Paintball

[Grendel]

Originally Posted by HurtCow

Plus she's totally hot.

Whether Jessica is hot or not is unimportant what is important is she knows how to treat their [PPS] customers. To be honest I've never had a bad dealing with Palmers.

[thumper]

Originally Posted by Grendel

..Now do you have plenty of CO2 and the Chrono ready so we can do some testing?..

***MEET THE CHALLENGERS***

To kick things up a notch, I can bring my AT'ed CCM VF Series 5 and my RF Evolution Sniper II (w/ homemade AT) to compare the autotriggers and pump actions.

The S5 is a parted together marker w/ Grendel's old J2 style 86 deg frame and old style AT CAM - palmer stabilizer -- Belsales aluminum venturi "supercharger" bolt - Operating at around 350psi. Likely running old style Aluminum WGP 12" Kaner barrel or possibly 12" SLY

The green marker is a 1999 Belsales Evolution body, styled after the Predator series - WGP pump kit w/ oldstyle WWA 99/2K guide rod, with homemake autotrigger on an original WGP pot metal frame. Palmer Stab, and Belsales supercharger bolt. Operating at around 350psi. Likely running old style Aluminum WGP 12" Kaner barrel or possibly 12" SLY.

[Grendel]

Okay so today was the first day actually testing the Pyre. After eating some BBQ with Thumper we went back to his house to do some inital testing.

1/31/08 1:35 PM Temp - 55*F

• Paint: Stinger ~.684 [eggs and dimples if it'll shoot this it'll eat up good stuff]
• 20 oz CO2 screwed straight into the ASA
• No adjustments have been made at this point.

Chrono Results

1. 292 fps
2. 292 fps
3. 287 fps
4. 287 fps
5. 292 fps
6. 289 fps
7. 283 fps
8. 290 fps
9. 280 fps
10. 280 fps

Average =287.2 fps [Note this is straight out of the box no adjustments anything]

We then proceeded to just shoot the gun doing some auto triggering until about 100 rds were fired. The gun started to settle in at the 285-290 mark so I went ahead and banged out another 50 rds and the gun was still staying in the 285-290 range.

We then broke out some Snipers we are familiar with to refresh ourselves on how they feel. Now these Snipers are "Old Friends" well used and we are used to them, definitely "broken in".

Thumper remarked that the Pyre had a smoother pump stroke then our "Old Friends". We did compare the Auto-Triggers between Thumpers Evolution Sniper with homemade AT and his CCM Series 5 with AT and the Pyres AT. The Series 5 AT felt the easiest to AT, then the Evolution and in a close 3rd the Pyre. This is not to say the Pyre was bad because it ATed easily it just had a different feel then what we were used to and it also has not had a chance to break in.

Given the crappy paint we were using the accuracy was pretty impressive for the Pyre and the Wedgits did a wonderful job of holding the position of the paint. The barrel is a 10" non-vented barrel and I am used to shooting a Sniper with a vented barrel so the sound the Pyre was making when fired was definitely louder than I'm used to but not bad. I will be ordering 2 - 12" vented barrels soon .

The trigger is fairly light and smooth which I'm sure will become quite buttery in the near future after a couple cases are shot through it.

After shooting the Pyre some more maybe another 50 rds I decided it was time to adjust it. Now I could have utilized the hammer spring adjustment but since I wanted to decrease velocity some more I thought I go ahead and use the built in reg. I backed off the Reg 1/4 turn which netted me a decrease from 287 fps ave to 265 fps ave. So I increased the reg ~1/8 turn and imediately velocity went to 277 fps ave. The gun also settled down some as I shot the gun I was varying from 275-278fps much tighter then before adjustment. Since this is right where I like to shoot I am not going to mess with it until I can get some break in time.

Overall I've very satisfied with the Pyre's performance and really look forward to getting the air system setup asnd plumbed so I can get out there and doing some playing with it

Right now this post is like notes when I get done testing I'm going to compile all my data and notes into a concise review.

[thumper]

Good pork chops make all pumps shoot well, but the Pyre is a nice marker out of the box. Very very smooth action - very tight tollerances - no slop anywhere - obviously expert design features.


On the critical side : it seemed the pump was a bit longer than Im used to - and the 10" unported barrel sounds a bit loud (duh).

I'de like to try it again w/ a decent back bottle rig and 12" double spiral ported barrel . more pork chops please

[Mayvik]

Originally Posted by Drum

she can and will do some very interesting things with your package.

Giggity.

(Sorry, long day and I couldn't resist...)

[Grendel]

Okay this last weekend I played MXS Blanding Siege of Stormwynd. This is the first time my Pyre has been played. The Pyre is an Oak with an added 45 trigger frame. I utilized the 10.5" stock brass barrel with Wedgits. For air I ended up using a 45/45 HPA bottle with a 800 psi output reg. The bottle is bottm line mounted going through a Pro-Line Gas through Knuckles [thanks Thumper]. No secondary regulator for this gun. I intend to use the Pyre with CO2 eventually but I did not get time to install my anti-siphon tube before the event. For a hopper I used a vintage Whaler and for sighting I used my trusty old ADCO 1" Ranger red dot sight.

Saturday morning for intial chronographing of the Pyre: For this event max velocity was 275 fps. When I got to the chrono my very first 3 shots were 271 fps, 271 fps and 271 fps. Since the velocity was close and so steady I decided to leave well enough alone and stay there.

The game started and I went "running and gunning" with my teammates getting a few eliminations and getting eliminated myself. After a couple of hours we made it to the third story of the "American Hotel" where I could start really testing out consistancy and accuracy. Well let me say so far I have been very impressed with the smoothness of the action and the trigger. Though the trigger is a little lighter than I prefer [I like heavy triggers]. The pump stroke feels a little longer than what I'm used to with my Snipers but once I used it for a while no longer seemed to be an issue. From my 3rd story perch I was able to pick off several opponents with ease most of this due to the consistancy of the shot to shot placement. I was quickly able to site my gun on a specific target and pull off some "one shot one kill" eliminations.

After being in my corner room for a good while a friendly ref came by to perform some random checking of velocity. Well when I fired across his chrono it read 271 fps. Remember what I was chronoing earlier in the morning? It was 271 fps. To me this is most likely why my shots were being so constistant in placement all morning.

I basically had a great time using my new toy. She shot well, was consistant, light weight even given using a brass barrel and easy to use. I've really had to do no real tinkering with this gun other than setting up the air system on her. She is essentially being used straight out of the box and performs very well. By Sunday she had dropped a little in velocity down to 265 fps from the original 271 fps. I'm assuming this is from the spring pack in the regulator settling in. One minor tweek to the regulator and she was up to 273 fps and near rock steady. I'm looking forward to doing some more playing with her and seeing how she continues to get smoother with use.

Pros

• Unique [not many around yet ]
• Light Weight
• CONSISTANT shot to shot
• Well balanced
• Accurate

Cons

• Little loud with a 10.5 unvented barrel
• Pump Stroke takes some getting used to coming from a Sniper
• Not Cheap
• Lack of Thumb Screw to facilitate removal of barrel in the field [Easily fixed with a visit to Hardware Store]

Soon to follow modifications:

• 2 - 12" dual spiral vented barrels [one .690, one .685 both with wedgits]
• Hardline plumbing
• Thumb screw to replace allen headed screw for barrel clamp

---------More to follow

[Sir Brass]

You're going to like having those 2 dual vented 12" barrels.

That's essentially the same thing I did with my blazer. I got a .690 12" dual vented and a .685 12" single vented, though. Both wedgitted. Still have yet to shoot the 12" single vented (single vented to help me better ID the .685 besides the "ring" near the breech end....and because it was meant to be my backup barrel should paint be too small....didn't want to blow the bank as badly as I did with my dual vented 12").

Man, keep the stories and pics coming. I HAVE to have something to tide me over till MY Pyre gets here (HURRY UP USPS! Wevo shipped from same area in Florida and HIS package is almost here, why can't you hurry up with my PYRE!!!!). Even the additional goodies from PPS beat it here (t-handle pump, barrel knobs, pygmy drop, macroline fittings, gas-thru foregrip, and nickle sight-hood).

[Grendel]

Well I have my wife's camera back in my posession so here is the form in which my Pyre was set up for it's first real event at Camp Blanding:



I have some plans for changes:

1. -Use a 20 oz CO2 tank (I ran the 45/45 because I had not had a chance to install an anti-siphon in the CO2 yet)
2. -Replace the braided hose line with custom fitted hardline. Really wanting to use all brass hardline parts but might end up using swageless Stainless Steel fittings and line for ease. Brass I would like to "naturally age" for a nice dull patina if I go that route.
3. -Replace the current on/off with an ASA one that has no on/off and the gas port is out of the front for clean plumping lines.
4. -Thinking about having it reannoed a dark olive green including the Pro-Line Gas though but leave some of the accessoris black.
   
   

[pizzaluvr]

Did you test it with or without the return spring in?

[Grendel]

Originally Posted by pizzaluvr

Did you test it with or without the return spring in?

With the return spring and liked it just fine. I tend to prefer using return springs since I pump with my fingers on the end of the pump handle and do not normally hold the pump when shooting [hench why I never use AT when I'm playing]. My only "issue" with pump stroke is it "feels" longer than my snipers. I've yet to measure it but that is what it feels like but now playing a whole scenario with it I've gotten used to it.