By Brent Hoefling AKA RamboPreacher PoG#6- "A Player, Not A Pro"
When I was at the PanAm tournament tin Las Vegas in December 2003, I met Mike Oaks. Mike is a sales manager at S!te Manufacturing, Inc. Anyway, I talked with him a short while about the CF barrels and was interested in the extremely light weight barrel. My interest was primarily for my ULE Automag at first because I "just knew" that there was no way they had anything for my Primary marker, the PPS Blazer.
I hung around the booth for a while over several different times, and just listened to them talk to the players and others that came up and asked questions. I was extremely impressed with the lack of "hype" that was taking place by them. I finally decided to take the plunge and buy a front for my Freak that I had been using on the ULE 'mag.
After hanging there a bit more and some few conversations later with Mike, they decided that making a Blazer Barrel might not be a bad idea, but he didn't know the measurements. I went to talk to Craig Palmer to see if he had the dimensions and instead of giving me the dimensions, he brought a stock non-ported 10.5 inch blazer barrel over with him.
Craig gave him the barrel and Mike said that he would take it back and that they would make a CF blazer barrel! A week or so later (after returning from the tournament), I got a box in the mail with the blazer barrel. the box was heavier than the barrel. The tube it came in, inside the box was heavier than the the barrel.
I couldn't believe I had it already. It was a carbon fiber duplicate of the stock Blazer barrel with the exception of the porting at the end. The Blazer S!te Mfg. prototype blazer barrel! put it on my "Charity" and it looked good, and seemed to shoot okay over the chroney. For me though, that is no "real test". I needed to take it to a real field and "field-test" it.
The field:
I played on a
CPPA play day at a new indoor field, the
Iowa Paintball Park in Vinton Iowa. A great indoor place, the field
area was about 10-15 degrees cooler than the staging area, but the players
didn't care or notice much.
The marker:
Charity. my 7 year
old Blazer. we all had to chroney to "below 250". as an indoor
field, things tend to get close up, even on this rather large field. The
chroney ref said we needed to shoot and have 3 shots below 250 in a row when we
chronied.
Conditions:
was about 40 degrees or so on the field (could definitely see your breath) and
about 50-55 in the staging area. Indoors, so no wind.
Paint:
Field paint was RPS polar Ice (If I recall correctly). I didn't measure
the paint, but it "seemed" to be a bit small, but not so much to get rollout of
my Blazer. Some of the guys using SC markers had some rollouts at first,
so they adjusted their play style.
First field impressions:
I liked how it felt weight-wise and no mater that some may say that weight isn't
a factor with all the big hopper full of paint and big tank etc; I did notice
the difference. It wasn't a difference in total weight, but rather in
distribution. The front of the marker (even fully loaded with paint and
using a HaloB) felt lighter in balance/distribution.
EAER:
Honestly, My personal effective accuracy and effective range seemed to be
exactly as if I was using my PPS barrel. I felt no difference in comfort,
nor did I have to adjust my shooting style to compensate. From the moment
I started shooting with it, I felt comfortable with it.
Second Impressions (chroney station at the field):
I decided I would try to "match" the barrel. I had bought a bunch of paint
in order to use my Grinder,
and was unable because of the cold, so I had lots of paint to shoot up.
Any way what I found out was interesting. (I had to do this during a game
because the actual Chroney station back wall was too close) I discovered
that at about 50-75 feet, I was getting tight groupings, no matter how I twisted
the barrel.
It seemed to be "matched" in any position. Maybe a fluke, I don't know, but of all my brass Blazer barrels, only my original stock one was anywhere near that kind of shot pattern. Most others had varying patterns as I twisted the barrel. (this confirmed my initial shots over the chroney before taking it for a field test).
Field "abuse":
One time when I was in the dead-box (well, okay, this part happened almost every
game), I stood my blazer up in a corner so I didn't have to hold it (10 minute
games and I was out within the first minute - no comment from the "peanut
gallery"). Anyway, as more players came in the dead box, it was getting crowded
and someone bumped it and it fell and the barrel smacked the floor (my hopper
even came off - I thought it broke, but didn't). No harm done to the
barrel.
Then on two different occasions (this is the most abuse my gear has ever taken, but the first time I have been in this kind of enclosed indoor field in recent years.) I was rounding doorway corners in the field and smacked the barrel on concrete walls. One time was pretty hard, and I know that if I ha brass, it would have chipped the nickel or powder coating. not even a ding on the CF.
I am not saying they are indestructible, but I am glad that my first barrel abuses were to that instead of my precious PPS barrels! (no offense S!te Mfg.)
The conclusion:
Since this is the prototype, I don't have a clue what they would cost. I
would hope that they would be something less than the "threaded" barrels, since
there isn't anything added/glued to the barrel. It's essentially a tube of
CF that has been milled a bit on the end to fit in a blazer, with their normal
porting on the other end.
This one was labeled as .689. I have no reason to doubt it. One thing that I know some Blazer owners would like to have is their "paint to barrel match" kits, so if they made a multi-barrel kit with small, medium and large ID/bores, that might be a nice touch, though I am not sure how practical that would be, depending on selling price.
For me, and in this field test, I was hard-pressed to feel that it was any different than the PPS barrel I was using. It was similar in loudness and report, its EAER was the same for me and I was comfortable using it. I will be leaving it on my Blazer. So, for this field tester, the difference (not including price) is the weight and distribution. Try it, that's about the best thing I can say. See how it feels on your Blazer (or min if we ever get a chance to play together). I was impressed.
Paintball is still fun!
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