GO X-valve

[backtrack2pb]

What does AGD do with the returned classic valves they get in the Go X-valve program. Do they re-sell them or what? I can understand why this program was initiated but I can't imagine that AGD is going to let $100 in profit per item just disappear. In one of the other threads talking about some of the most over-priced items in paintball I imagine the X-valve will soon be listed. I bet the $100 dollars knocked off the price of the X-valve in the Go-X valve program is probably a pretty good indication of the profit made off of this up-grade, no wonder paintball is so expensive.

[Dayspring]

They get melted down.

[backtrack2pb]

Then my next question is, why does AGD ask for the classic valves in the first place?

[FlipShot]

AGD uses very high quality materials on there markers so recyling those expensive valves is a good thing. in addition, attempting to get as many X-valves out in the public as possible as a reasonable price is a good form of advertisment since the performance of the X-valve will be more widely seen by others. I did'nt think to much of it untill I shot a gun equiped with one, now I'm desperate for one. see how that works?

[backtrack2pb]

Recycling the valves is iffy, definently not worth a hundred bucks when you consider melting the steel down, pouring it, heat-treating it to bring it up to grade, re-milling it and final assembly. But I might agree with you though, $225 is maybe a reasonable price for the X-valve, but $325 on the other hand is by no means reasonable. You said that you were dying to get one, which means that you haven't bought one yet. I'm willing to bet that you haven't got one yet because they do cost $225, and that is a heck of a lot of money. Yes, I understand that it is high quality aluminum, and it is quality maching, but I know a heck of a lot more people would buy an X-vavle for $150, including me, just because it would be the best deal on the block.

[Dayspring]

No offense guys, but have you ever seen some of the AGD tolerances? They are SO exacting and SO precise. There is a reason the valves cost so much.

PRECISE milling & other tolerances.
There's an internal regulator.
Annodizing.
Assembly & testing.

I think for what you are getting, it's fairly well priced.

Plus- Tom doesn't want to resell the Classic valves b/c there are quality control issues there. He'd rather get them off the market so no bad valves can get out and ruin AGD's name. (Heard that from the man himself.)

[backtrack2pb]

Are the tolerences .0005" > X > .0002" ?

[Eric Cartman]

When I purchased mine at Skyball from the AGD booth, I was told that they wanted to get as many of the old valves back as possible, so that they could focus on supporting only one type of valve. It makes sense to me to have one standard type of valve in all of the different guns available. I wonder if that means that they'll eventually stop selling Automag Classics etc. with the old style valves?
As far as the price goes, well nothing in paintball of any quality is cheap. It'd be great if they sold 'em for $10.00 each and they came with a clone of the supermodel of your choice, but I'm not gonna hold my breath for that to happen.
I just plyed with mine yesterday (for the first time) and I was very impressed with it, so no complaints here.

[FlipShot]

I WOULD pay $325 for an X valve. your pretty much shooting a new gun with an X-valve driven automag. yea it's a little steep but these valves do involve alot of precise machining and also require many differant and difficult machining proccesses. it's expensive to machine those tiny parts with such accuracy and quality. ( materials and proccesses is one of the courses I'm taking at ITT )

[fdman]

If you were to trade in your old valve and nock a $100 of the price then you also get the lvl 10 bolt thats $85 a new sear thats $12 you get the spacers thats $12 and the reactive valve wich is about $35 you are only paying like $85 for the valve itself.

[backtrack2pb]

Ok, I like the point that fdman brought up and that does make a lot of sense. To bad I already bought the lvl 10 for my classic valve.... The only reason that I wouldn't trade in my classic valve, which means that I'm not going to buy an x-valve b/c I'm not about to pay $325 bucks for it, is because I play NCPA and NCPA doesn't allow reactive triggers. Some of the local fields around here also getting picky about Tippmann Customs with the R/T kits and RT mags and X-valves.

[Recon by Fire]

Maybe Tom intends to recondition the old ones and export free Mags to impoverished third world countries in a gesture of good will :)

[Dayspring]

How is that true? One of my teammates plays with an SFL with ReTro valve.


Originally posted by backtrack2pb
Ok, I like the point that fdman brought up and that does make a lot of sense. To bad I already bought the lvl 10 for my classic valve.... The only reason that I wouldn't trade in my classic valve, which means that I'm not going to buy an x-valve b/c I'm not about to pay $325 bucks for it, is because I play NCPA and NCPA doesn't allow reactive triggers. Some of the local fields around here also getting picky about Tippmann Customs with the R/T kits and RT mags and X-valves.

[backtrack2pb]

I was wrong in stating that the NCPA doesn't allow RT's, I apologize for the incorrect statement. I'm going to look and see if I can find the NCPA constitution before I make any more comments about that. What I do know, is that the field that hosted the NCPA Georgia Open wasn't too happy if somebody was shooting RT. The only other person there with a mag was shooting an older RT and the ref's didn't let him use it, which forced him to use one of his teammates backup angels.

Our home field doesn't allow RT's
Two of my favoriate fields in NC don't allow RT's
Another field that our team practices at doesn't allow RT's

The 98 custom with an RT kit has an increadible sweet spot, it took me about half a trigger pull to find it and then another ten seconds to empty the hopper.
It is very affordable so it is within the reach of a lot of people.

I don't see that many mag RT's
The sweet spot on the mag RT isn't the easiest to find and takes practice.
Mag RT's, especially since they require N2, are really expensive for the first time paintballer.

Newbies with Tippmann RT's are grouped in with other newbies. The other newbies complain to the field about the fire power of their peers and about how they don't think that kind of thing is reasonable for a walk on field plus all of the, "This isn't a tournament, I don't want to have to deal with 20 bps coming at me, I want to have fun." The owner doesn't want to loose customers so he decides to refuse to let players use RT's. Just like fields no longer let angels and timmy's go full auto. It's irrelevent that full auto is just 13 bps and you can fire way faster when shooting semi, it's b/c the field doesn't want to loose it's buisneness. Banning RT's from a field means all RT's, including mags. Yeah, I know that the full auto ban was b/c of insurance as well, but in general allowing fa on the field has always been a bad idea in my opinion. It's not about the rof (even though 13 bps is pretty fast), it's about the fact that anybody can do it and can sustain that rof indefinently w/o a single break in the stream of paint so long as there is enough $ in their pocket. That's the thing about the tippmann RT, their amazing, probably too good for their own good. It's like the Air Gun Designs Six-pack, it was way to ahead of itself and ended up killing it's own market.

[Jaymz]

remember here the janitors at the AGD factory have to be paid too!