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Sick 06 Ion Body
By Bill Mills - Nov 2005
Photos by Dawn Mills

When it was first introduced some of the detractors of Smart Parts’ Ion rebuked it as a “plastic gun.”  While the reality is that the Ion is an aluminum paintgun, and some of its parts are sleeved with protective plastic and rubber like covers, that plastic look is not something that appeals to everyone.

Trinity Paintball, a brand line out of Southern California’s Bad Habitz paintball shop, has introduced the Sick 06 Ion body to address this very issue.  The Sick 06 Ion Body is not a performance upgrade, rather it is a replacement for the Ion’s stock body cover, designed to give the Ion a more high-end look.

The Sick body holds to the general shape of the stock Ion body cover, a basic tube, but it is milled with cosmetic ridges along the top, and large weight reducing cut-outs in the side.  It weights in at 4.2 ounces, which close to double the weight of the 2.2 ounce stock body cover.  Considering that the whole Ion, stock barrel included, weighs 2 pounds and 8.4 ounces, the weight difference is approximately 5 percent.  

Installation of the Sick body is the same as swapping out a regular body cover.  It begins by degassing the Ion, and removing the two upper screws from the rubber wraparound grips.  These don’t hold the receiver to the grip, but they do keep the circuit board from sliding upward which must happen later in the process.

Next the two grip frame screws are removed with a 1/8” hex wrench.

Following these two screws, the body frame screw is removed from under where the barrel rests in the breech.

The receiver can then be lifted away from the grip frame.  As these two components slide apart, the circuit board will slide up and out along with the pneumatics hoses which are attached to it.

The Vision Eye cable must be removed from its circuit board.  It is important to remove the connector, rather than tug on the wires themselves, as pulling on the wires can lead to breakage, or pulling them loose from the connector.

With the Vision Eye disconnected, the two banjo style air hose fittings can be removed from the receiver – one from the front, and one from the rear.

At this point, the receiver slides easily out of the body cover, and into the Sick 06 Body.

In comparing the two bodies, the access slots in the Sick 06 Body are noticeably wider around the connection points for the two air fittings.  This wider space allows larger air fittings, or some non-banjo style fittings which must be rotated as they are installed – such as aftermarket quick exhaust valves that are a popular upgrade for the Ion.

Re-assembly is simply a reverse of the disassembly process, screwing the banjo fittings into place, reconnecting the Vision Eye cable, screwing the grip frame back onto the receiver and reinstalling the wraparound grip screws.

One installed the Sick 06 Body was tested.  Since it is a non-moving part, there wasn’t much to test, but one concern did come to mind.  The Sick 06 Body does not have the same metallic internal sticker that the stock Body Cover has.  The sticker performs an important function as a reflector for the Vision Eye.  Would the polished, black anodized interior of the Sick 06 body cause a problem with eye sensitivity?  It did not.  In practical use, with the new body, the Ion had no problems of chopped or “blank” shots when used with a ViewLoader ReVLution loader.  With the Vision Eye on, performance was good, when switched off, “blank” shots were fired in high-speed strings, and the Ion would not wait to be fed a ball before it would fire.

Beyond not affecting the eye, the Sick 06 Body was a cosmetic upgrade, which changed the Ion’s look considerably without any difference in performance.  While the body was heavier than the stock body cover, the weight difference was so sleight that once it was installed, it was imperceptible.  The highly polished black to pink fade anodizing pattern had a look more in line with a high-end paintball gun.  
 

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