So I’m looking for a gun doc who has knowledge and experience fixing Escort-based guns. Are you that gun doc, or know that gun doc? Please let me know so that I can get in touch!
The gun in question is a Shoei MP44. It has a problem where the bolt pauses for a moment before returning to battery. Sometimes it also pauses much farther back, jamming so that I actually have to rack it to get it shooting again.
Here are two brief videos that show the problem. They’re older videos, but the problem is still the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzvrqWbVxo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dlQ6fbKybY
Keith (GBBR) took a look at this for me and couldn’t get it fixed. I also spoke with Tomio Matsumoto, an employee of Shoei, regarding the problem.
Here’s what I’ve done so far to try and fix it:
-Bought a ton of new (and expensive) parts direct from Shoei. Air switch, air shaft, trigger, bb chamber, hop bucking, etc. Most of the components are new.
-I even swapped around between old/new components and the problem persisted
-I even sent pretty much all the internals to Shoei to see if they could fix it. They seemed to get it working, showed me a video and everything, but when the parts came back and I reinstalled them it had the same problem. They charged me a ludicrous amount for this service, so I’d rather not send anything back to them (the shipping to Japan is also ridiculous)
-Tried various strength recoil springs, including a cut down M4 spring and a new from Shoei MP44 recoil spring.
-Lube. I’ve lubed the crap out of this gun. I’ve tried both silicone oil and that DuPont spray that Tony Rizzo of TNK guns recommends for Daytona guns, which also run on the Escort system
-Sent the gun to Keith (GBBR). Keith couldn’t get it working, and theorized that maybe something is off with the body of the gun itself rather than the internals
-Tried different air pressures from 80 psi to 135 psi. For reference, Shoei recommends to run the gun at about 80 psi. I use a Redline Firebase air rig with a single QD and a Guardian 68/4500 HPA tank.
-I have also tried tapping into the classic airsoft forum community, but they couldn't offer me any useful advice on it
If anyone else has any ideas, I’m up to trying them. Or, as I said earlier, if you are a gun doc good with classics or know one who is then please let me know. It’s an awesome gun, and I’d love to get it working correctly.