Empire Prophecy Paintball Hopper

So Empire released word on a 2009 Paintball hopper which will be released in mid December of 2008.  Its a tool less hopper which allows you to change batteries, shell size, disassemble and replace feednecks without the use of any hand tools.  This of course is a great idea and a testament on how much paintball has evolved from the past.

The Empire Prophecy paintball hopper seems to take a Magna Drive base system and add modular features to it.  The stock hopper will hold 240rds, while there will be a snap on nose feature which will allow you to decrease that number to 200rds or increase it to 280rds.   These shells will be sold separately so it will be interesting to compare the Prophecy hopper to the Pinokio paintball hopper, because for the same price the Pinokio hopper already includes 2 “nose” pieces to increase/decrease the hopper capacity at no additional charge.

Empire also includes the “freeway” anti-jam piece in the Prophecy, which is a nice add in.  We’ll be waiting anxiously to put this new hopper threw its paces.  We are expecting the same performance more of less than the Magna Hopper, but with a few more conveniences.

So we just got this order of the new Pinokio Hoppers in.  They are pretty cool.  Initatlly, they are very user friendly.  Very well balanced, even with the 140rd nose on there (which is included).  You get somthing like 40,000 shot garrenteed with some guys getting 50,000-60,000 on average, which is nice.  It has a nice birght LED on the back which lets you know if its on/off.  It also has a no nonsense on/off button.  Its super light, lighter than a Velocity Jr.  Oh yeah it feeds 30bps!  Available in Black, Smoke and Clear.

So Rock Star Energy Drink and Planet Eclipse have teamed up to do a “limited edition” EGO 09 and GEO with the Rock Star Logo on it.  Things like this make me scratch my head.  I have no idea why someone would want to pay $1450 to have an advertisement on on their gun.  Not to mention the graphics are lame.

The guns feature the phrase “Party like a Rock Star” on them.  Does this imply that the owner of one of these paintball guns “Parties Like a Rock Star”.  Rock Stars have been known to do heavy amounts of drugs, alcohol and take part in illicit behavior.  Are they saying you should “Party Like a Rock Star”?  If you drink their Energy Drink, it will give you the means to “Party Like a Rock Star”?  Is any of this good for paintball or even society as a whole?  Has paintball gotten so trashy, and so shallow, that some one would pay extra to have this shallow phase on their paintball marker because they think its cool?  Not to mention the phrase “Party Like a Rock Star” came out when i was in high school in the 90’s so i also consider the phrase pretty passe  (past one’s prime; old and warn out).

The paintball industry as a whole has become pretty hyped.  Its time to start looking past the smoke and mirrors and all the fancy catch phrases that are out there to try to get you to buy a product.  Start asking yourself “What does that mean?”

We found a large box of adjustable tank regulators while doing some fall cleaning.  These Mega Reg’s paintball tank regulators are adjustable from 100-950PSI.  There really adjustable from 0-1000PSi, however for some reason some regulators don’t get quite up to 1000PSI output.  They are Dual Stage regs (means there are basically 2 regulators in 1).  Dual Stage because the first stage brings the pressure down from 4500PSI to about 1000PSI.  The second statage is the adjustable regulator which brings that pressure down to whatever you dial in for exact matching to your marker.  They even come with a 5 way adjustable tank regulator.

Here is a little know fact about the Halo B/ Reloader B / B2 and Magna paintball hoppers.  The shell kits can be used on all the internals from what Empire tells us.  So if you have a b2 and need shells, the Magna Shell kit will work.  If you have Magna Hopper and only have Halo Shells, you can stuff some of the magna parts into the Halo B shells to get it to work.  This info is like a swiss army knife, it could come in handy

So we just got a full shippment of BT 2009 Paintball gear in today.  Everything from Grenades, to paitnball  Vests and Pants.   Bt’s paintball vest are pretty cool.   You can preview the Vest here on BTs web site. The Vest is 100% customizable and adjustable.  Simply pick up any modular accessory for it and you can put your tubes, and other pockets whever you like on the best.  DO you use a remote line?  Stick the tank on your back out of the way.  Its a really cool system.  Its also Molle Based so you should able to use other brand name accessories on it too.  Tippmann is coming out with a vest.

Prototype

So we saw and shot this puppy down at world cup.  Its Tippmann’s New pistol which will compeat with the Tiberus pistol.   They are really 2 different price points.  The Tiberius is $239, this pistol which is also clip fed will be in the $150 range.  It will offer much better performance than the $100 G2+ and other attempts at a pistol like the PT Extreme.

Tippmann’s pistol (we don’t have a name for yet) is a spring fed system which will only release balls if its inserted into the grip.  Which is cool so balls accidentally fall out.  Another cool feature on this gun, is the CO2 12 gram goes into the gun in a more traditional place, under the barrel lying in parrell to the barrel.  This is great for CO2 efficiency.  You can expect to get 30-40 shots per 12g of Co2.   This is also good news becuase extra clips for this pistol is to be sold at around $15 versus the Tiberius 8 Clips of $40.   All that savings just by moving the CO2 and wanting paintballers to play less and not more.

Tippmann informed us that the gun is still in the Prototype stage so you might see some changes.  The pictany rail will stay on the pistol of the final version which is cool.  Leave it to Tippmann to give us more, not less for our money!

Check out this tacamo A5 AK-47 Paintball gun.  It really looks pretty slick.  It has the AK Wook Kit, 100rd maginizine drum, Barrel bi-pod, and looks to make the other team run and hide.  If you added the A5 Eframe and some A5 Upgrades you could get this gun shooting around 20bps which is pretty sick for a Tippmann.