Originally posted by bound for glory
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uhh, I know kung fu -
"Accuracy by aiming."
Definitely not on the A-Team.Comment
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thats funny, stevewar!
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from pbnOriginally posted by tweeter4My Review of the Zodiac ZR1:
(Be Aware that the Gas through in my case is my homemade Pressure Tester)
-First/Initial Impressions:
I first recieved the Zodiac Renegade ZR1 about two months ago when they were just coming out of final production. I remember when intially getting the marker in I was estactic by how much Chris Cole improved his past designs. First of all the integration of the LPR on the rear of the bolt is amazing. I also was almostly instantly in tune to how great the ergonomics were on this gun. The gun seems large in your hands, but it fits so nicely it almost goes unnoticed while shooting. The gun breaks off from the traditional 2002-2010 mold of making the smallest markers possible by extended the marker to provide the ability to fully wrap the shooters hand around the front foregrip, making a much more stable shooting platform. The gun overall felt great to hold and shoot.
-Design:
Im going to walk you through this gun from top to bottom as well as include pictures to help further illustrate the amazing design of this marker. Starting at the bottom of the gun we have the ASA with an intergrated high pressure regulator inside of it. Now while intially I thought such a small regulator would lead to inconsistentcy, that fear was quickly erased after seeing +/- 6 from the box, and +/- 2 after a thorough break in. The regulator assists the marker to be extremely efficienct and consistent in terms of recharge rate.
Moving on to the board inside the gun I am equally impressed. Chris Cole didnt waste any time at all in imploring one of the best aftermarket boards out there in the Hater DM board. I like the use of DM boards in this gun as it allows for easier use of finding an aftermarket board cheap, although this will almost be unessasary due to the supioriority of the Hater board. Switch appears and feels to be a 25-35 gram switch.
In addition to the board, the trigger setup prefectly combines with the light gram switch and a magnet based bearing trigger to produce an amazing feeling, and performing trigger. This gun almost shoots itself in semi about with a smooth pull with a quick return, allowing for maximum rate of fire.
Another feature often overlooked in most markers is the on/off switch for the board. The switch is extremely responsive to touch and turns on quite easily. I like that the switch it a BAM its on style switch with just one simple to tap to activate.
The Feedneck on this gun is an Ego style clamping feedneck and works perfectly fine ofr any loader. I have yet to have any issue with the feedneck failing, and the feedneck can be adjusted by hand, simply swiveling the feedneck clamp.
Thankfully on this gun Zodiac has instituted the use of delrin based detents using spring tension. These types of detents are virtually indestructable and they work well, completley preventing the issue of double feed as sometimes seen in markers that use the nubby detents.
Just so everyone is fully aware as well, the front grip is completley aesthetic. The front grip does not affect the guns pressure in anyway. It is simply an additional chamber for air to be held inside the marker. An added benefit of this is the ability to easily create a pressure tester with a guage and any gas through grip.
One issue I did have was the quickness my grips began to wear and deteriorate through high use. Now keep in mind I have put well near 2 months of use, playing with is every weekend as well as letting rental users at the local field go out and play with it to try it out.
Now we move onto the most anticipated part of the Zodiac Renegade ZR1, and that is the bolt operation system. Now I could sit here and attempt to act like I fully understand Coles inner workings of the bolt system, but I would rather just show you the pictures of this amazing bolt system.
-Performance:
From the first time I shot this gun straight out of the box, to now after over 20,000 shots of break in time, I am utterly astounded by the performance of the ZR1. This gun flat out blows every other marker out of the water.
In terms of kick, the extremely low operating pressure of around 65psi virtually eliminates the markers kick. Any kick that the marker does have travels directly backwards, resulting in no barrel rise whatsoever. As I said before I am seeing +/- 2 on the chronograph which does wonders for the guns performance in terms of consistent accuracy. The gun shoots ball on ball with zero stream drop-off.
I also have yet to experiance FSDO. I have attempted to do so by overlubing the bolt out in 45 degree weather, and to no avail could I get the bolt to stick on the first shot.
In terms of efficiancy this gun is rediculous. I took this gun to EMR castle conquest and shot ~1750 shots off of a single 68/4500psi tank fill, which resulted in my not having to fill my tank all day. As can be seen in the video attached with his review, a peak at the markers efficiency can be seen. Anti-Chop capability. Thats right, whether it was intentional or not, THIS GUN CANNOT CHOP PAINT. As seen in the attached video, I have held balls between the lower portion of the feedneck and the face of the bolt, and the bolt just bounces right off the paint. This is an added bonus because now we wont have to deal with pesky ball clipping.
-Matinence:
Matinence on this gun is beyond simple. With only 7 orings on the entire bolt system, with only 3 of these rings being friction orings caused by motion. Im not absolutley sure how long you can go without lubing this gun, but I have been lubing this gun after every two uses and that has been working out great for me. Not much more I can say here in terms of matinence. The bolt kit matinence is very easy, and the LPR and HPR only needs to be maintaint around every 15-18 cases.
-Special Features:
In terms of special features, there are one or two things I wanted to touch on about this gun that just put it over the top, and give it that little extra awesome-ness.
First things, leaks are now easier to solve. Chris Cole has made the ZR1 have the capability of COMPLETLEY REMOVING THE LPR and still allowing air to hold inside the marker. The use to this is that when a leak is present, you can instantly determine whether it is related to an issue in a bolt oring, or a regulator oring by simply removing the LPR from the gun entirely.
Another minor, yet cool feature I touched on above is the ability to easily make your own pressure tester for next to nothing. All that must be done is to just attach a guage to the macroline fitting hole on a gas through grip, then screw the gas through onto the gun. You can then air up the marker and view your guns HPR pressure through the guage on the front grip.
-Overall View of Marker
I grade this marker very high at an A+, now some people will tend to think I am being biased, but inverse to your argument I owned this same gun alongside a Geo2, NT11 and Ego11. And I must say that it truley does outperform these guns. The ZR1 accomodates the extremely low kick of an LPR driven spoolvalve gun such as the DM series, along with poppit style efficiency. It is truely the ultimate package in todays game of paintball and I think other companies will be hard pressed to create something to outperform this marker, the Zodiac ZR1.
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Fellow ZR1 owners....
I just replaced the hard bolt stop washer with....
A clear automag valve bolt bumper....
It seems to make it a tiny bit smoother. Give it a try. bi
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