PTP Fascination

[Merce]

Might be feasible but even fit that price range people expect the features of an etek, axe, or g5. Even the JT impulse is priced at 500$. You're not going to bring in new players with a marker that's hundreds of dollars and no features included. People tend to look at how quality your high end markers are before trusting a "budget" gun in my opinion.

[luke]

Personally I wouldn't hold my breath for a bunch of new parts from AGD. It's highly unlikely anyone will invest the kind of money necessary to bring the price point down low enough to make most of the suggestions here feasible. It would be a gigantic gamble with horrible odds in today's market. It's only been stated that "maybe we can work on some new stuff too" that's a far cry from revamping the marker line at an entry level price point. Of course we all want to see AGD reboot itself, but to scale it back up is going to take time, money and someone willing to take the risk. If it was a good gamble I think Tom would likely be at the helm again.

[JKR]

I don't think that AGD will be revamping their line to entry level price points. That's like offering an entry level Rolls Royce or something...just not meant to be. AGD gained its fame with reliability and well-engineered products and should maintain that course regardless of life after the Ion.

I am only hoping they offer some new high-end parts and 'guns along with a lower cost, lighter weight option than they currently have. Aside from the molding of rubber grips and carbon fiber frames, everything else is off the shelf parts in a new combination that offers little risk compared to coming up with a brand new 'gun. Knocking $100 off the retail of an AGD gun might gain a few converts and puts this marker in pretty good competition with the Resurrection in price.

[Nobody]

They wouldn't have to worry about making any number to stock as this variant is just an assembly of parts they probably already stock. They might have to some new CF frames molded and order those and perhaps some rubber grips but little else would be required. If not a classic rail, then the rail used for the RT ULE Pro or the Tac One.

That is a big assumption. Yes, they have some stuff in storage, but how many? It takes uo a lot of space to hold that stuff, especially for 15 years or so. ViewLoader either made the same grips as AGD or went in with AGD together. I had a set, but the costs to make the molds for a set of grips, then to have them made is a buge amount of money. Most places won't do orders for a few hundred. Its more like 10,000 pieces for a molding place to even consider the order.

Heck, why not make a carbon fiber rail for all their 'guns? With screw inserts used with the aluminum versions and a metal insert for the z shaped milled out part for valve to lock into place, their carbon fiber material for the grip frames has proven insanely strong and could easily be used for the rail without issue.

Strong yes, cost effective for a rail, probably not. Even if the design was a direct copy of either the classic rail or the RT rail, you still have to have it made. Again, how many will it take to get the costs down to a relatively decent price? The problem of weight for the classic valve was not the rail, it was all the stainless steel that made up the valve. TK designed it so it can last 1000 years(or so the story goes), he didn't expect the next generation to have tiny Tyrannusaurus Rex arms...

I think the price I am estimating could be feasible given the RT ULE Pro without barrel and ASA is $481 currently. Deduct the price difference between the Intelliframe and the CF frame and deduct the front ASA and bike grip and I believe they could come in under $400 and still maintain a margin they can live with.

You are laboring u.der the impression that they have vast quanities of parts(least 1000+) available. I would love to be proven wrong on that, but even if they did. Look at what a $400 Ressurection gives you. A very nice barrel kit, a lever lock feedneck & a very nice ASA. Empire also has great customer service, more than a few people there to fix a problem gun; more than the 2 known people working at AGD now. A new or even updated gun is a vast undertaking, that requires capital to put into it. That capital needs to sit till you sell off enough guns to make a profit, which might take years.

I love mags, and i would love to see AGD come in and dominate the mech class. That will not happen without a huge miracle. Again, i would live to be proven wrong.

[BiNumber3]

Not sure where else there'd be weight savings really, aside from making all intelli-frames UL milled stock. The current bodies, rails, and valves are already pretty light. Only lighter bodies are probably XMT's carbon fiber ones. A carbon fiber rail would be interesting, but doubt it'd be a profitable endeavor (and it'd have to be pretty stylish looking, can't look like the CF Frames, which are awesome, but not exactly pretty).
With the Valves, we'll never realistically reach the limits of the RT/X valves with normal play, the only thing you might improve on is gas efficiency, or low pressure operation, which many have already tried I think.

Back on topic though, I've enjoyed all the micromags I've had, from gen3 to gen4. The E-micro's are too blocky for me. So far, aside from anodizing issues due to the steel ring, I've only had 1 micro cause issues (it was lacking the ring, and it wasn't a mm2k9).

They provided a different option for people back when they first came out, did they improve on things? Not particularly, though having a unified rail/body was quite nice, and having cocker threads.
Many of the things they incorporated were just creative answers to things. The VASA? Sure, it made the standard am/mm VASA's unusable on them, but it wouldn't have been pretty to try to make an am/mm VASA work on them. And if you wanted one, you could order it with one. I personally don't go swapping the VASA on and off my mags often.

Detent? It works and they rarely if ever needed to be replaced.
Changeable feed? Main reason for it was probably to make manufacturing easier on them, and still answer the needs of the many. Only 1 body design needed to be made, and if you wanted left or right feed, you just chose that feedneck. This probably was also affected by the detent design, how troublesome would it be to have to make a mirror image body just to cater to the people who wanted an opposite feed direction.

Different answers to the same problems, and different iterations of the ideas at the time. If we always condemn those who try different things, we'd never have gotten to where we are.

Oh, and style-wise... most guns were tubes stacked on tubes, or blocks.... the automag was described as a barrel with a gripframe lol. Styles and tastes change.

[JKR]

Look at what a $400 Ressurection gives you. A very nice barrel kit, a lever lock feedneck & a very nice ASA. Empire also has great customer service, more than a few people there to fix a problem gun; more than the 2 known people working at AGD now. A new or even updated gun is a vast undertaking, that requires capital to put into it. That capital needs to sit till you sell off enough guns to make a profit, which might take years.

Everywhere I see Resurrections, they are around $550 new.

[JKR]

You are laboring u.der the impression that they have vast quanities of parts(least 1000+) available. I would love to be proven wrong on that, but even if they did. Look at what a $400 Ressurection gives you. A very nice barrel kit, a lever lock feedneck & a very nice ASA. Empire also has great customer service, more than a few people there to fix a problem gun; more than the 2 known people working at AGD now. A new or even updated gun is a vast undertaking, that requires capital to put into it. That capital needs to sit till you sell off enough guns to make a profit, which might take years.

That is the beauty of coming up with a variant of the Automag using existing parts, no need to order or stock the common parts with their other models, just assemble to order. Again, I am unsure of the status of the CF frame and grips but for the sake of argument, lets be optimistic on availability to get started. If it took off, they might have incentive to order more.

But hey, this is all "pie in the sky" dreaming anyway...I don't work there!

[boo]

Ok, this thread went full retard a long time ago, but the scotch and sodas are bringing me back.
Nobody liked the CF frame. Sure, they could support the weight of Coker punks fastest car (Miata), they still felt like they were the same frame of a brass eagle stingray. The Dye frame sucked mostly because you can still to this day get the identical 32* knockoff. PTP modified the benchmarks for Mags, while not better then any agd frame by naming them you're just supporting why PTP was a decent aftermarket company. All the other frames mentioned were created by AGD fans on this site. While they were nice they were very small production runs.

The ule intelliframe is awesome. It is the best mass produced frame you can get for a mag. Damn right it's a good thing AGD is doing another run. The 2 people running the company know what they are doing more then anyone else here.

With that thinking, there is no reason to have fuel injection, when a carburetor can still work.
It's not a question of making it more complex, its a matter of making it easier to pull the trigger.

Remember when they tried to half ass retrofit fuel injection to carberated cars? It was called throttle body injection, it sucked dick, and was the reason that American cars were slower then European cars with half the cylinders in the 80’s. That's what emags are.

Think real hard and name me a current spool valve design that could be improved with a mag valve. When the Matrix progressed to reliability after a few generations the eMAG was made irrelevant.

Nope, that won't happen. AGD will want to keep it in house. And more importantly, Luke is just getting into the body making business, but XMT(unless i am mistaken) works with someone on the designs.

Cuz you know how AGD is running their business? You're the one claiming they are “making a comeback”. Do you have evidence they are coming out with a new body? I’m betting if I was a machnisht and I called up the 2 guys running AGD and said “I have a body so awesome it will move a thousand ule intelliframes and Xvalves” they would let me officially call it an AGD marker.

Wow, talk about myopic view on life. To me, other than shrinking the size,but not the footprint( you still need the valve to work with older designs), or making something new, that was drawn up years ago, but never released. AGD has done a lot that people never seen before, like the Zframe, 6pack, viable full face mask, HPA, reactive triggers, L10 bolt; so i can not see what else could be done. But i also have not been thinking about it, either.

Yes, Tom Kaye was a visionary, where is he now? Visionary enough to stay away from this idiocracy that makes up the current paintball industry.

A good aftermarket company puts out products that people want. PTP met a point where there was nothing there and never did anything more. You need to see what the players want and then figure out a solution to what they want. PE, Dye and Empire, did a few things that were ok, but never came back to make anything more. ANS did more and most of their products were crap. So no, i won't give PTP any more credit cause they don't deserve it. Its called not resting on your laurels. Hell, the 2K9 failed was 7 years ago... Come on, wake up

WTF are you talking about. Have you been living under a rock? Dye, PE, and Empire did a few things that were ok but nothing more? Uh, Dye Matrix, Ego, Geo, and Axe? Hell, Dye started out as an aftermaket company for the Matrix and ended up owning it.

PTP pushed the limits of what you could do with the aftermarket and did a decent job at it, until a bunch of Automag and Cocker fanboys convinced them they knew the market better and convinced them to release some **** products. PTPs biggest mistake was listening to you idiots (the paintball community at large) instead of making their own markers.

What is old seems to sell, in a new package. Look at the Sniper and Ressurection; cleaned up, updated, simplified, improved and they sell. Half the fight is telling people that AGD is still alive and you can buy them new still. Look at the viral marketing of what the L10 did. People where showing what the 1 biggest probem was with mags and it was magically fixed. Marketing is one of the biggest holes which a company can dump money in and not see a return. So a new body or anything new, as long as it looks good and functions how its supposed to. No complaints here...
A lot of us do, hence creation of a forum where we can all show what we mak3, how we build it and what we need.

AGD doesn’t have the money to market. Empire came out with the resurrection, they basically cloned the best of the best of the cocker platform, and they didn’t sell. All the hopeful happy cocker fanboys that clamed to know how to bring back the autococker to a new generation were wrong.

You're wrong about marketing. PE, Empire, and Dye are the only companies putting money in marketing and they sell a lot more markers then anyone else in the industry. I wish Bob Long would too, they used to, but he now thinks he doesn’t have to and it's hurting his company.

The fanboys spend money on vintage collector items and one off or limited run pieces, they don’t make the OEM any money, other then replacement parts. You want to sell to the fanboys? Do something exclusive, low production, expensive, and awesome. And, you'll break even or lose money so it's truly the ultimate show of fandom.

Sure, if AGD had the money they could field a few top level tournament teams. They could send manufacturing to China and turn a profit on paintball solely on marketing. That's how you make money in paintball these days.

I suggested to Sandman to do a new variant of the Automag that focuses on light weight, simplicity, and a lower cost to get them into the hands of the new generation of players.

My suggestion was a mix of parts they currently have...X-Valve (or Classic in aluminum if lower cost is possible), ULE body, L10 bolt, stock carbon fiber frame, rubber grips, and stock rail. Sold without barrel and without ASA unless requested.

It wouldn't be a super cheap 'gun but if they could aim for around $350-$400 retail, it might sell pretty well. I know my son is about ready for his first marker and this would be my choice for him.

It's cheaper to do the ule intelliframes at this point, why would they do a new run of the CF frames? Nobody wants them and, despite the advantages it feels cheap.

The $300-$500 is the worst market for paintball, very little margin and **** sales. The Axe is the only marker that does well in that segment for a damn good reason, it's an unbeatable value against the $1k+ markers. Why would you get a generic mag for the same price as an Axe when you could buy a Gog Enmy for so much less.

The Tippman Crossover is the marker you all claim is the holy grail (price point, valve, level x, electro with a mech fallback, etc.) and guess what? It's a total ****ing failure. Just proof that everyone here knows **** about what the market wants.

And the fact that PTP has sold as many markers as they did is proof that back in the day they did know the market.

Arguing AGD vs. PTP in today's market is like calling the bookie to place bets on the special Olympics. Perhaps a better analogy would be to pit Joe Thiesman vs. Muhamid Ali in a triatholon. Just stop.

[Nobody]

Everywhere I see Resurrections, they are around $550 new.

Sorry, i got a deal on mine

I must know the right people

[Nobody]

Ok, this thread went full retard a long time ago, but the scotch and sodas are bringing me back.

Nobody liked the CF frame. Sure, they could support the weight of Coker punks fastest car (Miata), they still felt like they were the same frame of a brass eagle stingray. The Dye frame sucked mostly because you can still to this day get the identical 32* knockoff. PTP modified the benchmarks for Mags, while not better then any agd frame by naming them you're just supporting why PTP was a decent aftermarket company. All the other frames mentioned were created by AGD fans on this site. While they were nice they were very small production runs.

The ule intelliframe is awesome. It is the best mass produced frame you can get for a mag. Damn right it's a good thing AGD is doing another run. The 2 people running the company know what they are doing more then anyone else here.

The design is 16 years old or so. Technology has progressed, board capabilities have shrunk the size. Look at what people are doing with Ego-mags. An update from AGD would be fantasic. Is there a chance? I don't know. I can only truly guess what AGD could be doing.

Think real hard and name me a current spool valve design that could be improved with a mag valve. When the Matrix progressed to reliability after a few generations the eMAG was made irrelevant.

I don't know. But consider that the valve doesn't need to be improved. It could be messaged by trying to garner better efficiency. Again, i don't know what if anything AGD has in store. I can only hope it will sell.

Nope, no clue. I can guess at what they won't be doing. Like i said, i wish to be proven wrong.

I am only going off what i have read here when word got out that Dave was sick and unable to work the shop & Sandman had chimed in on the possibilities of new products. A newer body would be great. Refreshing the rail or overall looks would be fantastic. I could plug my sources for info but i doubt they will give me any info that i could share.

Yes, Tom Kaye was a visionary, where is he now? Visionary enough to stay away from this idiocracy that makes up the current paintball industry.

TK was a designer, an engineer. Damn good one at that. How many people can say they came up with a new design, instead of a change on what is there? He left paintball for a plethora of reasons. Hell, i think digging up dinosaurs or tracking DB Cooper proved to be a better challenge. If he partnered with someone, who knows what could have been done with TK building the machines and the face doing what faces do?

WTF are you talking about. Have you been living under a rock? Dye, PE, and Empire did a few things that were ok but nothing more? Uh, Dye Matrix, Ego, Geo, and Axe? Hell, Dye started out as an aftermaket company for the Matrix and ended up owning it.

I was referring more to the products directly related to AGD and mags, than their own products as a whole. Also, Dye bought the Matrix, they didn't develop it. PE to a point, got tired of making cosmetic changes(for the most part) to other people's products and saw that the profit was more in making a gun from the ground up.

PTP pushed the limits of what you could do with the aftermarket and did a decent job at it, until a bunch of Automag and Cocker fanboys convinced them they knew the market better and convinced them to release some **** products. PTPs biggest mistake was listening to you idiots (the paintball community at large) instead of making their own markers.

Lol... So PTP wasn't to blame, but the people asking for a new product? They didn't hear of quality control or product testing? So listening to what the people ask for, who in turn gave them money for them, and PTP is not to blame for producing a design(which i actually like) that did not work? That is like Ford blaming the people buying cars for the Edsel's demise(yes, other factors were at fault to).

Actually no. I know who brought the cocker back. I even held the gun that it was modeled off of. 1 man saw that cockers were fun shooters and since the company he worked for held the rights to it, he decided to do a "trilogy" of sorts. Pump, mech then an electro version. He got 2 of the 3 out, hut was shot down on the electro version.

1 man saw that there could be a market for it and guess what, he was right. The cocker people have a huge base. Cockers are just fun to shoot. The resurrection also sells. Go to any field, you will see them out there.

The best marketing tbat you can get are people going to the field with mags and showing them what tbey can do. How did the Axe get to be everywhere? Was it a good gun, or the fact that when you got to shoot it, it did everytbing that you want in a gun and more?

So how is that any different than people spending money on Jungle nights anno'd Micromag? Don't throw stones in glass houses. You are not supporting PTP directly.

The tournament scene is barely hanging on by a thread. To sponsor a team rigt now is stupid. You have no electronic gun. The pump scene is nearly west coast only & is there any mech leagues? Not to mention the fact that, there are rules against the one big reason to get a Mag(RT trigger/RT effect).

You want to make money in paintball. Have a design for a part/gun that people want to buy and they buy it. Finding what it is, well that is the problem.

It's cheaper to do the ule intelliframes at this point, why would they do a new run of the CF frames? Nobody wants them and, despite the advantages it feels cheap.

Not that no one wants them, but they are easily found on the used market. So no need to make more of them.

The $300-$500 is the worst market for paintball, very little margin and **** sales. The Axe is the only marker that does well in that segment for a damn good reason, it's an unbeatable value against the $1k+ markers. Why would you get a generic mag for the same price as an Axe when you could buy a Gog Enmy for so much less.

The Tippman Crossover is the marker you all claim is the holy grail (price point, valve, level x, electro with a mech fallback, etc.) and guess what? It's a total ****ing failure. Just proof that everyone here knows **** about what the market wants.

Yes, the mid range gun market is horrendous. Go to high, no one wants it. Go to low and people think its too cheap.

And the fact that PTP has sold as many markers as they did is proof that back in the day they did know the market.

Arguing AGD vs. PTP in today's market is like calling the bookie to place bets on the special Olympics. Perhaps a better analogy would be to pit Joe Thiesman vs. Muhamid Ali in a triatholon. Just stop.

When you monopolize on the 1 serious drawback of mags(the twistlock barrel), so that people can keep 1 barrel threading to bring to the field. Why do you think just about every gun out there came with cocker threading, other than Spyders, Angels, ICD, Tippmann and SP. That was the main reason to get a MicroMag. Do not think otherwise.

This is fun. I do enjoy this, though i think you don't find this as engrossing as i do. Please, continue in this thread.

[boo]

I'm really not trying to defend PTP 2016, I'm defending PTP 2000. I'm also mainly saying that other then having been the only company in paintball to maintain a good reputation AGD is in the exact same place in 2016 as PTP is.

AGD stopped being innovative when Tom Kaye left. While he wasn't the only visionary he was probably the most business minded. He saw that they had reached the full potential of high end mech markers.

People were buying electros for no other reason then throwing marketing money at tournaments to get rules bent to give them advantages. Because during the end of the AGD era until now tournament paintball sells markers in the high end segment.

You don't think if AGD had shown up with dollars in their twilight they could've gotten rules bent for them like in their heyday (it always took at least a season to get TK's technical advancements banned, sometimes longer). You don't think Tom couldn't of come up with an electro to get around the smart parts and matrix patent, or do it better and pay licensing? It just got to the point of diminishing returns and industry drama where the tournament scene was everything.

They rode on their success and innovations from years earlier and got phased out. It would've been a huge gamble to come up with a new electro design (that based on the industry trends had a high rate of failure).

[cockerpunk]

the main problem with revamping the mag and selling new ones, is not competition from other guns, electros etc.

its used automags. they are plentiful, and cheap. and since they are modular they can easily be upgraded to the modern spec.

[boo]

the main problem with revamping the mag and selling new ones, is not competition from other guns, electros etc.

its used automags. they are plentiful, and cheap. and since they are modular they can easily be upgraded to the modern spec.

And we're all forgetting, you can buy a new Automag from AGD in the $500 range. And all the "experts" that claim they know what's best for AGD aren't buying them.

AGD never stopped selling the ULE Xmag, you guys just stopped buying them. Why? see above...


So if AGD wanted to make a comeback with a new marker it would have to be high end and low production. This is a huge risk. A basement air smith can disappear if something goes wrong. AGD risks losing their reputation, and you can bet this community would pillory AGD if it wasn't perfect. All risk, no reward.

I'm not absolving PTP of their 2k9 micromag, I'm just pointing out that it serves as a damn good reason AGD should not release a new marker. AGD is on similar skeleton staffing (part time job for 2 people) as PTP when they released the 2k9. It's not enough to design and qa a new platform that's not just a remilling of an old design.

[BiNumber3]

With the mm2k9, wasn't the biggest issue just the lack of the steel spring cup? were there other issues as well?
(For the spring cup, they thought the aircraft grade aluminum would hold up without issue, did anyone suggest to use the steel cup anyway, during the design phase? Or rather, was it PTP themselves who decided to forgo the steel cup or was that a member suggestion?)

I mean, if they had included the steel spring cup in the first place with the mm2k9, would there have been any complaints at all?

[Spider-TW]

With the mm2k9, wasn't the biggest issue just the lack of the steel spring cup? were there other issues as well?
(For the spring cup, they thought the aircraft grade aluminum would hold up without issue, did anyone suggest to use the steel cup anyway, during the design phase? Or rather, was it PTP themselves who decided to forgo the steel cup or was that a member suggestion?)

I mean, if they had included the steel spring cup in the first place with the mm2k9, would there have been any complaints at all?

Here's an interesting look at the 7000 series aluminum and the washer/cup business....

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?239725-7075-Aluminum-integrity-(a-micromag-2009-discussion)

There were other issues as mentioned above. The whole thing was an epic thread. You've got to give credit to ZoomZ@PTP for grinding through it all.

http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?239114-Introducing-the-Micromag-2009

tldr; stay off 7075 aluminum for paintball.

I think TK has said something similar.