Now I'm beginning to remember what paintball is like...
I should start with the good news, though. I got back all my tanks from hydrotesting, they all passed, it only cost me $80. I also got my Shocker batteries, and that little $75 Radarchrono. I hooked up the Shocker, fired some test shots over the chrono and it looked ok. So, maybe with some tuning, maybe already, I've got one working gun. Not bad.
The bad news...
First off, the hydrotest guys switched my regulators around on me. When they put the Max-Flo systems back on the bottles, they swapped bottles. Now I've got a 68ci bottle on my Shocker, and an 88ci bottle on my iR3. I don't like this, the Shocker eats more air, and needs the bigger bottle. Of course, its a major fucking hassle to get those changed, it demands I empty the bottles (I filled them to test my iR3 and Shocker before I noticed the mistake), and I don't have the tools to do it regardless. So, that's at least one trip to an airgas place that can do it, and at least a few more nice gouges and scratches in my regulators.
From there, I'm running into all manner of issues with the guage situation. I've got broken guages on my SS4500 and Microreg, and I bought replacements at $15 a pop. On the SS4500, the replacements don't seem to fit around the shitty assed cradle that Nitroduck ships with that reg, and as far as I know, there's no other cradle on the market that it can use. Speaking of that cradle, it uses these tiny, shitty little screws. I lost the ones it came with, and I lost the ones I bought to replace them. The originals were nice little allen keyed ones, the replacements were phillips head, and the new ones are plain slotted. Slow downward spiral there. I'll have to order some from Nitroduck when I call them to whine about the guage situation. The Microreg has a single semi-micro sized guage on it, it's broken, and I can't get it off. Nor, for that matter, can I really screw on any of the new guages I bought. What I need is a nice crescent wrench set, and Home Depot doesn't have one, believe it or not. Lastly, I need to get some decent fill nipples, cause Nitroduck put those stupid threaded fill nipples on shit for about a year before they came to their senses and used the same basic nipple as everyone else. So, that's more money I need to drop to get more tools, more parts, etc. etc.
The iR3 is off in California by now, getting the once over from Cobra. The LCD seems to be working ok, although its breech pin sticks like crazy, and that will need work... But of course, it's the gun I was running with the SS4500, and that's out of action until I can get guages for it. The LED is charging, and while it looks like it could be ok, the battery and charger are decidedly cool, which is not a good sign. That's an old battery, I'm sure no longer any good.