Paintball

[Ghostpilot]

As the topic states, I want to know what the difference between a Phantom and an USI Raider is?

Apart from the name, I know of only the safety that is a push pin on phantom and a twist lock on the Raider. Other than that I am left in the dark.
Are they identical inside? Can phantom internals be used in the Raider and the other way around? Visually it looks like a more or less direct copy of the phantom, pump handle shape and all.

My brother just bought a USI Raider with a missing rear frame thumb screw for measly 250 SEK (about 38 USD). I looks like a sturdy marker from the outside at least. He got it from the post
office tonight, so I haven't actually seen it for real just yet, as we don't live in the same city. In the picture from the add on the Swedish equivalent to ebay, it looked like a phantom.
Anyone would have been fooled by that picture. The seller only wrote "pump marker" in the add, so it's a common mistake to make under such circumstances.

So... It is a phantom clone?
Is it as good as a phantom? How could USI make and sell a marker so simmilar to Phantom without making CCI angry?

[Greenmtnphantom]

Back when these guns started being made they were BOTH Nelson clones. Everyone was trying to make a better Nelson.

As far as making CCI mad goes CCI has a history of working with other companies that make Nelson based guns. My Gargoyle for example uses stock CCI parts inside, Power Tube, hammer, bolt and springs are all stock CCI parts.

http://www.vintagerex.com/pics/gunpi...aider_pump.jpg
I haven't had a Raider apart before so I can't answer your questions about internals. That said most things are pretty standard with all old Nelson based guns. I think the most common changes were the shape of the trigger/sear and if it's a Bore or Breech Drop gun. My guess from looking at it is that it's a Breech Drop.

Artical says it has an adjustable Velocity bolt so your brother should be able to use it to his hearts content with no problem. Likely he will need an allen wrench to adjust the velocity. If it doesn't leak he should be good to go once he gets that frame screw.

[Robertsr]

The Phantom will work.


The Raiders had a bad habit of bolt kinking or something that would bind up the internals mid stroke.

USI went out of business long ago.

[DSA]

USI ripped everyone off, but the Raider was one they ripped off good. It was probably the best copy they ever made so it should last years.

[Ghostpilot]

Thanks for all the answers and that little brief history lesson too.
I haven't been in paintball THAT long to remember that there were nelson markers before the phantom. Heck... I wasn't even old enough to play paintball untill after the semi markes became legal in Sweden, and I am over 30 now. There were strictly enforced age limits to paintball where I grew up, so I didn't even try paintball before I was 15years old, and that was pushing it since the lowest age allowed to play paintball was 15 with written permission from parents or legal guardian. Otherwise it was 18 years of age to both play rental and to buy and own your own marker.

Even though I dare to say I think none of you know how to read Swedish, I still might scan and donate a few 1992-1996 paintball adds from old swedish paintball mags, to vintagerex. Some of the images in the adds are just hilarious.

[big jim]

Originally Posted by Ghostpilot

Even though I dare to say I think none of you knows how to read Swedish, I still might scan and donate a few 1992-1996 paintball adds from old swedish paintball mags, to vintagerex. Some of the images in the adds are just hilarious.

Now don't be too sure of all that. My mom is a full Swede and ... well, ya... I don't know how either but we have had several of our relatives stop over and my folks have been over there a few times. So I guess I can say i wish I could.

As far as the Raider, fast Eddie of US "lie" made his whole business of copying other people's stuff and most of it was cheaply made. However as has been said, your brother can replace the internals or any other parts needing fixing with standard nelson parts and get by just fine.

Jim

[808Jackal]

I believe the Raider was the first to use "straight rifled barrels", but don't quote me on that. They had musket styled grooves in the barrel at one point.

[broder]

Hi there, Im from Sweden too! (vad heter du på paintball.se?)
I bought two USI Raiders cheap, like 30 $ and I can say its not worth it. These copies have serious binding issues. So I bought a phantom instead, and its so much better. I do like the safety so I might just exhange the internals or something. Im not sure if you could switch them right away, but if you want, I can check it tomorrow.
/ Olle Månsson aka Broder på paintball.se

[Ghostpilot]

I go under the nickname Ghostpilot on paintball.se and recball.se too.
Not very active there though. Not many pump players to talk to.

About the USI Raider, my brother have looked at it as he got it from the post office. Someone had forced in metric screws in the imperial thread of the body. I think I can fix that with helicoil inserts. I am thinking of dropping in some spare phantom internals I have in my parts box. He will visit me tomorrow night for dinner, and I think he will bring the marker then. I'll take a look at it and see what I can make of it.

[Ghostpilot]

An update on the USI Raider.
I have turned this marker inside and out a few times now and even took it to work to take some dimensions from it after workhours. (6-axis digital probing arm)

The binding issues the the rumors speak of are sadly all true. The culprit in this is the hammer.
I can not believe that they went through all the trouble of machining a very sturdy looking hammer from what appears to be what we refer to in Sweden as
(directly translated of course) tool steel, but omit to put chamfers or radius on the edges. It was surprisingly nice quality steel when I put the hammer in a lathe
and put chamfers on the front and back. I then turned the chamfer into a nice and round radius with a normal file (it is called file, right? The tool the Dalton brothers get in a loaf of bread in the Lucky Luke series).
All in all a pretty easy modification that had a dramatic change in the feel of the pumpstroke.

Even with that hammer fixed you can still see evidence that this makrer was a budget marker. The barrel has an unusually long unthreaded lip at the base before
the threading begins. The body however does not match this geometry at all. It is just a hole threaded all the way down to the edge of the bore. The threads
are the same type as phantom. Or at least it looks like that, I have no thread guage for ACME threads. A Phantom barrel can thread a little bit into the Raider
body, but then stops. A Raider barrel have too long unthreaded lip at the base to even catch threads in a phantom body. I have tried both a centerfeed SC body
and a right feed normal phantom body with same results.

What I do like about this marker is the safety mechanism, it's pure genious compared to push pins that wear and then accidently safety locks your marker in the middle of a game.

I mentioned earlier that I measured the Raider. It will eventually end up as a 3D CAD model. But have patience, it is not likely to be completed overnight.