Dye arise questions

[Raven911]

Looking at picking up a Rize. Which is better, the CZR or the Maxxed?

what are the differences?

[punkncat]

Would pass.

[Cdn_Cuda]

I believe the Maxxed version just extra things like clamping feedneck and on/off. I honestly have no idea the difference between the various mid-low Dye/Protos are. I've got a Proto Reflex Rail at the moment and can't figure out how it relates to the Rize/Rail/CZR product level/timeline at all. I guess variations of the bolt as they all look pretty close to the same.

[MrBarraclough]

The CZR is better than the Maxxed, though the differences are rather marginal.

The Maxxed was simply a Rize with the on/off ASA and lever lock clamping feedneck included as standard features.

The CZR has all the same features as the Rize Maxxed, plus a longer body. This puts the HPR/foregrip further forward, increasing the spacing between your hands to improve the ergonomics.

Cdn_Cuda The evolution, as I (incompletely) understand it, is:
2011 Proto Rail replaces the PMR as the Proto/Dye entry level electro (also replaces the SLG in terms of market niche, but in design terms is not descended from it). This is also when all Proto markers start getting UL frames standard.
2011 - circa 2014 the Rail is largely unchanged, or at least the 2014s returned to a body milling pattern that was identical or near identical to the 2011s.
2011/2012 - circa 2014 there is the Reflex Rail, sometimes shortened to simply Reflex. I'm still a bit fuzzy on what supposedly differentiated it from the normal Rail. I believe there was something about the bolt tail design that caused the initial forward movement of the bolt to be slower/gentler and then accelerate. Like there was a chamber in the rear manifold behind the bolt tail that only pressurized once the bolt started to travel forward, which then gave the bolt movement a boost. This small amount of air would be vented out the back cap during the return stroke. Or something like that. Being concurrent with the standard Rail kind of confuses the evolutionary timeline a bit.
circa 2015 the Rize name replaces the Rail (both the Rail and Reflex), though the internals are essentially the same but not necessarily interchangeable. The current generation eye pipe is introduced. From that point forward the changes are the Maxxed coming with the optional features standard and the CZR lengthening the body. Also during this period you have the retirement of the Proto brand name in favor of simply branding as Dye.

Bonus fact: The 2011 Rail did inherit one thing from the ill-fated SLG: the circuit board. 2011-2014 Rails use boards that are labeled SLG UL. I assume Dye must have had a surplus of boards on hand when they canceled the SLG in 2010.

[glaman5266]

Slightly off-topic: It's a shame the SLG ended up the way it did. I heard it didn't function real well & got a bad reputation, but I liked the one I had. Absolutely ripped & I had no issues with it whatsoever. And it was a first gen no less. My only gripe about it was it's TINY, lol.

[MrBarraclough]

I have a 2010 SLG that works just fine. It was the first electro I picked up after returning to paintball from a 20 year absence in 2020. I figured for $90 I'd see what all the fuss was about and didn't really understand what I was buying at the time. I got lucky and found one that works great.

Some months later, my buddy had me buy a 2009 UL SLG that he planned to give to his nephew. It was an absolute lemon that I could not get to cycle and ended up returning to the seller. Later found out that the seller had accidentally reassembled it with the grip frame off another gun, which screwed up the internal geometry. I learned a lot about the SLG in the 2-3 weeks that I was trying to get that one working. Emailed some technical questions to DYE and eventually got a reply from Billy Wing. From my back and forth email correspondence with him, I got a few insights into the demise of the SLG. The problem was that they could not get them to work consistently. Some came off the assembly line working perfectly and others were lemons that they just could not get to work right. Apparently the factory in Taiwan, overseen by DYE's Taiwan office (since closed) was bad about making undocumented or poorly documented adjustments to design specs, for whatever reason. These subtle changes meant that parts which were nominally identical sometimes actually were not. A given part may or may not work correctly in a particular marker, depending on the production run of each, with DYE having no good way of being sure before installing it. SLGs would come back for warranty repairs and DYE couldn't be sure the parts they were using would actually fix them. That back end service nightmare is what ultimately killed the SLG.

I have seen some of this firsthand. I have an old repair kit with 5 sears. There should be two styles of sear, as 2008 and 2009 used different ones and 2010 reverted to the 2008 style. But there are actually three. For one of the styles, the hole for the sear pin can be round or oblong. I have examples of both. It's a very subtle difference, easy to overlook, but it can affect whether the solenoid plunger reliably trips the sear or the sear catches the bolt or not.

The SLG's design does present some durability challenges, such as a tendency of the bolt to mushroom from impacting the body tube on its forward stroke, but they weren't insurmountable. There was nothing inherently flawed about the design, which was rather clever in its simplicity. The problems were in execution. It really is a shame that it didn't become the simple and cheap entry level marker that DYE/Proto wanted it to be.

[glaman5266]

MrBarraclough Thank you for the insight. It's much appreciated.

I too loved the simplicity of it's design. I remember pulling the bolt out the back for the first time & thinking "WTF, that's it?". Like you said- nice design, poor execution.

[Raven911]

I had a SLG as well with no problems. Looks like I’ll pick up a CZR this weekend. Just hope the guy had the color I want.

[MrBarraclough]

I've been shooting one since last May. Bought it used off a guy on Facebook, but in fantastic condition. I love the thing so far. If you play around with the trigger sensitivity, you can set it up to absolutely rip even in capped semi.

My only real gripe about the design is that I wish it had toolless grip cover removal. Having to remove and keep up with three little screws to access the battery compartment is a bit of a nuisance. And in the grand tradition of DYE/Proto markers, these have a tendency towards vampiric battery drain, so it is a good idea to remove the battery at the end of the day.