Paintball

[punkncat]

Just picked up a barely used Ego9 and wanted to share some opinion and view on it. First and foremost I wanted to mention that PE, and particularly Jack Wood himself offer some of the best support of any product in any field, anywhere, much less paintball. Given that as a start I have always had good service and response from them as a company and it leaves me a good impression of their product. Anyone that will stand solidly behind their marker like this has confidence that they have done the best they can for the customers need and desire.

My first impression is that the size and weight of it are really nice. It is a well balanced and light marker. The feel of it is very pleasing and the larger than "normal" trigger guard is really nice for a person with hands as large as mine. The finish and quality of the anno is very good, the milling is smooth and consistant as shoud be expected of a marker in this price range. I am not particularly pleased with the bore size of the provided back. The anno on this one is one of a kind, and it will be darn near impossible to find a matched shaft back, thus I will likely use an aftermarket barrel on this one.

There were some minor changes made to the electronics from earlier models, but it is still a very well thought out and easy to use interface. The LCD screen is bright and easy to read. It is programmable to do pretty much anything you want to do with a high level of control over every aspect of the timing and operation. It, as previous models did, offers both opto and microswitch trigger.

This particular model did require some mods after release in order to reduce damage to the rammer oring due to the new high flow solenoid design. Aside from that it seems like everything was well thought out and put together for what was a new generation.

The marker is really smooth in operation, with very little notable kick. It is, like previous generations, very loud while firing. There is an aftermarket bolt that supposedly addresses this issue, but the cure 3 that is in it does a wonderful job of controlling breach chops and would not be worth replacing just due to that reliability. I have not had a good chance to see what the efficiency is like, but have shot about 1000 shots on less than 2K PSI in a 45/45 messing around about the house with and without paint.

As with all of this model, maintenance is super simple and straight forward. It was actually simplified with the new noid design and did away with the QEV, and one of the hoses. For the most part you just routinely have to oil the bolt a little and clean and oil the rammer orings. The high and low pressure regs are super simple and easy to clean as well. They are even simpler than previous designs as there is now a coil spring rather than a shim stack to deal with.

Overall, I am so far very impressed. It is a well thought out, well designed marker with the one fix issue I mentioned. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable top of the line electronic marker.

[BigOldSkool]

Does yours have all the little fixes that PE made to stop the ram bumper oring from self destructing?

If not take my advice and stock up on those orings... every two-three cases they will need to be replaced.

[punkncat]

As far as I know this moment it has the plank kit installed. I have not gone into it that far yet, I didn't drop the noid, but the seller tells me that it has all the current fixes including the planks as well as the Cure 3 bolt. It has none of the issue chopping with powerfed hopper in my tests so far. Once I get some air tomorrow I am going to test it with a revi and see how good the eye logic is.

[BigOldSkool]

The eye logic is fine to use with a revy...I used to runa revy on my often.

[punkncat]

Today was actually the first time on field with the marker, so I thought I might continue with some further observations about it.

The marker is super easy to power up, down, and the display is quite visible even in direct sunlight. This model is the first year to have an audio alert to let you know when it powers up and down, there may be other conditions although aside from turning the eyes off I am not sure what. I do find the length of time it requires to power up and down could be a little shorter. The buttons are firm, and I don't really see how you would accidentally turn it off, or get into features so the time required to perform functions could be shortened IMO. I really like that (like any LCD) you can see the setting you are in/changing without having to dig out a book. The firing mode and ROF are quickly accessed and changed without the tourney lock on, and it is nice to be able to step off the scrimmage field and go right into open play without having to get the manual, wrenches, etc. It also has an adjustable sleep timer that will handily shut the marker down after a few minutes and save batteries as well as making itself safer.

The eye logic is tremendous. I put on a revi to test it out and the marker fires seamlessly in spite of the slow hopper. I had no issues with breaking paint, not even on the last few balls. The marker is, like its lineage, very loud. No suprize there, all of them are. The LPR on this one is set flush, and I noted just a small amount of "kick", but had no issue with FSDO, velocity spikes, or anything else of that nature. I will likely turn the LPR down a little after I use it a few more times to help smooth it out a little. It is currently set up with a dwell of 10.0 and as advertised the efficency is really good. In order to work with smoothing it out and quieting it down a little I am going to sacrifice a bit of that efficency with a higher dwell and lower LPR setting.


The on/off is great, easy to turn on and off with very little resistance. The feedneck is also really nice, secures well on the hopper and has an adjustment range that allows for most anything to fit well. I will say that it would have been nice of PE to use a knob on the back side of the clamp instead of the allen head. I guess if you use the same hopper all the time it wouldn't matter, but I like to use two different hoppers according to what I am playing and it is a small nuisance to have to pull the wrench out for the clamp. The fact that the marker has been streamlined as far as allen sizes is rather nice. There are only a few sizes needed to access 90% of the things a player would need to get to in the course of a day. I appreciate that the battery and eyes can be gotten to with the same wrench.

Otherwise, not a whole lot to say. Everyone has seen them, and although it may not be all folks cup or tea or even have a need for one, rest assured that this Ego9 deserves it place among its company of high priced and high performance tournament grade markers. With the plank kit fix it is IMO just as good as any of the other Egos. Given the somewhat reduced opinion of them with some people due to needing the fix, the resulting price break on them as compared to other years makes it a pretty good "value" for someone looking in that market.

[shadow102]

i too purchased an ego9 a couple months ago personally its probably one of my favorite ego's (i do like the 11 but way out of my price range) and i was able to find one in lagoon colors.

Best part about the 9 like you said is the trigger guard, adding the cutout for your thumb at the top of the reg just makes this a very comfortable gun to hold (owned an etek3 which is styled after the ego7/8 and not having that cutout is annoying)

Only suggestions i would have for anybody that owns one is to put a thumbscrew on the feedneck to eliminate having to adjust the screw on the neck all the time, probably pick up a oring kit, and stock up on detents several cases and they start to die.

Other downsides are the grips although super comfy and sticky they wear out quick and you tend to end up with the anno missing off the tip of the barrel due to barrel rub pretty easy.

[drewkroeker]

Originally Posted by shadow102

Best part about the 9 like you said is the trigger guard, adding the cutout for your thumb at the top of the reg just makes this a very comfortable gun to hold (owned an etek3 which is styled after the ego7/8 and not having that cutout is annoying)

Yeah, that's always bugged me too when I hold an etek3. If it weren't for that I might have bought one.

[noclue119]

Originally Posted by shadow102

Only suggestions i would have for anybody that owns one is to put a thumbscrew on the feedneck to eliminate having to adjust the screw on the neck all the time, probably pick up a oring kit, and stock up on detents several cases and they start to die.

For the detent, take a knife and cut off 1/3 of the tip. Make sure it is still long enough in the breach to stop the balls, but short enough not to break all the time when the bolt hits it.

I did this with my ego7 for the past 3 years. I am still on my second pair of detents.