Paintball

[agentSmith]

I'd been running slower the year before as my right knee had been getting steadily worse. Then in april I really botched it. My knees are a real wreck, so I thought this was a natural part of that, but when I went in it turned out I'd been developing a stress fracture and finally broke a piece off.
Imagine my relief when it turned out to be healable bone!!!!!

I've rededicated myself to Taichi(the secret source of my paintball power ) and have been hitting the gym hard all winter. Even towards the end of last season I was already starting to be able to make moves and do things I haven't tried in years! This year is something I'm really looking forward to.

I'll be back in the VIP camping this year with the popup, definitely for Day of the Rangers! I want to see if I can repeat my feat of the first year, I'm still the only Blackhawk Down Pilot in the 3 years of the game(2 per game) to change history by getting myself and my crew safely off the field.
It netted us 5600 points, I'm too humble to point out that the Rangers(outnumbered 125 players to 415 players) won that year by 4600 pts....

I wish you hadn't been so busy with all the DRV holsters, you could have saved me all this work!

Rob

[Butch]

Lol, honestly, the drv holster's have yet to start. A mix of not having a DRV to work from, and still working on earlier orders. Though there is a light at the end of the tunnel, have few odds and ends that (God I'm hoping nothing goes wrong) will be done shortly.

But hey, new skill added to the old noggin' eh? If you ever need a hand, or to borrow a tool or something, let me know.

[agentSmith]

When you ever get a hole in your calendar let me know! These are great for play, but I have in mind a fancier but more conventional rig I want to have made for an honored friend.

Rob

[Tinman]

Rob you can use my Snap machine so long as you pay for the cost of stainless snaps

Something needs to be explained about masters It is a large sand oval bowl about 300X1000 feet from rim to rim with 2 high points in the middle (but off to one side) the other side has a large flat area with some hypertubing. The walls are about 20-80 feet high with a very rapid grade. Theres alot of one team or another getting behind the other... or people being a couple of feet from each other just over the rim of the hills.

[dundadun]

Originally Posted by agentSmith

I've used alot of mag shoulder holsters and bandoleers of various types. When I used 3357s I had a shoulder holster originally for the army 45, turned into a cylinder dispenser. Basically it was like a dixie cup dispenser. You put a loaded 3357 cylinder in the top, narrow side down. This narrow end would stick out a hole in the rubber bottom. I could pull a cylinder out just like a dixie cup, when I had time to reload a cylinder it went right back in the top.


Rob

Could you find some pictures of this rig, or even stock photos of the items used? This is exactly what I want for my DRV!

[PistolRogue]

Final? We'll see lol... I hope not because I sure hope that someday down the road someone comes up with a better pistol than what's available today. We're getting closer but still not perfect IMO.

[agentSmith]

Dundadun, If I'm seeing the DRV cylinder pics right, it's shaped more like a puck than the stepped shape of the 3357:






A better choice might be to use a 'skoal dispenser' type bottom on a Tube:



This could be wrapped in nylon with some molle attachment type stuff going on.
I thought the DRV loaded from the tube?

No snaps Tinman, I'm installing a 'hammer loop' of 1/8th bungee. This will keep things in place for me. I found a place online that has it in green.

The top of the masters:

It's not used during the big games for those who haven't played it. It's camping as you can see from my half opened popup in the background.


PistolRogue it's not as likely as I would like!
The only real area left would be to make an HPA electro pistol with a fixed chamber that used a remote fill whip to charge from a tank and that would NOT be my cup of tea.
The pistol is one part of the system. The T8 I had is a way better pistol than the zeus I had, but I carried the zeus as a main because it could be fitted in better as part of a system that would let me sustain attacks for long periods.
As another example, I modded a TPX with a cocker detent. It gets 3-5 more shots per 12ie than a stock one though slightly less accurately. I've decided that long term it wasn't worth the trouble. In play I've gotten fast enough that it's not a significant gain in my efficiency.

I know that seems counterintuitive to say that more shots per 12 gram isn't worth the trouble.
Really what's the effect over a bag of paint in a day of 30 vs 25?
That would be 17 changes instead of 20.
5 shots per 12ie lost means 3 more changes every 500 rds.

Not much even if you ran each 12ie to the end that is, which I decidedly do not. With the decoder ring during even regular games when the action is hot enough, I often change co2 as early as 20 shots or less, as I did with my zeus as well. As they taught us in the army, 'eat now, you never know when the next chance will come'. If I run out of air in an engagement with no escape route, considering that I have a consistent 50 shots between my 2 TPXs, it's because I engaged with at least one of my pistols down to 10 shots or less. I will do that, engage knowing what will happen, if it's tactically advantageous but I don't let it happen on accident.
What this means is that the maximum shots available on a 12ie is not that crucial for me, as I routinely change them before then anyway as the tactical situation dictates.
There are other things that weigh more on my scales. A popular design I can use mostly stock, by a good company that makes parts I can readily get.
In 2008 I used up over 900 12ies in 34 days of play, shooting somewhere around 8 cases of paint... A fragile custom one-off is not for me. Even with a paltry 16 days last year, I'm still averaging over 30 days a year since 00. It'll be in the 40 range next year for sure.
My first TPX, #1666, now in a green shell that the Tippmann Engineer gave me to test, has had at least 7 cases through it...

Like my grandpa always said, "Perfect costs too much!"

Rob

[nelsonizer]

hey agentsmith, I'm thinking about picking up a pistol setup as my primary for a while and it seems like you are the man who has it locked down. Could you give me a summary of all the mods you have done to your TPXs or direct me to where they are posted? I'd like to get an idea of whats possible with these pistols.

[skullcandy1993]

heres a start: A Few Simple/Cheap/Free (Depending on your toolbox) TPX Mods

[agentSmith]

It's Ironic, it really is.
I've been modding pistols continuously since 1986. I had aluminum cylinders for my 3357s, milled the pistol grip of eagle68s so I could glue in aluminum strips(this will greatly extend the life of an eagle68), put a LineSI lever changer under the barrel of a Sydarm, chopped many a zeus up and made a T8 co2 quickchange for the mags(though I switched to their nice magnetic one when it finally came out).
Then along comes the TPX.
When Tippmann was developing the pistol they wanted to talk and get opinions from people with alot of experience playing pistol. Unfortunately at that time there weren't as many people in on the fun!
They contacted me and R&DEngineer and I had some really great talks. I had already viewed the leaked prototype photo and heard all the buzz. We talked not so much about the hardware but what the pistol needed to be able to do. What MY standards were. I told him as I'd said before "Everybody wants to play pistol but noone will make a good one, because there aren't enough players doing it, because noone makes a good one." A catch-22. Build it and they will buy.

In apr of 09, I got to try the prototype and was blown away with what I found. No pistol is going to be perfect, you can't smash a 16"long by 16"high by 6"wide marker/hopper/air source combo into the palm of your hand without paying a toll. Still, it matched the performance of the T8 in accuracy and the mags(half the cost, far less than half the weight) were a better fit to playing my brand of pistol.
R&DEngineer was fearless, IMO.
He worked his little genius tail off and took nothing off the table from the start. People have been paying big bucks converting sheridans to instapierce since 1987 or so because spring loaded pierce pins blow.
He rethought the whole idea and turned it into something that just plain works awesome. Piercing troubles are not an issue with this pistol since the adjustable feed plug. The hole in the plug(the only idea for which I take credit) allows you to pop co2s out with pressure in them, using a small tool.
After I got to play with the prototype a few times(including a funny moment when a delivery van showed up the morning of the Day of the Rangers game with a prototype and 6 mags. The poor thing had over a bag of my paint through it by dinner, plus other people besides me shot it).
The whole time I was giving my feedback. There were suggestions I made that they did NOT take, mostly cosmetic. The front rail, the fingergrooves.

So in other words this one time, I have nothing left to add as I've already had my suggestions incorporated, often before I had time to suggest them. Like with my Cocker detent I added(now removed and returned to stock) this pistol is, IMO, at the balancing point that is the peak for it. If I increase efficiency, it measurably costs me accuracy. If I increase accuracy, beyond honing the barrel and receiver, it'll cost me efficiency.

Other than the cosmetic changes that facilitate good shooting form and holsterability and honing the barrel and reciever with the LA flexhone, I'm playing with it just like it was when I bought it.

Rob