[Hectic]

It is the stock vfc cylinder head, pom piston head (lonex or modify I think)
The pad was glued directly on and then the sorbo buddie. With it removed (the buddie) it looks as tho all will clear with half the 3rd (2nd after the pic up) shaved off
I didn't just slap them together lol. I took my time building it. (A lot of time actually this vfc gearbox is tight and my ocd made shimming it just right annoying as all hell lol)
And the third tooth was not "stripped" it was removed by me for AOE as it was ever so slightly engaging, I really only shaved half off of the 2nd and 3rd as that was all they needed to clear. However as was brought to my attention by shaving the 3rd tooth I caused my own problem. When the sector grabs the pic up and starts the piston reward it can only go so far before the other teeth have to start doing the work (sharing the load) right around the time the seccond tooth is fully seated the pic up tooth is barely hanging on by "the skin of its tooth" so to speak now you have a plastic/polymer pick up tooth with a metal tooth point pressing against its edge trying to hold a ~450fps spring thus shearing a nice gear tooth shaped notch in the pic up tooth and causing the failure. (Look closely at the pic up tooth) after holding the gear and piston together I can see exactly how it failed.
You are not incorrect it is pre engagement but it happened after the piston had alrdy failed. The pic up tooth was sheared off and the gears kept trying to pick up the piston until it finally tried to grab the 4th tooth and when the 4th to the failed the piston went forward and the sector gear was stopped about mid way through its cycle.