Paintball

[Mr. Furious]

Originally Posted by RedSkies

I checked one of these out today at my local store. It's pretty ugly and it didn't seem well made at all. Lots of gaps and the plastic seemed warped slightly. Looked like crap.

But the new SP Vibe..that looked like a decent little gun. I think I may be buying one for my wife's first gun.

It looks the same as the new MG7 or whatever from WGP. Clamshell body and frame like a Model 98, right?

No matter what, you get what you pay for so you ain't gonna get much for $130 even with today's ridiculously low prices(not including the closeout high quality markers in that range right now).

[Party]

Originally Posted by Brewtt

Vibe
Smart Parts Vibe Paintball Gun - Black at ActionVillage.com : Paintball

Well at least they named it accurately because i'm picking up one hell of a bad vibe from it.

[RedSkies]

Originally Posted by Mr. Furious

It looks the same as the new MG7 or whatever from WGP. Clamshell body and frame like a Model 98, right?

No matter what, you get what you pay for so you ain't gonna get much for $130 even with today's ridiculously low prices(not including the closeout high quality markers in that range right now).

As far as looks are concerned, I won't offer an opinion. I'll admit that I think all milsim stuff looks pretty bad to me. I was just talking about the overall craftsmanship of the thing. It sucked bad. The impression I got was cheap Chinese toy. I mean Spyders are cheap as well, but at least the parts fit together well.

The Vibe felt solid, though. Light, but solid. I think its basically an Ion without eyes and 11 BPS cap. Perfect noob gun.

[sparky]

The way Smart Parts is going price wise, Kingman is going to considered "high end" very soon. At least Spyders are made with good quailty parts and acually made off decent aluminum, not Chinese plastic.

First impressions on the markers were good, now that I've seen a few closer pics, yuck. I'll save my money and buy something good quailty.

Is anyone here seeing the trend of Smart Parts turning into Brass Eagle? BE use to make some nice stuff until the day when a Barbie had less plastic than their markers....

[ljpiller]

At least you know your getting a cheap gun when you buy brass eagle. Then you can laugh a little when it shatters into pieces.

I don't think people will laugh if a vibe splits down the side or if a drop of water hits the electronics.

[Valaska]

Well looks like there's lotsa misinformed people in this thread! Smart Parts isn't the only company to sue another company, and they are sure as hell not the only one in paintball, just one -ONE- of the firsts.

Paintball Journal Blog Archive Another Lawsuit - Not SP This Time!

Yeah, SP has sued I think it's been 4 companies now, patent and licensing cases, but honestly thats cut throat business, something that I admit shouldn't be present in such a young sport, but someone in Smart Parts apparently actually went to business school and figured if they protect and patent their guns, they can keep other people from competing their portion of the market, hell people complain about Microsoft as is now, if apple patented the computer system in almost every function you all wouldn't have to whine about them, and their law suits.

Now, I use an SP-8, and SP-1 and have had an Impulse and an old Shocker, none of them have broken on me, on my SP-8 a hose had a blister in it so I had to replace that, other then that I've had no problems except batteries getting eaten by the SP-8. Now me owning so many of SP, an apparently evil company that sits over each of their markers going out, replacing a working part in every marker with some random broken piece, and every marker that goes out is crap, that I would have had ONE fricken problem with one of these damn guns? Hell my SP-8 I bought and have had it for near 3 years now, nothing went wrong with the internals except said blistered hose. The feedneck broke but honestly it was made horribly, replaced it, costed me, oh 0.00 because Smart Parts sent out said part free of charge or shipping! A long with the little clip underneath the rear weaver site, hell my friend has had to pay for his, those clips that hold in extremly tight in have the little spring or what not at the end, a guy walked back into the table he was lubing his A5 up, pins fell down, lost 2, had to pay shipping AND the cost for them.
I've gotten nothing but great customer support when I need help on a marker, got a free upgraded select fire board, free shipping, for the SP-1, and so far they and RAP4 are the only companies willing to donate to a charity game coming this Canada Day weekend.

Sure yah can flame the company for its ethics, but their products are good, and by the way the SP-1 is a remake of the MP7, and that guy who posted that picture was wrong, Tiberius actually has an MP7 mod anyways.Whether its ugly or not is completely opinion based, the SP-1 is a great gun, why?

It may be blind, but it doesn't break balls, I've used crap paint through this thing, it hasn't broken a damn ball yet with somewhere of 2000 paint balls since I got it (I don't shoot many usually but I had to break the reg in), it's extremly tough, it's got enough rails you can put anything you want on the damn thing, and a sight is easy enough to get, buy one of the $15-20 offsets from JCS (great company), the stock adapter for the 98c is for ease of the customer, a lot of people own 98's, and there are a lot of stocks for the 98, plus it's cheaper to make just a plate than to design your own stocks, although they would make more money that way.

These things are selling, extremely well so far, and people are lovin them, I know 4 people round my area with them, course 2 of them own SP-8's too so they are biased to buy from SP because they like the customer support and quality, though one had a few problems with his Reg, SP sent him a new one when he was a couple weeks over warranty even. They can take a beating, their composition is something, if you ever handled a real gun, a glock, it feels the same to that and it sure feels just as durable, I took a heavy tumble in the woods with it the other day running and just trying to test it out.

Thats my 78 CAD Cents.

Originally Posted by ljpiller

At least you know your getting a cheap gun when you buy brass eagle. Then you can laugh a little when it shatters into pieces.

I don't think people will laugh if a vibe splits down the side or if a drop of water hits the electronics.

Do you guys do NO RESEARCH on what you are bashing? I mean jesus you kids are annoying; YouTube - Moisture Test, YouTube - Vibe & SP-1 Water Resistance . Yeah guess what, water touched the electronics, more than a drop, and on the stream one that looks like water about -0, staying unfrozen by the fact it's FLOWING INTO THE GUN.

[sdlm]

Valaska, You totally and completely missed the point on Smart Parts business practices. It isn't that the came up with a great idea and patented it to protect it and are using that patent to drive companies out. Smart Parts bought a marker design that even a judge said they had no claim to being designers of, and then they revised the patent making it more broad than is reasonable.

Think about it like this, some of the claims in the patent are so ridiculously broad that there is no way that any reasonable person could say that the patent should protect them. The facts are that solenoid valves hooked to a electronic control board letting co2 pass through it for a set amount of time have existed since the 70's and is in every mcdonalds. I don't see where when this is applied to paintball, all manufactures have to pay to use this already proven concept. If Smart Parts wants to patent the Shocker, then fine, but otherwise I don't see where they have a valid claim on any of the other technologies that they are claiming.

Note, Smart Parts gets all fussy when people use electronics, but then design the Impulse clearly using the same operational mechanism as the Angel, and laid out almost the exact same as the Bushmaster 2000. Then they try to step all over Dye's patents and then attempt to patent gas through the grip of a paintball marker 8 years after the ICE Epic and several years after the Mini did it. This is not fair competition, it is lying, cheating, and stealing and then using intellectual property to protect themselves, when they don't have rightful claims to start with.

And no, I don't support PTP, or DYE either, due to their patents being used as a club when neither of them really deserve some of their patents either. (there is prior art in both cases)

[Listessa]

Wow.... Even after more than five months it's still a bunch of SSDD.

[Mr. Furious]

Originally Posted by Valaska

Well looks like there's lotsa misinformed people in this thread! Smart Parts isn't the only company to sue another company, and they are sure as hell not the only one in paintball, just one -ONE- of the firsts.

Paintball Journal Blog Archive Another Lawsuit - Not SP This Time!

.

Deleted the rest for space conservation and no other reason.

It seems to me that someone else is misinformed and didn't do their research either. From what I can see by your one and only post, you joined this community for no other reason but to bash an entire group of people because they said they didn't like a gun/company you liked. Did you bother to take the time and see all the good comments here about Smart Parts gear? How about time to browse the Smart Parts Armory or Ask the Experts to see just how many people on this site have extensive knowledge and a real love for some of Smart Parts products both new and old? Why not post an opposing viewpoint that tells of your good experiences with Smart Parts and your gun in particular without attacking the people on the community personally? I don't believe we pick on Smart Parts gun owners for their choices in paintball gear so why would you attack the people here for their opinions(uninformed or not) about a particular product? If you took the time to read everything(or most) of what was said here about Smart Parts, their gear and their business practices I think you might find that there is a lot of good said about Smart Parts gear and a lot of people who know a lot more than you about how Smart Parts has done business since they started out so long ago. A few folks in this thread (that was started before the gun was even released BTW) may have spoken without knowing the facts because the facts weren't available at the time the discussion started but you had the opportunity to do some good and use your membership here to change some minds about the gun you own and are very fond of and maybe about the company who makes that gun but instead you chose to make your first post an all out attack on the entire community which, IMHO is a worse offense than anything said in this thread.

Anyway, welcome to MCB and I hope you stick around to see what this place is really like instead of disappearing into the ether after your drive-by e-shooting of a first post.

[PhileyOFish]

Originally Posted by Valaska

Well looks like there's lotsa misinformed people in this thread! Smart Parts isn't the only company to sue another company, and they are sure as hell not the only one in paintball, just one -ONE- of the firsts.

Paintball Journal Blog Archive Another Lawsuit - Not SP This Time!

Yeah, SP has sued I think it's been 4 companies now, patent and licensing cases, but honestly thats cut throat business, something that I admit shouldn't be present in such a young sport, but someone in Smart Parts apparently actually went to business school and figured if they protect and patent their guns, they can keep other people from competing their portion of the market, hell people complain about Microsoft as is now, if apple patented the computer system in almost every function you all wouldn't have to whine about them, and their law suits.

Now, I use an SP-8, and SP-1 and have had an Impulse and an old Shocker, none of them have broken on me, on my SP-8 a hose had a blister in it so I had to replace that, other then that I've had no problems except batteries getting eaten by the SP-8. Now me owning so many of SP, an apparently evil company that sits over each of their markers going out, replacing a working part in every marker with some random broken piece, and every marker that goes out is crap, that I would have had ONE fricken problem with one of these damn guns? Hell my SP-8 I bought and have had it for near 3 years now, nothing went wrong with the internals except said blistered hose. The feedneck broke but honestly it was made horribly, replaced it, costed me, oh 0.00 because Smart Parts sent out said part free of charge or shipping! A long with the little clip underneath the rear weaver site, hell my friend has had to pay for his, those clips that hold in extremly tight in have the little spring or what not at the end, a guy walked back into the table he was lubing his A5 up, pins fell down, lost 2, had to pay shipping AND the cost for them.
I've gotten nothing but great customer support when I need help on a marker, got a free upgraded select fire board, free shipping, for the SP-1, and so far they and RAP4 are the only companies willing to donate to a charity game coming this Canada Day weekend.

Sure yah can flame the company for its ethics, but their products are good, and by the way the SP-1 is a remake of the MP7, and that guy who posted that picture was wrong, Tiberius actually has an MP7 mod anyways.Whether its ugly or not is completely opinion based, the SP-1 is a great gun, why?

It may be blind, but it doesn't break balls, I've used crap paint through this thing, it hasn't broken a damn ball yet with somewhere of 2000 paint balls since I got it (I don't shoot many usually but I had to break the reg in), it's extremly tough, it's got enough rails you can put anything you want on the damn thing, and a sight is easy enough to get, buy one of the $15-20 offsets from JCS (great company), the stock adapter for the 98c is for ease of the customer, a lot of people own 98's, and there are a lot of stocks for the 98, plus it's cheaper to make just a plate than to design your own stocks, although they would make more money that way.

These things are selling, extremely well so far, and people are lovin them, I know 4 people round my area with them, course 2 of them own SP-8's too so they are biased to buy from SP because they like the customer support and quality, though one had a few problems with his Reg, SP sent him a new one when he was a couple weeks over warranty even. They can take a beating, their composition is something, if you ever handled a real gun, a glock, it feels the same to that and it sure feels just as durable, I took a heavy tumble in the woods with it the other day running and just trying to test it out.

Thats my 78 CAD Cents.



Do you guys do NO RESEARCH on what you are bashing? I mean jesus you kids are annoying; YouTube - Moisture Test, YouTube - Vibe & SP-1 Water Resistance . Yeah guess what, water touched the electronics, more than a drop, and on the stream one that looks like water about -0, staying unfrozen by the fact it's FLOWING INTO THE GUN.

I bought my SP-1 a few weeks back and I love it too. The single trigger is great.