After doing some searching from my old posts I found the following.
Panzer fixed this with an 8.4 battery, stock spring, and a Deepfire Piston.
Classic Army recommends nothing above 8.4 volts because of the stress already generated by the gearbox.
linkIt looks like the CA piston went first (not surprised), then when I replaced the piston with an ICS Aluminum piston the CA gears started to fail. Back then the Phoenix Jungle Toy was only a few miles from my place so I was able to make regular trips to it. All of the work on the gearbox was done by Jeremiah, I watched him take it apart and replace all the parts. I even asked him if my gearbox had the same oversized piston guide problem that howrangi's CA 249 had, it didn't.
Later on you can see I was still going at it.
I just joined the "Shredded SAW club", not by choice though. I've shredded three separate spur gears already. The stock CA piston is gone and the original sector gear has gone bye bye. ](*,)
linkPolie you keep talking to me like I didn't do my best to get that thing fixed, when clearly that is not the case. I went to an actual airsoft shop with an actual airsoft tech, one of only two decent ones that were open at the time IIRC (I'm talking about the two pre-Gearbox Jungle Toys and I'm not counting Soft Air Depot). Please tell me what conclusions I should've drawn after I went through a couple hundred dollars and many, many hours of work and research to get this thing going and still have it tear pistons and gear teeth. Show me how your personal experience somehow magically negates the fact my CA 249 turns into a piston/gear shredding machine when I apply a 9.6v battery to it, because I'll need to record that, upload it to YouTube and show it to the old Jungle Toy staff, my old teammates, and anyone else who in 2006/2007 saw me trying to get that thing running. Tell me what a rational person would've thought after consulting with experienced airsofters and having the CA 249 be worked by an experienced airsoft tech, only to have the CA 249 continue to rip pistons and gears apart.
It was pretty fucking simple to me.
9.6v = shredded gears/piston
8.4v = no shredded gears/piston