So, I created a whole category for paintball. My thinking is that doing this will keep mind on mission and get me out there playing again. I've been away from the sport for a long time, pretty much as long as I've been in Colorado, and it's saddening. I've got all these guns, all this gear, and I don't make use. So, I'm putting things in motion and trying to get back into it.
I took my air systems to High Plains Scuba to get hydrotested. Hopefully they all pass, and hopefully nothing gets fucked up. Also hopefully, they don't molest me too much on the price. When I asked them how much it was to get a hydrotest, they said it was $20 per cylinder. That's pretty typical, and for the 4 cylinders I brought in, it's not too bad. But, as I was leaving, the guy (who seemed confused by the whole paintball hydrotesting side of the business) said to me “Ok, it'll be $20 for the hydrotest and $15 for the visual inspection.” I was leaving, and didn't really understand what he said until I was in the car, so I didn't do like I should have and said to him: “Dude, $15 for a visual inspection? You're supposed to visually inspect a tank every time you fill it, it's not $15 it's free.” But, whatever. They're getting $80, they're not getting $140. The hydrotesters will have epoxied the new inspection dates to the tanks, that's all I need. If they try to charge me $35 per tank, not only will I not pay it, I won't buy a SCUBA tank and yoke from them either.
I also went and got myself an Evlution II, which I don't really trust at all, but at this point, I don't trust any of the new loaders. Shit, when I last played, there was one brand of loader (Viewloader) and one type that anybody serious used, and that was the 12V Revolution. I really only have faith in the old 12V Revolutions, of which I have two, and I don't really even have that much faith in them, since they tend to eat batteries, and have problems with their IR eye... But, back then there was only the Revolution, so that was what you used. This Evlution, is just as stupid looking as its name sounds, which is unfortunate. It's also got a really overcomplex loading door, which Viewloader thinks is a feature, and I think is ridiculous and hard to use. And, most wonderful of all, the stupid feed neck didn't fit into the feed on my iR3, so I had to sand and sand and sand, until I finally took the whole loader apart, and filed down the sides of the neck so it'd compress a bit more. I also had to chop off a half inch of the neck so it wouldn't sit too high up off the gun. In the end, I got a good fit, and I noticed some decent features... For one, the feed neck is a seperate section from the rest of the hopper, so if I was to munge it severely, it'd be replaceable. Another nice feature is the adjustable rate of spin on the feed impeller, which is a new one for me. Finally, this loader is semi-forced feed, which is also new to me. It basically allows the balls to fall into the reach of the impeller, which then stuffs them into the feed. Last I played, there was a certain degree of commitment to the idea that the balls had to feed via gravity alone, and that gravity could serve to limit the ever increasing rate of fire on paintball guns to around 12.5 bps (the theoretical limit of gravity feed). That, of course, was run over by the marketing steamroller, and now most paintball guns sound like fucking Vulcan cannons. My friend Dennis tells me that 20 bps is pretty standard these days. I never even tried to get above 10 bps. Regardless, let's hope that the Revlution II is a reliable and ergonomic piece, and doesn't create any undue misery for me on the field. If it does, I've always got a pair of 12V Revolutions, and I know what to expect from them.
I'd love to get my basement finished ASAP, cause then I can set up a nice work bench, and run through all my guns. I'll also need to convert my Shocker to 9V batteries, cause they don't sell the proprietary ones in any local store. Drywall is supposed to go up Thursday, and my tanks won't be back until a week from this Tuesday, so maybe I will be ready to play two weeks from today, or thereabouts. I may have to spring for a chronograph to tune my guns up right... This is the one I want, it's the one that was at every field I liked playing at, but I don't know about $300... Maybe I'll go with one of these. Compact is nice, $75 is even better.