Autococker Curious (Caution: Long-winded OP)

[cockerpunk]

Honestly, the thing that would keep me from buying a trilogy is the 1.5 finger trigger frame it has on it. Clearly made for nine-year-olds with small hands. Good ergonomics is one of my biggest priorities in a gun.

they made ones with a true double, same as all the other swing frames.

[cockerpunk]

If you want a fishing trip, go to the ocean. Try reading what i said then understand what i wrote and come up with a valid argument.

They are complicated. There is a balance of different parts that need to work properly and simultaneously together. Never said they were unreliable. Did say they that if parts were changed on the gun that care needs to be maintained as it can take a working gun to a headache.

The trilogy is a horrible platform. As well as it did to solve the problems to make it easier, it condemned it to be a dead platform. The lack of aftermarket parts, the changes to the body that required new parts to be made specific and proprietary made the platform poor and cheap.

You are so wrong, on so many levels its pitiful...

repeating yourself isn't an argument.

you cants argue a gun is too complicated, then say the less complicated version sucks.

[Nobody]

repeating yourself isn't an argument.

you cants argue a gun is too complicated, then say the less complicated version sucks.

If by saying that every fact that i have written before is repeating myself. Then i guess the truth hurts.

Yes, cockers can be complicated. Just as some people think carburetors are less complicated than EFI. It is all in what you know and what you are willing to learn.

If the Trilogy was "such" a good gun, why do people:
1) sell them for cheap/can't give them away
2) less upgradable/literally no aftermarket parts
3) ugly
4) going against the basis of what made cockers great(the ability to change every part)
5) the last gasp of WGP before they sold everything to Kee/Empire

Need more reasons?

[ghost flanker]

Cocker punk;
Oh, I didn't know they came in a full double trigger. Still though, I'm a one finger kinda guy

Nobody;
1. Low resale doesn't necessarily mean that a gun is bad. Level 7 mags typically sell in the low $100's and I think they're great guns. Also, Trilogies retailed for basically nothing to begin with.

2. I do like modularity in a gun design. Lack of aftermarket upgrades, though... that is more a reflection of what was popular at the time - namely achieving ever faster rates of fire. To a considerable degree, you're totally right. But a good gun to me is one that doesn't need upgrades. As to whether the Trilogy qualifies, I'll let you two argue opinions over that.

3. I admit, I think they're ugly, too. But I feel the same way about the Autococker SR.

4. I totally get the "build your own cocker" thing. But I'm weird. I like things stock. Bone stock means history and value retention. Also, it's pretty difficult to outsmart engineers who design truly quality products off the bat. Take wheels on a car for example; Mechanical engineers take the time to design OEM wheels to best suit the car they are tailored for. So why then do people swap out their OEM wheels for stupid 22" rims only to diminish their vehicles' performance and resale? Style? Quite often, upgrades aren't really upgrades. There's been untold millions made off snake oil products sold to paintball customers (aftermarket barrels, anyone?), and unless an aftermarket upgrade accomplishes something revolutionary, then what's the point?

5. Pretty much. They knew they could no longer compete with the likes of Dye, Bob Long, and Planet Eclipse in the ROF arms race, so WGP rolled the dice with an unfortunate business decision that had them compete for another market dominated by an even larger competitor, Tippmann. Trilogies were also made in China, no?

Of course I say all this without ever having shot a Trilogy before. Playing devils advocate, more or less. For all I know, I could fall in love with them or hate the holy hell out of them.

[BigEvil]

Nobody;
1. Low resale doesn't necessarily mean that a gun is bad. Level 7 mags typically sell in the low $100's and I think they're great guns. Also, Trilogies retailed for basically nothing to begin with.

There are thousands of lvl7 mags out there and have been out on the market since the early 90s. Different economic forces at work.

[cockerpunk]

There are thousands of lvl7 mags out there and have been out on the market since the early 90s. Different economic forces at work.

there are not thousands of trilogies? and as pointed out, with an initial price starting in the 120s, where do you think would end up nearly 10 years later? nowhere to go but down.

and i can't imagine how cheap price, simplified operation, and ease of use could ever be bad things for a guys first cocker. its like i've entered the bizzaro world of AO again. where folks are so happy to argue against me, that they loop back on themselves and now there arguments conflict with each other. lol. i thought we didn't like cockers because they were overly complicated and unreliable? solve these problems, and add in a cheaper price and the guns are still bad? what. the. actual. ****.

and as far as upgradbablity, they are actually fairly easy to upgrade, if you know where to look and want to actually upgrade one.

[BigEvil]

there are not thousands of trilogies? and as pointed out, with an initial price starting in the 120s, where do you think would end up nearly 10 years later? nowhere to go but down.

and i can't imagine how cheap price, simplified operation, and ease of use could ever be bad things for a guys first cocker. its like i've entered the bizzaro world of AO again. where folks are so happy to argue against me, that they loop back on themselves and now there arguments conflict with each other. lol. i thought we didn't like cockers because they were overly complicated and unreliable? solve these problems, and add in a cheaper price and the guns are still bad? what. the. actual. ****.

and as far as upgradbablity, they are actually fairly easy to upgrade, if you know where to look and want to actually upgrade one.

There might (and I stress that word) have been a large number produced, but if they sold they would not have been the dismal failure that they were. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a container of them sitting around somewhere it 'thousands' were produced.

[cockerpunk]

There might (and I stress that word) have been a large number produced, but if they sold they would not have been the dismal failure that they were. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a container of them sitting around somewhere it 'thousands' were produced.

there were certainly thousands sold, even back then.

didn't know resale price was such a ego builder around here .... all the more reason you two don't like my 60 dollar azodin thread .... haters gonna hate

[pillage]

While Trilogies were not completely horrible as a paintball gun goes, they definitely were not one of WGP's finer moments. They never had the favor of the market like the original Autococker platform did. Everyone and their brother made parts to fit an Autococker. By the time the Trilogy hit the market, the space ***** had come into favor. Had WGP released them a few years prior to that, people might have looked at the Trilogy in a better light. Market timing is everything, miss the window of opportunity and a diamond of a product, becomes an unpolished turd.

[BigEvil]

there were certainly thousands sold, even back then.

didn't know resale price was such a ego builder around here .... all the more reason you two don't like my 60 dollar azodin thread .... haters gonna hate

Sometimes I think you just put random words together in sentences and hit "REPLY"

[cockerpunk]

While Trilogies were not completely horrible as a paintball gun goes, they definitely were not one of WGP's finer moments. They never had the favor of the market like the original Autococker platform did. Everyone and their brother made parts to fit an Autococker. By the time the Trilogy hit the market, the space ***** had come into favor. Had WGP released them a few years prior to that, people might have looked at the Trilogy in a better light. Market timing is everything, miss the window of opportunity and a diamond of a product, becomes an unpolished turd.

yup, it was competing against used ions, and electro blowbacks. both were clearly superior from a firepower standpoint. when the electro trilogy finally came out, it was far far too late. although that gun again, was kinda of quirky and fun gun in and of itself too. WGP simply relied on 'closed bolt accuracy' for too long, and the market moved on. and then even worse was the buy out, at exactly the right time for bud orr, but exactly the wrong time for cockers. im sure that caused at least 6 months to a year of lost development time, making it again, even tougher to catch back up. and by the time they did release those guns, they were past there market prime by 2-3 years.

IMO WGP was not a very well run company even its heyday, but its demise was a particularly bad set of circumstances, with bad product engineering, and a bad market.

still, the trilogies were not bad guns, and for what they cost, what they are, is kinda amazingly good. and, pretty much perfect for a first time cocker user.

[pillage]

The thousands of Trilogies produced didn't move in the market. They collected dust on the shelves of many shops and were blown out on Ebay for pennies on the dollar later. If they had caught on in a big enough way, there would have been more aftermarket parts produced. As it was though, they were looked at as a market failure. While an Autococker is noted for being complicated vs a Mag, the tolerances for a Mag to work under are tighter out of the box than the Autococker. Mags also have less knobs to turn to get them to work normally. The Autococker just has more readily available knobs that can be easily user adjusted for good or bad.
Part of the fun for someone playing with a Cocker is that same overly complicated way of getting it to cycle, and what was a virtual unlimited variety of parts available. The Trilogy doesn't have that.

[Spider-TW]

Cocker punk;
Oh, I didn't know they came in a full double trigger. Still though, I'm a one finger kinda guy

The trilogy pro with the forward slanted reg had a double. You can fit a slider frame on there; some may need a little work to get around the valve retention screw.

My cockers, working or not, keep turning into pumps. I could put one together with the parts I have now. Whenever I see one, it reminds me of playing tournaments in 1990/1. There was a guy with either a Palmers nasty hurricane or its predecessor (maybe homemade being in San Antonio); a double barreled concoction of rams and valves. Most of the rest of us had F-1 illustrators or unibody phantoms. The double barrel was impressive, but the rest looked like a pain.

As long as your dinking around as a hobby, an autococker can suck up your time as well as anything. Half the fun is trying to make a Rube Goldberg machine work reliably.

[going_home]

Rube Goldberg machine

By far the best description of a cocker yet !

[Nobody]

Sorry, this got buried and did wish to explain.

Nobody;
1. Low resale doesn't necessarily mean that a gun is bad. Level 7 mags typically sell in the low $100's and I think they're great guns. Also, Trilogies retailed for basically nothing to begin with.

Resale is a double edged sword. It shows that the market is barely there and you can pick them up for next to nothing but because there is no market the prices go down because they aren't very good. L7 mags are a bad example because the valves aren't bad nor are the "mods" just for a certain type of AGD valve(ULT being the exception to not being used in classic valves). Its just that the Xvalve is more desirable, being lighter, able to RT, anno'd and faster. It is a better argument using ReTro or Emag valves, as they can do everything an X can but will sit at price.

But the market does dictate the price at which it sells at, regardless of how good it might have been. If no one wants them, then they get cheap are not as good as standard cockers, then the market shows the truth.

2. I do like modularity in a gun design. Lack of aftermarket upgrades, though... that is more a reflection of what was popular at the time - namely achieving ever faster rates of fire. To a considerable degree, you're totally right. But a good gun to me is one that doesn't need upgrades. As to whether the Trilogy qualifies, I'll let you two argue opinions over that.

This is where the nostalgia factor is wrong and stock is best be looked through rose coloured glasses. By 99, the stock pneumatics were usable. Gone were the timing rods that were not threaded(slip fit. A round rod tightened with 2 sets screws, often would come undone), taking the frame off to access the sear lug, the threaded IVG, rams that had a life of 1000's of cycles, 4ways that would leak out of the factory, hoses that would blow off and just unreliable HPRs.

The cocker, you can say was pushed by the pro-teams for performance and reliability. Many vuns of that era needed aftermarket parts to achieve performance but also made the gun reliable and consistent. So it is more of how you want to go with it, which is the greatest ability of changing the parts you want.

3. I admit, I think they're ugly, too. But I feel the same way about the Autococker SR.

It is subjective. It is hard to see where the market will go to. Days ago, companies actually milled guns to make different models, now its lasering and colour combos.

4. I totally get the "build your own cocker" thing. But I'm weird. I like things stock. Bone stock means history and value retention. Also, it's pretty difficult to outsmart engineers who design truly quality products off the bat. Take wheels on a car for example; Mechanical engineers take the time to design OEM wheels to best suit the car they are tailored for. So why then do people swap out their OEM wheels for stupid 22" rims only to diminish their vehicles' performance and resale? Style? Quite often, upgrades aren't really upgrades. There's been untold millions made off snake oil products sold to paintball customers (aftermarket barrels, anyone?), and unless an aftermarket upgrade accomplishes something revolutionary, then what's the point?

See above. Stock was trial and effort and the people putting them together nor made them, were engineers. They were people who made things in their garages. We are spoiled using the children of Tom Kaye. The design doesn't need to be changed cause it was a homerun from the onset, then improved on, in house with the L10 & then the ReTro/Emag/Xvalve. The cocmer had every bit of it changed and improved upon, with better rams: valves, pneumatics, bolts, frames(the 45 mainly), hammers. You can build a totally aftermarket cocker, including the body. That goes to say something.

5. Pretty much. They knew they could no longer compete with the likes of Dye, Bob Long, and Planet Eclipse in the ROF arms race, so WGP rolled the dice with an unfortunate business decision that had them compete for another market dominated by an even larger competitor, Tippmann. Trilogies were also made in China, no?

Of course I say all this without ever having shot a Trilogy before. Playing devils advocate, more or less. For all I know, I could fall in love with them or hate the holy hell out of them.

Partly true on RoF. Remember, you did have Karnoivres in 2004, but it had to do with the lack of sponsorships and top teams that could show case the guns. It is superby easy to shoot an electro over mechanical gun. Then add in the sponsorship deals for a team that just came from cockers and those teams lost a year with the possibility of further years for guns/sponsorships. When a company that looses its flagship teams, and can no longer be top and it can not gain new people shooting them.

WGP also tried to get into the spyder-clone market. It is harder to expand in a market unless you have a great product. PE did with the GEO, AGD not so much with the Emag or Xmag. Without the flagship team, its hard to sell products to the masses. Add in the new flavor of the month guns and either you can compete or you get out of the way. Which what WGP did when they threw in the towel when they soldout to Kee.