Ok so i bought an Alias. After much thought and playing with other people's guns i've decide to settle on an Alias. Basic reasons: they are common, easy to fix, easy to shoot, balances well and nice upgrade paths...ubiquitous essentially.
The gun comes in a black box. Along with it, a 12" Assasins .689 barrel (made by CP as i understand) and some lame zeroxed instruction manual for a 2k2 itimidator, a cheat sheet of for the frenzy 127.4 board, some stickers and NO WARANTY CARD. Granted, you can download the latest and comprehensive version of the Alias manual online but, come on...this far along in in their line of guns and no printed manual?
Build quality:
I looked at the anno and milling. Everything looked flawless. There were no visible tool marks on the exterior of the gun, no rough burrs, nicks or blemishes. Granted the milling on you typical Alias is not very complex. The black to red fade was very nice. The gradient was smooth and gradual. This is consisten with most Timmies i've seen, so it was no surprise. A battery was included with the gun.
After removing the less than mediocre grip panels, i accesed the grip frame. As expected the interior of the clamshell frame was a bit of mess. Everything was crammed in there and tucked away with little consideration for the path of the hoses and wiring. Despite the mess, the hoses did not interfere with the fuction of the gun. As i understand it, some folks experience a little bit of drag on the trigger return due to the hoses rubbing the trigger. I did not experience this, although this may become an issue when installing a new trigger.
The wiring was a minor consideration. They are thin, so be carefull when accesing or manipulating them. A little Heat shrink would been a nice touch but, that would be too much work for them.
The trigger guard on the gun was a little loose. As i tried to aleviate this by tightening the mounting screws. I then realized the screws were to long as they were already snug in their pilot holes. Maybe by this was done by design, im not really sure. But once the gripframe cover was back on the rattle and looseness nearly dissapeared. I guess i'll have to find some shims.
Overall, decent build quaillty. Although for a gun like this i expected more.
Next, i checked the regs. I opened up the HPR, sure enough there is grease where there should of been. I repeated the process with the LPR and the ram. All greased up and ready to go.
I installad the macro line kit and attached my 68/45k Dynaflow, which had been set to the 600psi range. Gassed up the gun, set it to Dry Fire mode and started shooting. The gun shot beautifully.
Play day.
The gun shot a consistant +/-5 strings over the chrono with the stock barrel. At this point the only parameter i've adjusted was the debouce level. I increased it from the stock setting of 12, to 15 (less bounce). This menu is accesed by a 3-button memebrane panel on the back of the grip. Various parameters for bounce, dwell, eye modes and ROF modes are adjusted through the LCD display window on the prip panel. These button are about the size of a pea and may not provide the user with enough tactile feed back, especially with gloved fingers.
I shot a hopper full effortlessly. Now im starting to overlook the minor shortcomings of this gun. A person who comes from shooting an Emag should have no problems getting used to the stock trigger. If the paramters for activation point, post travel and trigger-return-strength adjustments doesn't suit you, there is a whole plethora of 3rd party triggers available in different cofigurations and geometry.
The gun shot accurately throughout the course of the day. I had no problem getting pack shots and hopper shots at good distance. I played back to mid, during 7 man games on a regulation size field. Shooting close to 3 cases of Steel brand paintballs (thank god for team paint), I did not have one chop. I did get 2 or 3 in-game barrel breaks over the course of the whole day, which I managed to shoot through, all the while retaining a good amount of accuracy, once the barell cleared. This made me wonder why they dont ship with larger bore barrels.
The gun balaces well, a little forward heavy with a full Halo B, a 68/45 and an Empire no drop rail. It was easy to snap with and it felt really familiar to me. Switiching hands felt natural and fluent.
anyhow that is all for now. More when it develops.
Also ask question if you have any.
The gun comes in a black box. Along with it, a 12" Assasins .689 barrel (made by CP as i understand) and some lame zeroxed instruction manual for a 2k2 itimidator, a cheat sheet of for the frenzy 127.4 board, some stickers and NO WARANTY CARD. Granted, you can download the latest and comprehensive version of the Alias manual online but, come on...this far along in in their line of guns and no printed manual?
Build quality:
I looked at the anno and milling. Everything looked flawless. There were no visible tool marks on the exterior of the gun, no rough burrs, nicks or blemishes. Granted the milling on you typical Alias is not very complex. The black to red fade was very nice. The gradient was smooth and gradual. This is consisten with most Timmies i've seen, so it was no surprise. A battery was included with the gun.
After removing the less than mediocre grip panels, i accesed the grip frame. As expected the interior of the clamshell frame was a bit of mess. Everything was crammed in there and tucked away with little consideration for the path of the hoses and wiring. Despite the mess, the hoses did not interfere with the fuction of the gun. As i understand it, some folks experience a little bit of drag on the trigger return due to the hoses rubbing the trigger. I did not experience this, although this may become an issue when installing a new trigger.
The wiring was a minor consideration. They are thin, so be carefull when accesing or manipulating them. A little Heat shrink would been a nice touch but, that would be too much work for them.
The trigger guard on the gun was a little loose. As i tried to aleviate this by tightening the mounting screws. I then realized the screws were to long as they were already snug in their pilot holes. Maybe by this was done by design, im not really sure. But once the gripframe cover was back on the rattle and looseness nearly dissapeared. I guess i'll have to find some shims.
Overall, decent build quaillty. Although for a gun like this i expected more.
Next, i checked the regs. I opened up the HPR, sure enough there is grease where there should of been. I repeated the process with the LPR and the ram. All greased up and ready to go.
I installad the macro line kit and attached my 68/45k Dynaflow, which had been set to the 600psi range. Gassed up the gun, set it to Dry Fire mode and started shooting. The gun shot beautifully.
Play day.
The gun shot a consistant +/-5 strings over the chrono with the stock barrel. At this point the only parameter i've adjusted was the debouce level. I increased it from the stock setting of 12, to 15 (less bounce). This menu is accesed by a 3-button memebrane panel on the back of the grip. Various parameters for bounce, dwell, eye modes and ROF modes are adjusted through the LCD display window on the prip panel. These button are about the size of a pea and may not provide the user with enough tactile feed back, especially with gloved fingers.
I shot a hopper full effortlessly. Now im starting to overlook the minor shortcomings of this gun. A person who comes from shooting an Emag should have no problems getting used to the stock trigger. If the paramters for activation point, post travel and trigger-return-strength adjustments doesn't suit you, there is a whole plethora of 3rd party triggers available in different cofigurations and geometry.
The gun shot accurately throughout the course of the day. I had no problem getting pack shots and hopper shots at good distance. I played back to mid, during 7 man games on a regulation size field. Shooting close to 3 cases of Steel brand paintballs (thank god for team paint), I did not have one chop. I did get 2 or 3 in-game barrel breaks over the course of the whole day, which I managed to shoot through, all the while retaining a good amount of accuracy, once the barell cleared. This made me wonder why they dont ship with larger bore barrels.
The gun balaces well, a little forward heavy with a full Halo B, a 68/45 and an Empire no drop rail. It was easy to snap with and it felt really familiar to me. Switiching hands felt natural and fluent.
anyhow that is all for now. More when it develops.
Also ask question if you have any.
Comment