Paint - Sterling Goes Auto

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Sterling Goes Auto

Published May 1996
An Article by Peter Holt

What is the paintball industry's equivalent of Windows 95? Obviously, a semi-auto conversion for the Sterling pump marker. When I bought my Sterling in 1992 there was already talk of a kit.

However, despite the alleged involvement of some famous names in marker development, it has taken until now for a conversion to be available and it is not from the US or the UK but from good old Oz, Mark Jeffery of Fireball Paintball in New South Wales.

The Spitfire conversion consists of a regulator mounted at the bottom of the grip to provide low pressure gas to the 3 way valve installed in the grip frame and a double ended ram which replaces the pump handle. The conversion looks neat, the only down side for me being the inability to use the standard wooden grip panels due to the size of the 3 way, and the need to remove the central web in the grip frame onto which the grip panels screw in order to fit the 3 way. My Spitfire, no. 6 to be made, has a rubber slip on grip which provides a comfortable feel.

In use, the Spitfire works well. I christened mine at the 5 man tournament at Trevor Long's Skirmish Down Under in Mt. Gambier. I only had a couple of broken balls in a day and half. One of those jammed the bolt with a piece of shell but I was able to clear that by manually cycling the bolt.

Velocity was stable if a little low. Using the heaviest front spring and lightest back spring, a combination which should result in the highest velocities, gave speeds around 275-285 FPS on a warm day.

These speeds were fine under the conditions but I am wondering what might happen on a winter's day. As with all auto-cocking type markers it is important to fully stroke the trigger to ensure the action cycles properly but the Spitfire has a short and light trigger, unchanged in feel from the pump version, which makes this easy to do. A brief run against the clock gave a rate of fire of 6 balls per second, a figure which I think could easily improve with practice.

I've equipped mine with a 9 volt VL2000 which ensures a steady feed of balls but I think a power feed may be required since I was getting some feed problems caused by blowback. I'm also running a Smart Parts remote on a 20 oz bottle and a gas thru stock.

Consistency of velocity was also good with 3 shots over the chrony normally showing less than 5 fps variation.

Anyone who has used a Sterling will tell you that they are not the lightest of markers and the Spitfire conversion doesn't help here, adding extra weight. My Spitfire weighs in at 2.2 kgs, complete with stock and loader but without paint.

Mark is charging $500 (Aust) for the conversion done to your Sterling which is good value when you consider that, according to my sources, the pneumatic parts alone would cost $400. Mine took around 5 weeks and was returned by certified mail.

To sum up, the Sterling Spitfire has all the attributes of the Sterling, reliability, accuracy and strength, plus semi-automatic operation. Mark Jeffery can be contacted on 61-63-55 2368.

Peter can by reached at pholt@connexus.apana.org.au