I bought a pack of .40 blowgun darts and a aluminium barrel a while ago because I liked a pneu dart gun, the JM. The price was more than 2000$

It looked simple, my guess it's just a 12g co2 receiver, regulator then a hammer valve. So I took a 5cm dia nylon bar and milled it to a block, then milled slots/drilled holes to make the receiver, valve seal and hammer housing.
The valves stem is made out off aluminium, very happy with it, air tight seal at any pressure. Hammer also aluminium.
Everything worked fine, a loud bang when I release the hammer... But then the fail came: the darts doesn't even leave the barrel


I had no idea how that happened, the only explication I could thing of is the hammer is too weak and it's not delivering enough air.
However, I'm too tired to find out why, this was just a warm up to build a serious PCP anyway. When I get more money, I'd probably buy some brass/ aluminum bars and blocks. Any tips about machine these materials would be appreciated, as I'm still trying to find out how to left a fine finish surface and slots.