material left to do the bare minimum. The other time sink was that because I was mounting this plate level to the plenum and barrel and not the stock, I had to use standoff bushings, or just washers stacked up, to keep it in the correct position. There was no way to do this fast enough while using a fast setting epoxy. I had originally thought I would use the original JBWeld and putty everything around three of the sides and pour it in, but I have worked with the product enough to know that with how tight all of this stuff was, that would be difficult too, and I wouldn't be sure about how well it filled either.

I did a hard mount dry install of the plate. I had bought a M3 bolt kit from Amazon with all different lengths, and if the lengths still weren't right I just added extra washers, or even nuts to get the length right. I was mounting the front four M3's down into the plate from the stock and they could not stick out or they would get in the way of using the rail. Through trial and error I figured out what was needed where. Along with what lengths the standoffs I was making needed to be to keep the plate level. With the gouging out I did with the dremel I could get the washers on. The front most M3's were coming through right where the m-lok pocket was and they poked through half of that and half of the stock bottom, so I cut a thich plastic washer in half and put the halfs under the washers so that the base was even. The rear most M3's were going from the bottom up and use the exposed heads of the bolts as an equipment stop so you can't slide back into your trigger guard. Inside the stock where these came through I had to put washers and nuts. I could just fit the washers in but everything was so tight I couldn't fit any tool in there to tighten the nuts, until I remembered that I did have some weird little tools in a Kobalt case from Lowes, that I almost never use. That's the only good thing about getting old, I have collected a boat load of stuff over the years. The trick is remembering you have it, and where it is. I did manage to get those nuts tightened down, just. The front m-lok bolt had to be longer than standard to reach, and I had to use forceps to place the nut down in the channel and hold it to start the bolt. The final 1.25" wood screw that I drilled a hole for and countersunk into the plate to match a post inside the stock was another hole I had to melt a little into place. Tightening down on that, I knew nothing was moving on this thing.

So now I had everything installed and I put the stock in my Arca Sled and everthing was level and perfect. Like I said, this was not going to take a lot of epoxy. It was late, and I was grumpy about all of this taking so long. I broke out some frog tape and taped it off, put some modeling clay into the m-lok channel in front off the plate, and started mixing quarter sized cuts of JBSteelStik and cramming it in as best as I could. The nice thing about this stuff is that since it hardens in 5 miutes you know that even if you are starting late, you are not going to be doing it for long. Considering how spur of the moment it was, I thought it went pretty well. One side I barely had to touch at all, and the other I had to file out a bulge that I think occured from me pushing on the other side. Still, not bad at all.

So, today I figured to tape off the stock and bead blast the honeycombs and the cheek piece, and paint them a satin black to knock down the shine. Well, I did that but the "satin" paint looks just as glossy as before, so now I'm going to wait two days and hit it with a matte clear coat. If that doesn't work, I will just blast it again and leave it.

Then, I will start shooting.

Ta Dah! It's a good looking stock, and sturdy too!
View attachment 22083

It's the cellphone camera lens, the plate's perfect!
View attachment 22084

tight sneakers
View attachment 22085

solid
View attachment 22086

handy to have, so many different tools needed
View attachment 22087

Great job!!!!!!!