Polishing the internals of any marker will increase the performance based on the fact that the smoother the surface, the less drag experienced on moving parts. The extremes of this would be to rub 2 pieces of glass together and 2 pieces of sand paper. Which would you suspect has a lesser drag factor? Not saying that the inside surface of your 98 Custom has the same surface characteristics of a piece of sandpaper but between the powder coating over spray and terrible looking cast pits, polishing the internal surfaces where moving parts mate will make a definite difference in performance of your marker. If you've ever taken your 98C apart to clean and lubricate it, you know exactly what I mean. Polishing some of the internal parts would be a good idea to lessen friction as well. I will advise you which areas of the cast aluminum body halves and which internal components to polish in this article to help relieve some of that internal drag and this should make your 98 Custom run a bit smoother as a result.

How Do I Polish The Internals?

Glad you asked that question..........there are a few different means and materials you can use to polish the internals of your 98 Custom. Most people will start out by using a medium grit sandpaper like 400 grit and once you get the surface relatively smooth, move to a finer sandpaper such as 1000 grit for the final sanding effort. Once the sanding portion is completed, using a metal polish such as Mothers Mag polish will give the surface a mirror finish. You don't want to remove an extreme amount of the surface but just enough to smooth the some of the terrible pits in the cast body halves. You may choose to leave some of the pits there so not to take too much surface from the body. If you take too much surface off, you're left with loose fitting internal parts.

For the internal components I wouldn't suggest using any sandpaper at all. Just polish those with the metal polish you choose because using sandpaper removes the surface and those parts are relatively smooth as they are so there's really no sense in roughing those up just to smooth them out with metal polish later. You may need to use some sandpaper on the internals though. The rear bolt seems to be made of a cheap steel material and it has a tendency to rust. If yours is rusted use some 1000 grit to remove the rust, then smooth that out with the metal polish.

It may take a little time and elbow grease to get those pits and over spray smoothed so don't be impatient and do a nice job. You should be able to see the reflection of your finger clearly when putting it next to the part you just polished.

What Areas And Components Should You Polish?

For disassembly see Basic Field Stripping & Cleaning Your 98 Custom.  I would remove the valve as well before polishing the internals. You don't want any debris getting in the valve. This can be done by removing the 2 allen head screws from the right half of the body with a 1/8" allen wrench. When reinstalling the valve, use a drop of red Loctite on the screws to keep them in place.

The areas of the body to polish are:

• The front concave area where the front bolt moves. Polish it from where the barrel threads start to where the valve cavity begins.
• The channel above the valve where the linkage arm moves. Polish the whole indented area from front to back.
• The concave area where the rear bolt moves. Polish that from where the valve ends to where the rear end cap is.
• The area where the sear and trigger assembly move. Polish that whole area from the trigger assembly begins to where the sear moves.

The components to polish are:

• The whole inner and outer surface of the rear bolt.
• The outer surface of the rear bolt insert.
• Linkage arm.
• Drive spring guide pin.
• The whole outer surface of the sear.
• The roll pin that the sear rides on.
• The roll pin that the trigger pivots on.

All of these internal components are shown in the photograph above. As mentioned prior, don't bother using sandpaper on the internal components unless you see the development of rust, otherwise just use a metal polish on them.

I tried using a brass wired buffing wheel attached to my dremel for the body halves and didn't get a great result. Once I used a steel wired buffing wheel I got an excellent result. Dremel or sand just enough from the surface to rid it of the over spray. You won't really see a great result til you do the final polish with the metal polish. After polishing the internals of your Tippy you may want to sporadically use the polish on them in the future to keep that mirror finish.

Putting It All Back Together

Return the valve to its spot in the right body half and don't forget to put a drop of red Loctite on the screws before you tighten them down well. Before putting it all back together, coat the newly polished surfaces of the inner body and parts with a good paintball lubricant. I like using Dow33 on my 98 because of it's an excellent long lasting lubricant and even works well with C02. Any good paintball lubricant like Gold Cup will suffice though.

Technical Information