why are my flashed pictures coming out like this?

Blender7 wrote in post #5632094
I just did a test however and i did one shot with the flash using the cactus trigger and shot it at 320 and that black bar came up, I then took the flash and put it on my hotshoe and did the same shot and there was no black bar....This is too confusing.

Check the EXIF on the second shot. If a dedicated flash (like the 420EX) is on your hotshoe, and high speed sync is not enabled, then the camera will not shoot at a shutter speed faster than X-sync (1/250 on your camera).

Watch the shutter speed indicator in your viewfinder. You can set it at 1/320 or 1/8000 or whatever, but if your flash is mounted and turned on, the shutter speed will change to 1/250 when you half-press the shutter button.

Your Cactus trigger set is probably part of what's giving you fits. They can be flaky with regard to lag time. Sometimes they sync just fine, other times they can fire a bit late, creating the black bottom in the image.

Blender7 wrote in post #5632094
the shot i posted had literally no ambient light. I was in a dark basement.

In that case, this statement makes no sense:

Blender7 wrote in post #5631171
If i lower the shutter though the picture is completely blown out...

Blender7 wrote in post #5632094
And its weird that whenever I shoot above 250 sync speed that black bar comes up.

That's not weird at all: That's your sync speed... (If you don't understand the term: Google is your friend)
The cactus triggers might delay a bit, making the usable max speed even lower, like Curtis said.

Blender7 wrote in post #5632094
I just did a test however and i did one shot with the flash using the cactus trigger and shot it at 320 and that black bar came up, I then took the flash and put it on my hotshoe and did the same shot and there was no black bar....This is too confusing.

With only a dedicated flash on the hotshoe it's impossible to get that same black bar. (either shutterspeed stays below sync speed, or HSS is enabled)

Blender7 wrote in post #5632094
And its weird that whenever I shoot above 250 sync speed that black bar comes up.

Why is that weird? You are EXCEEDING the sync-speed of your camera. Stay at 1/250 or slower and you'll be fine.

Blender7 wrote in post #5631959
For this shot I was using cactus triggers

I have many moments using the cactus triggers. If you are shooting with a 30D, your highest sync speed is 1/250 sec, add the cactus triggers and now you have to drop that to 1/200 sec.

The only time you can cheat with cactus triggers is if outside in good daylight.