Nova

[Schnitzel]

whatever happened to it? company go under? I have an APG mag with it on the front cover...april '99. man, i guess it is an old marker.

[Fred]

Airstar built it.

It came out in the spring of 1999, never really caught on. One of my friends has one. Its pretty nifty, runs at ULTRA low pressure, loves CO2, great winter marker. The barrel moves to load a ball into the chamber.

It has something like 3 moving parts in it.

It shoots pretty fast as well.

there was another version, the Super Nova, which came out later, and was available with an electric trigger.

Airstar went under, and someone else bought the design. You can get the new ones now too, but the new name slips my mind.

---Fred

[BTAutoMag]

my dealer told me never to buy one

[HoppysMag]

the mayhem is a nova isnt it.... thats the new name right?

[blackmag3]

i thought the nova became the darkstar after it was bought out. not sure and never seen one.

[thei3ug]

darkstar is making the same design, with cocker barrels.

I believe there's one other company doing nova clones.

the mayhem is a mod of the design by one of the creators of the nova. He also has an electro cocker coming out.

Although it wasn't the first "boltless" marker, the nova was the first to use a spool valve. wonderful trigger, wonderful design. but people didn't like how it looked and they had a manufacturing problem halfway through that killed their market share. and lawsuits. lots of internal lawsuits.

[HoppysMag]

alas i believe you are right...

http://links.paintballcity.com/Detailed/2185.php

[nilloc 93]

the mayhem is a nova isnt it.... thats the new name right?

Ayup, Airstar was bought out by Mayhem, although they've apparently gone to their own design.

[spliff]

A company called section 8 - http://www.splatmaxx.com/S8_AsylumMain.html is now producing the Darkstar, based off the novas design. PGI based a marker called the Mayhem off of the Nova, PGI is the company that also makes the Firestorm Electro-Cocker. That is about all i know. Another more popular gun is based of the spool valve design, and i am sure you all know it, it is the Diablo Matrix. It is a great design, utilizing a bolt that is the only moving part. The bolt moves at such a low pressure, that it stops on paint. The gun is also very fast, capable of firing 20+ BPS.

[Tack]

When my field got a couple of Nova's I tried one out on the field. Didn't know at the time that they were more efficient on CO2. I stuck my CA tank on it and played half a game before it was sucked dry.

Problem #2 I found with them is that if you have a oblong ball, or one that is too big for the barrel you will chop the ball because of the way the barrel comes back into the breach to pick up the ball.

Problem #3 When you chop a ball you have to degas the gun to clean the barrel out unless you use a straight shot. This really sucks when you are in the middle of the game.


It overall was a good gun for the price and I liked the way it shot except for those things.

[Vegeta]

AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the Nova- my favorite gun to make gun of. Beautiful deisign... yes. But that wasn't the reason it went under. The conpany that manufactured teh gun for Airstar .. or it mgiht have been a few key designers at Airstar... were idiots. See the Nova used a special lock in style valve mecahnism liek the Mag- the back half of it was inserted into the back of the gun, and turned to lock it in place. Then heres where the problem arose- People did not liek hte sight rail and would take it off. Well the sight rail set screw was the ONLY screw besides the twist lock that kept the valve in.. and no one seemed to realize this!!!!! Now it wasn't a big reported problem- but supposedly someone was playing with one adn hte back half of hte valve shot out and hit him.. etc etc.. and the company went under... really sad actually.




LMAO- now you see why I like to make fun of it...

(slides in bunker) (twists valve) (pullls trigger) (BOOM! PING! CHIK!) (OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!)

[BTAutoMag]

ive shot the bolt out of a cocker before

[MajorDamage]

According to Airstar's website the company went under when a company making one of the parts sent them faulty parts and the new guns were messed up. This slip caused Airstar to go bankrupt trying to fix it. They said on their website that they were trying to fix the guns before they dissapeared or whatever...I checked out their website like a year ago, and I believe this is what it said.

ENDO!

[blackmag3]

does any other company use the moving barrel idea? i always thought that was odd.

[Havoc_online]

I hate the Nova and its design, I played with it a few times and the barrel would fly off if you fired too fast or if your hand was on the barrel which was hard not to do since there was no foregrip.