Venom Toxic Toys Highline

The Highline has one purpose: to channel gas (CO₂, nitrogen, HPA) from the vertical adapter of your Auto, Mini, or Micromag to the A.I.R. valve. It's a simple enough task that most people accomplish with a short length of hose and a quick-disconnect. It's so simple a task, in fact, that most poeple probably don't give it a second thought. The engineers at Venom Toxic Toys did, and found several areas where improvement could be made. The product of their ingenuity is the Highline.

The Highline consists of a stiff line rather than a hose to channel the gas from the vertical to the AIR valve. This in itself is nothing particularly special. Hard-lines have been in use since the pump-gun days when Benjamin-Sheridan used a hard line to direct gas from the back-bottle adapter to the valves of its pump-guns. These days you find hard-lines in use carrying gas from bottom-lines to expansion chambers, and even on the new Automag RT to direct the gas from the fore-grip to the rail. What makes the Highline special is that the end that attaches to the AIR valve is NOT fixed to the elbow screwed into it! Rather, the end of the line fits into an o-ring in the 90 degree elbow that screws into the regulator. Since the line is stiff, no quick-disconnect is required to keep it in fixed in place when the 'gun is gassed up. Quick-stripping a Highline-equipped 68AUTOMAG is easier than ever since you don't have to pull off a disconnect while you pull out the AIR valve. Additionally, the Highline is thinner than a steel-braid hose, so it fits nicely between the powerfeed and trigger without interfering with either.

The stiff, ultra-fast-disconnect feature of the Highline is certainly enough to make it an excellent replacement option for the standard hose and disconnect. But the Highline has an extra feature that really sets it apart. Normally, if you want to strip the regulator to clean it or replace an o-ring, you have to disconnect the gas source. This requires bleeding the whole system. If you have an expansion chamber mounted in the vertical ASA, this could mean dumping as much as 3 or 4 oz. of CO₂ stored within it. The Highline neatly saves you the air stored in your system up to the AIR valve with a slide-check valve just upstream of the elbow in the AIR valve. By moving the slide forward you simultaneously shut off the flow of gas and bleed only the AIR valve which you can then remove.

My only real reliability concern with the Highline was with the o-ring that the line fit into at the AIR valve end. It seemed to me to be somewhat exposed and I was afraid that it might be more likely to leak than a quick-disconnect. So far, though, I have had no problems with o-ring leaks, either there or in the slide-check. The Highline does include 3 extra o-rings that fit both the disconnect and slide-check for when they do eventually wear out.