BE Evo2

[demonguy8]

Heres my thoughts...

I got an eggo2.. I love how it sits back.. feels like i can get that much closer to a bunker when things get tight (being a front player and all thats important to me, even if it is just in my head )
As far as feeding... I cant comment cuz my gun has a bouncing problem that needs fixing (hopefully itll be back b4 college nationals on 4-12)

getting to the point, heres my take on things aslearned in economics

Brass eagle MAKES their revvie shells brittle because people think at the margin.

What that means is that brass eagles shells are most likely cheaper to produce with lower quality shells.. they charge the same price for them in stores regardless, so what happens? they make a small amount of extra money per shell sold. BE is basically the BIG business of paintball, so those little extra bits of cash can add up FAST and become thousands of dollars a year (if not more).
BUT WAIT THERES YET ANOTHER BONUS TO BE PROFITS!! See the buyers of the products ALSO think at margin... So when your cheap revvie shell breaks, you look out and try and decide between a $2 shell to replace the one you broke,, OR buying a new $50-100 loader... For obvious reasons MOST people will pick the new shells Thus ADDING even more cash to BE's pocket...

This is the SAME thing Firestone was doing with their tires a while back.. Cheaper tire = more profits on each sale.. and more profits from replacement sales...The only reason they stopped, was that their tires started killing people and the cost of lawsuits/busness lost from bad PR was costing MORE than the profit made from the tires being cheap

Its business people, its about making money....

[Evil Bob]

Originally posted by Kevmaster

VL had made a couple hundred thousand loaders on the old molds. They were worn. BE replaced the molds to get everything back down to spec. Everyone throws a hissy fit, BE says fine, we'll help you and we'll go back up to where they were before. In regrads to the plastic shells of the newer X-Board revvies (the Pre-XBoard revvies but after BE bought it were IDENTICAL to the shells on the Pre BE revvies--that is a fact. Claim they didnt work as well if you like, but it is a fact), their first production batch of plastic was faulty. It was surprisingly brittle when they went to make them. By the time they realized this (they had done the testing on the new plastic that was good) tens of thousands are out there. BE WILL REPLACE ANY LOADER THAT HAS BROKEN. If it breaks, they will replace it. Why do they not call them back and give everyone new ones? Because its not a saftey issue (see below). If a loader breaks in a game....oh well...you're out.

Unfortunately, I didn't hold on to my broken loaders, or else I would have traded them in today, no sense on holding onto broken product for 3+ years in the hopes that they will one day offer you a replacement even after they said you were SOL. The time the first one broke, I had owned it for 4 1/2 months. I contacted BE and was told they were out of warranty and couldn't do anything about it, but they would be more then happy to sell me some shells, which would have cost me more then half the price of a new loader, I chucked it and bought a second one hoping that it was a fluke, had that one for 6 months, same thing happened during a bunker exchange (I hit the other dude in the googles, he shot my hopper, ball went through both shells). Called BE. "Sorry sir, it's out of warranty, we can sell you some shells if you wish." "No thanks, I'll take my business elsewhere." I wrote off BE after that. The whole fiasco with their aquisition of JT and the Proteus problems only added more fuel to the fire of my negative experience with BE. Then the EggoII came out, I said "what the heck, I'll give them another shot", especially since I was looking to not have to melt my hopper to get the warp hose to fit properly. Bought one, thought it was ok, it was definitely faster then my 12v revvy, but I still found myself outshooting it and chopping. I broke the feed trap door, they replaced it, broke it again, got it replaced, then the replacement had a fautly speed control button, I had had enough and completely wrote them off for good.

It wasnt till a year and a half till they noticed it. as stated before, they will repalce the shell with anew superior one if you call them. All it takes is a phone and BE's number is a 1-800! FREE!

Yes, they will do it now, but that wasn't an option when I originally had the problem, they were more then happy to sell me new shells for $50. Considering a whole new hopper cost $70, I'd rather have bought a new one and saved the hastle of having to swap parts. I was basicly told by their customer service that I was SOL since the product was out of warranty.

How often do car manufacturer's recall something? Quite often. I've had 3 recalls on my NEW PRODUCT. when a new product comes out, they dont catch EVERY glitch before its released. They catch some afterwards and they then say...oh, since its our fault, we'll replace that part for free. BE even replaced the whole thing!

I've yet to see a car manufacturer recall the car's entire body, usually it's a small part like the engine mounting bolts or a component in the suspension system. Comparing a VL or an EggoII to a car is a bit exreme... how many parts are there on the VL series loader? How long does it take to properly stress test 2 plastic shells, a switch, a circuit board, a servo and paddle vs 4 thousand different parts on a car? Sorry, not buying this explaination considering the extreme difference in complexity. You yourself know enough about a loader to do some stress testing on it, it aint rocket science. Mount it on a marker, shoot it from point blank, apply pressure at right angles to see at what point the feed neck breaks at, etc. Nothing anywhere near the complexity of the type of testing a car goes through. Let some bunker monkeys play with it for a weekend and see how it holds up. "Uh...whoa dude, it like, uh.. broke, wicked eh?"

I had my 10 year old think up 10 things he would do to test a paintball loader. It took him all of 15 minutes tonight at the dinner table to come up with the following list:

1 ) Shoot at it lots to see if it gets hurt
2 ) Drop it on the floor to see if it breaks
3 ) Take it off and put in on lots of times to see if it gets hurt
4 ) Put paint in it and run it alot to see if you can hurt the electric spin thing
5 ) Put some broken paint in it to see if it works when it is yucky inside
6 ) Put water on it to see if it keeps working when it rains
7 ) Shoot it from real close to see if it gets hurt
8 ) Give it to my baby brother, he breaks everything he touches
9 ) Give it to the home improvement guy Tim who breaks everything trying to make it better
10 ) Take it apart and put it together lots to see if it gets hurt

You'd think a guy with formal education (one would hope an engineering degree of some sort) and basic knowledge of physics and manufacturing (and one would expect experience in quality control) could do better quality assurance testing then a 10 year old. Then again, I've worked for companies who use their customers for beta testing to cut corners (which is sheer stupidity in the high tech industry) and they wonder why no one wants to buy their stuff... duh...

A US District Court in Greenville, SC found that there was sufficient reason for a case to be brought to trial. They have these things so that companies cant create frivilous lawsuits against other companies. Before the Ody lawyer gets to say anything, the court hears evidence from BE as to how the Ody product infringes on their product. If the court says its bogus, things end there. If the court allows it, things move on and we have a case. Even besides this, if Ody's case was stacked and BE's was missing, why would they have settled and PAID BE MONEY? If they knew they were going to win, then why settle?

As the public explaination was given, they settled out of court to save legal fees, which would have been extremely costly had the case been drug out over the space of a few years, which is typical for pantent infringement litigation. BE, with it's superior financial resources, could have easily kept Odyssey's legal team bogged down in red tape and delays for years, find the right judge and force them to halt production until the case can be settled and you just sealed the fate of Odyssey. They also settled out so they could continue operating. It was a logical and easy way out of a pontentialy long and costly court case, regardless of who was right or wrong. They saw an easy way out and took it for the simple fact that it saved them both time and money and allowed them to continue manufacturing their product. Thye could have easily pursued it at the expense of their company and customers just because they were right.

As we all know full well, no settlement sums have been publicly announced, the pay off could have easily been several million (which is highly doubtful considering Odyssey is a very small operation) or as low as 1 penny. I'm betting it was a very small sum that was paid, considering BE comes out looking like the winner since Odyssey bellied up and settled out of court on the case against them, putting the shadow of guilt over them. When faced with extinction by legal fees and halting operation until the case is settled (1 to 2 years down the road) which would have spelled the death of the company or settling out of court up front (a few weeks instead of years) and continuing with operation, which would you choose? You don't need a PHD in economics to chose the smaller $ figure. What they did makes complete sense.

What laws has Brass Eagle broken? Shady buisness? So now its illegal to sell a paintball marker at wal-mart for less money than your marker and when joe newbie neglects it, BE is unwilling to replace it....thats shady? Oh, even if that is shady, thats not illegal. I have yet to see anythign BE has done to be illegal....

I didn't claim they did anything illegal, I just said they want to be like the two big giants and buy everything around them. They already cut corners with inferior production and poor quality assurance, just like M$ and AOL. Yes, lets get the margins up by using cheaper materials, buyer be damned, we want to make money! We're already known for making some of the crappiest markers around, why stop there? We can expand our crappiness into whole new directions...

Well I'm sorry man. You've heard tons of people here praise them. I've sold about 6-8 and they have worked flawlessly.

Tons being defined as a few dozen, I've heard the same number on here who dislike them for one reason or another. That's humanity for you, some people like it, some people don't, 90% of the time it's preference (I don't like how it looks), 10% of the time performance (it doesn't keep up or it broke). Unfortunatley in my case, it's been flawed product and poor support, that's what I get for being an early adopter. Granted their customer support is a heck of alot better today then it was 3-4 years ago, it's still subpar in my book. I've been spoiled by AGD.

by the way, i thank you for your rational thought and intellectual debate. I enjoy this. Too many people walk in with a "BE Sucks" and then walk out. I applaude you for that

Thanks, I appreciate the compliment. I'm 37 and I consider myself a bit above that level of immaturity even if my wife accusses me otherwise I'm willing to give everyone and everything a fair shake, unfortunately I've had a continuous string of problems with BE and their product line, something I don't wish to perpetuate any further.

-Evil Bob

[-=Squid=-]

OK, here is my take on the crappy BE revvies. The new ones are junk. What was wrong with the old ones? I had 3 andthey all had perfect feed necks, they were split down the middle so they would easily slide onto any neck, and maake a snug fit. The plastic was nice and flexible as well. The comes BE. They made shoddy necks, requiring tape or sanding (unlike the old revvies) claiming the old molds were junk. However, the new ones were crap. Day 1. Person at field buys one at start of day, he has to tape it to fit his dragun, then it brakes (the neck) after two games...utter crap, and this goes on for a while. Now BE claims they have "better" ones. Well, somebody buys a new one last week, didnt last a day. The eye was broken and the neck snapped. Sorry, but the revs can eat some anus...they are junk. I will never move from odyssey.

[Kevmaster]

I'll be on tomorrow to talk...Im sleeping now....

But quickly, squid, the CURRENTLY Made VL hoppers are as strong as they ever were. In fact hte new shell is stronger than the old pre-BE shell. If you got one made yesterday, you would be greatly impressed

[-=Squid=-]

Originally posted by Kevmaster
I'll be on tomorrow to talk...Im sleeping now....

But quickly, squid, the CURRENTLY Made VL hoppers are as strong as they ever were. In fact hte new shell is stronger than the old pre-BE shell. If you got one made yesterday, you would be greatly impressed

I find that VERY hard to belive...the guy bought one last weekend.

[Kevmaster]

guy bought one last weekend....made 2 days ago? 2 months ago? 2 years ago? I'm guessing its 6-18 months old

[-=Squid=-]

Originally posted by Kevmaster
guy bought one last weekend....made 2 days ago? 2 months ago? 2 years ago? I'm guessing its 6-18 months old

It couldnt have been to old, because we have a very small store that orders stuff only when its already sold. The weekend before was when it was ordered, so a couple of weeka ago. Either way, I really doubt they have changed. Do YOU have one from 2 days ago?

[Kevmaster]

first, I had one to test that was about 10 days old when i got it...in the NEWEST batch of revvies...damn nice....drop test....tried to crack the feedneck...worked fine for me...so yes, basically, i had a two day old one

second, if he bought it from NPS or Pi or any other distributor, including BE, yesterday it doesnt mean it was made within the past 6 months....


ok...now back tot he fun

Unfortunately, I didn't hold on to my broken loaders, or else I would have traded them in today, no sense on holding onto broken product for 3+ years in the hopes that they will one day offer you a replacement even after they said you were SOL. The time the first one broke, I had owned it for 4 1/2 months. I contacted BE and was told they were out of warranty and couldn't do anything about it, but they would be more then happy to sell me some shells, which would have cost me more then half the price of a new loader, I chucked it and bought a second one hoping that it was a fluke, had that one for 6 months, same thing happened during a bunker exchange (I hit the other dude in the googles, he shot my hopper, ball went through both shells). Called BE. "Sorry sir, it's out of warranty, we can sell you some shells if you wish." "No thanks, I'll take my business elsewhere." I wrote off BE after that. The whole fiasco with their aquisition of JT and the Proteus problems only added more fuel to the fire of my negative experience with BE. Then the EggoII came out, I said "what the heck, I'll give them another shot", especially since I was looking to not have to melt my hopper to get the warp hose to fit properly. Bought one, thought it was ok, it was definitely faster then my 12v revvy, but I still found myself outshooting it and chopping. I broke the feed trap door, they replaced it, broke it again, got it replaced, then the replacement had a fautly speed control button, I had had enough and completely wrote them off for good.

BE has only owned VL for 4 years...The revvies you are talking about came out at the 2001 IAO...so they havnt been out for three years. I dont know what date you are talking about, but please try and get a better time line.

As for the out of warranty...thats life. You buy a product with a stated 90 day warranty (its not as if they advertise 1 year) and then expect them to service it for free after that time? Thats not really logical. Besides, new shells cost $10.00 MSRP (for both halves black) or $15.00 MSRP (for both colored) plus ~$8-10 SH....sounds like a better alternative to buying a $60 hopper

As for the eggo not feeding fast enough...you were using it on a warp...maybe look into the warp feed? doesnt seem like a Eggo problem

Yes, they will do it now, but that wasn't an option when I originally had the problem, they were more then happy to sell me new shells for $50. Considering a whole new hopper cost $70, I'd rather have bought a new one and saved the hastle of having to swap parts. I was basicly told by their customer service that I was SOL since the product was out of warranty.

again, maybe $25 MAX on MSRP (what BE sells things for)....not $50.00

I've yet to see a car manufacturer recall the car's entire body, usually it's a small part like the engine mounting bolts or a component in the suspension system. Comparing a VL or an EggoII to a car is a bit exreme... how many parts are there on the VL series loader? How long does it take to properly stress test 2 plastic shells, a switch, a circuit board, a servo and paddle vs 4 thousand different parts on a car? Sorry, not buying this explaination considering the extreme difference in complexity. You yourself know enough about a loader to do some stress testing on it, it aint rocket science. Mount it on a marker, shoot it from point blank, apply pressure at right angles to see at what point the feed neck breaks at, etc. Nothing anywhere near the complexity of the type of testing a car goes through. Let some bunker monkeys play with it for a weekend and see how it holds up. "Uh...whoa dude, it like, uh.. broke, wicked eh?"
I had my 10 year old think up 10 things he would do to test a paintball loader. It took him all of 15 minutes tonight at the dinner table to come up with the following list:

1 ) Shoot at it lots to see if it gets hurt
2 ) Drop it on the floor to see if it breaks
3 ) Take it off and put in on lots of times to see if it gets hurt
4 ) Put paint in it and run it alot to see if you can hurt the electric spin thing
5 ) Put some broken paint in it to see if it works when it is yucky inside
6 ) Put water on it to see if it keeps working when it rains
7 ) Shoot it from real close to see if it gets hurt
8 ) Give it to my baby brother, he breaks everything he touches
9 ) Give it to the home improvement guy Tim who breaks everything trying to make it better
10 ) Take it apart and put it together lots to see if it gets hurt

You'd think a guy with formal education (one would hope an engineering degree of some sort) and basic knowledge of physics and manufacturing (and one would expect experience in quality control) could do better quality assurance testing then a 10 year old. Then again, I've worked for companies who use their customers for beta testing to cut corners (which is sheer stupidity in the high tech industry) and they wonder why no one wants to buy their stuff... duh...

when there are 8-10 parts of a product and they find there is a problem, the reputable thing to do is recall it. MOST NEW PRODUCTS experience changes their first year. When its an issue regarding saftey, the ONLY thing to do is quickly get the products off the shelves and offer new ones. Thats what BE did.

I guess I wasnt clear enough with the process the VL Revvie went through:
1) BE developed a new shell plastic type. It is stronger and will last longer.
2) BE ordered a small amount to test and make some protos
3) BE tested those protos for a couple of months (including methods #1,2,4,6,7 as noted above). They sorta did #8,9 by giving them to fields to put on rentals. Newbies have an uncanny ability to break things similar to your son and Tim Allen. BE owns a machine that drops markers at specified heights. I've seen pics of their R&D room. Its quite amazing.
4) it passed
5) BE ordered a mass shipment of this plastic to release at the 2k1 IAO
6) BE releases it to the public
7) BE gets too many calls about broken shells
8) BE finds out that this latest shipment of plastic is faulty.
9) current production is stopped and anyone who calls in and tells them their new revvie body is broken, they will send a new body to them.
10) BE recieves a new shipemnt of the plastic and rebegins production
11) there have been no complaints (not enough to matter) since that change.

I hope that process is clearer than my words.

As the public explaination was given, they settled out of court to save legal fees, which would have been extremely costly had the case been drug out over the space of a few years, which is typical for pantent infringement litigation. BE, with it's superior financial resources, could have easily kept Odyssey's legal team bogged down in red tape and delays for years, find the right judge and force them to halt production until the case can be settled and you just sealed the fate of Odyssey. They also settled out so they could continue operating. It was a logical and easy way out of a pontentialy long and costly court case, regardless of who was right or wrong. They saw an easy way out and took it for the simple fact that it saved them both time and money and allowed them to continue manufacturing their product. Thye could have easily pursued it at the expense of their company and customers just because they were right.
As we all know full well, no settlement sums have been publicly announced, the pay off could have easily been several million (which is highly doubtful considering Odyssey is a very small operation) or as low as 1 penny. I'm betting it was a very small sum that was paid, considering BE comes out looking like the winner since Odyssey bellied up and settled out of court on the case against them, putting the shadow of guilt over them. When faced with extinction by legal fees and halting operation until the case is settled (1 to 2 years down the road) which would have spelled the death of the company or settling out of court up front (a few weeks instead of years) and continuing with operation, which would you choose? You don't need a PHD in economics to chose the smaller $ figure. What they did makes complete sense

Thats all good AND TRUE....but irrelevant. my point was that BE DID NOT file a frivilous law suit. There was sufficient reason to file that lawsuit according to the US District Court in Greenville, SC (not coincidentally the home of Paintball Inc).

didn't claim they did anything illegal, I just said they want to be like the two big giants and buy everything around them. They already cut corners with inferior production and poor quality assurance, just like M$ and AOL. Yes, lets get the margins up by using cheaper materials, buyer be damned, we want to make money! We're already known for making some of the crappiest markers around, why stop there? We can expand our crappiness into whole new directions...

So why compare them to Microsoft and AOL and imply that they have done illegal actons when they have not?

Tons being defined as a few dozen, I've heard the same number on here who dislike them for one reason or another. That's humanity for you, some people like it, some people don't, 90% of the time it's preference (I don't like how it looks), 10% of the time performance (it doesn't keep up or it broke). Unfortunatley in my case, it's been flawed product and poor support, that's what I get for being an early adopter. Granted their customer support is a heck of alot better today then it was 3-4 years ago, it's still subpar in my book. I've been spoiled by AGD.

Not every company is AGD...if BE had the warranty support of AGD, they would need the state of Rhode Island to make a facility....In fact, shipping both ways about equals the cost of a new Talon or Blade at Wal-Mart

[Evil Bob]

I lived in England between 1999 and 2001 and was shooting an automag RT and a pair of angels. The VL's that I had a problem with were purchased in feb 2000 when I returned to the US for a corporate meeting. I stopped in at I&I sports and bought a new VL2000, brought it back to the UK. Refer to previous post for the breakage history. After the encountered problems with the new and improved VL, I went back to using the Pre-BE revy I had instead of the more fragile *new* product. I still have the pre-BE hoppers (2) and they work flawlessly, they're beat up and scratched, but they still perform, unfortunately they can't keep up with my rate of fire, which is why I wanted to migrate to the newer versions which did have a higher feed rate. And yes, in june of 2000, the cost to get 2 new shells shipped to england with the shipping and custom charges, it would have been alot cheaper to just buy a whole new loader at the local store, even with the 17.5% value added tax on top of the MSRP price tag. The shells were $19.99 a side when I called in 2000. Since both sides were damaged, I had to replace both, add to that the above import charges and shipping, it made more sense to buy a whole new hopper.

I have run the eggoII both on and off of the warp. The problems I encounter with it is the initial starting gap delay since it is not an positive feed system, it waits until there is a gap before it starts feeding. Gaps suck when you're trying to shoot a runner and you only have a second or two target exposure time. This is where I have major issues with how the eggo performs, I want a round out with every trigger pull, and it doesn't do that for me, the HALO does. When I see a runner and take bead on him, I expect my setup to work flawlessly, the last thing I want to hear is "pfsst, pfsst, pfsst" from the installed lvl 10, which is what I get in the first 10 round string from the eggo. Once it's up to speed and I'm firing constantly, it keeps up nicely, it's the initial gap detection delay I have problems with. For rec play, the eggoII is more then sufficient, but for tourney play where your team making it to the final 4 or not depends upon hitting the guy you're aiming at when you pull the trigger, I'll go with the product that doesn't limit my performance every time, the same reason I play with an Emag and not a spyder, I want the products I play with to be able to keep up with how I play, and the eggo just doesn't do that for me.

-Evil Bob

[Daroy99]

My Pre-Be Rev still works fine, and the person that sold it too me had even sanded down the feedneck to very thin, and it still works fine. Daroach's egg works fine for him........laying a stream of paint off of his xmag.

[manike]

My Pre BE Rev from 5 years ago still works fine and is my back up/loaner for whenever needed. My new rev has a broken neck on both shells. The material they are made of now appears to be very different.

My Evo 2 stopped spinning properly the day I got it, and I can't get it teched over here . My halo A broke paint and overfed, my halo B is awesome and works great on all of my guns.

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