thinking of getting an a1

[liquidblue19]

well i am looking for a new gun for the year. i plan to play some 7 man ball and some x-ball. i have always been interested in the a1 but never broke down and bought one. after reading some of the posts it seems like the gun is some what of a pain in the ass to set up and get shooting correctly. now that may be becasue i don't own one and don't know a whole hell of alot about them. i have had timmy's, marq's, shockers, egos and dm's and an angel back in 05 and 04 (speeds). with the onther guns i have used, it is basically set and play, the guns tend to rock out of the box but i always add virtue to 90% of my guns (except the 07+ ego's, stock boards are very nice). so i guess i'm looking to see if they are in fact as "hard" as they sound.

[lipe33]

If you buy one from a Master Tech, new or used, it will most likely come tuned and ready to play. If not, the Joy settings are tried and true. If you tune your marker to these specs it will perform very well. People who say Angels are hard to own/tune have never owned an Angel.

[liquidblue19]

i'm probably just used to egos and dm's and virtue boards.

[kingaaron]

I was a first time Angel A1 owner and I loved it. I even went back to the previous generation and bought a G7 fly. Both shoot awesome and I'm looking forward to the next generation from Angel.

[Poindexter]

i'm probably just used to egos and dm's and virtue boards.

I came from a DM4 to an A1. They are different guns, but, in reality, once either one is setup you are g2g. The A1 is a better marker than the DM4. I cannot compare it to newer DMs, but I would have trouble going back now.

I cannot imagine what anyboy would want from an aftermarket board in the A1. It already does everything I could think of wanting.

[liquidblue19]

yeah the stock board sounds great, i just prefer micro switches which the virtue board has. i would say that an a1 is way better than a dm4 but thats a tough call against a dm8, ego8. the self cleaning eyes in the new dm's are great and the accuracy is real nice. how accurate are the new angels? i remember my 05 speed being head and shoulders above the 04's and older. why would you reccomend others to get one?

[polorboy]

I just got my A1 less than a week ago. It is the first Angel I have ever owned and I didn't have a problem at all getting it ready to go. All I had to do was adjust the mini-reg at the chrono and that was it. I wasn't sure how well the hall effect sensor was going to work, but it actually works better than a switch. It is much more sensitive and allows for the gun to actually shoot faster because of that. As far as accuracy goes, it is a paintball gun. As long as you have a good paint to bore match and the gun is firing consistently, it will be just as accurate as any other gun.

[Poindexter]

I have found my A1 with the stock barrels to be just as accurate, if not more so than my DM. The A1 also has self cleaning eyes. I was impressed with how well they work.

I can see what you are saying about micro switches, but I love the opto board, coupled with the magnetic rebound of the stock trigger is awesome.

[liquidblue19]

how does the self cleaning eye on these work?

i found my dm7 to be very accurate, i never matched paint to bore and it was straight as an arrow in my ul.

[mokman88]

If I remember right, as the bolt moves past the eyes, small puffs of air come out of the porting and essentially blow the paint off of the eyes...After 2-3 shots the eyes are supposed to be as clean as if you took a q-tip to them yourself

[poopresearch]

Just as mokman described. The self cleaning eyes are just amazing though the A1 breaks paint so infrequently you rarely get to take advantage of them.

The trigger is great but takes quite a while to fine tune. The opto is harder to get just right than a micro but once you do that opto/magnet combo blows almost all other triggers out of the water. It sceams like a banshee when set up right! Last tournament I played with 15 bps ramping. My battery was low and my eyes faulted and I didn't even notice until a few games later that I wasn't ramping (even left handed).

[liquidblue19]

i think i am going to buy one. now i remember hearing about the slef cleaning eyes.

[Doug]

Yep, look for features you want, look for quality and reliability, and then how much you can spend. That's how you choose a paintball gun. Don't look at accuracy as almost all quality guns made today are able to fire a glob of liquid wrapped in gelatin as accurately as one can ever be fired. Accuracy is based on quality of paint, paint/bore matching, and that's about it.

I personally love angels and have fired many guns out there, but I'd always advise someone to try as many guns as you can before you buy an expensive one. It's usually pretty easy to try different guns. Try this at your local field.

That's an amazing gun you had out there, it was rocking (feed their ego!).

Do you mind if I fire a pod through it at the chrono/target range? I'll fill the loader and hand ya an extra pod of paint for your trouble.

95% of players will say yes to this.

[Doug]

Test

[liquidblue19]

what barrels work with the a1 threads? i know the stiffi's, but what else. i love my ul's but can i get one with the right threads and not have to use the ring?

[mokman88]

well for barrels for the A1 you have two options for threads, either the G7 style threads, and a few treads will be left exposed or you can buy a beauty ring to cover them up

or your second option is many manufacturers are making A1 style threads....Deadly Winds makes a great carbon fiber barrel that uses freak inserts and take be swabbed no problem unlike the stiffi

You can get a A1 threaded Freak Back

Basically just about any main stream company will make A1 threaded freak backs...

You might want to refer to the stickies for more info about the threads and such...

[stifler_51]

....Deadly Winds makes a great carbon fiber barrel that uses freak inserts and take be swabbed no problem unlike the stiffi


Stiffi now claims that u can swab their barrels now too or so ive heard

[liquidblue19]

yeah i don't like the carbon fiber barrels. i may just have to use the beauty rinf on a ul.

[Poindexter]

I used the ULs on my DM4, I think you would want to wait until you shoot the Angel Barrels. IMHO, they are just as good, if not better than the ULs.

[liquidblue19]

cp makes an a1, i'll probably rock that.

[mokman88]

I have also heard that the small bore kit for the Angels is an amazing kit!

[MVS1]

Th expanded kit is a good addition to the stock kit and the Angel One barrel is on par, and although I'm slightly biased, better than any other barrel kit out there. I love my DW Fibur for my Ripper, but if the A1 barrel was cocker thread I'd be using it and never bothered with getting a DW.