Buying Advice - Gen3 Alias Intimidator

[Cdn_Cuda]

Pondering picking up a local Gen 3 Alias Timmy. It’s missing its original reg and on/off and had donor parts from why looks like a PM series.


Haven’t even held one of these before and I know they have a rep to be a pain to work on. Other than that, what are some things to watch out for or know? Board and solenoid like every other electro? Or are these simply a stay away at all costs? Not seeing a lot on the used market.

[coyote]

You don't see a lot of them for sale due to the age more than anything. That marker is roughly 18 years old.

The biggest deal will be availability of parts, especially eyes electronics and solenoids.

[grendal50]

New boards are available from SciFi paintball, they're even Blutooth compatible.

[Trbo323]

Ok, *cracks knuckles* I used to be the airsmith for all bob long legacy for north America. So anything gen 3 Ave older that was sent to field one came to me.

Gen 3 was the majority of what I saw.

From an airsmiths perspective, I hate them. Even in the mid 2000s some of the things Bob designed into them are questionable.

Begin list!

1) floating noid. The noid is not actually bolted to anything, it just kind of sits there, hoses and wires connected but can still move around a bit

2) room for wires? Who needs that? This was something I noticed in a lot of Bob long markers, he basically doesn't design any space for wires, this is why a lot of others end up pinching eye wires

3) brass balls? No wait, barbs. There's 3 barbs that are terrible. LPR to noid and the front and back of the ram housing. The LPR one is a huge pain, if you want to remove the front block you need to first take the driver's side of the frame off, disconnect everything, then remove the barb from the front block first because it blocks access to the screw that holds the front block on. The barbs themselves are easy to snap as they are hollow brass. My advise, find the correct size socket and turn it by hand, don't use the wrench

4) are the eyes on or off? I have no clue. Bob apparently decided that industry standard terms like "on" and "off" were not good enough for his high class markers so all the eye functions have weird terms. If I remember right, if you want the eyes off you need to turn them to "force" mode. I forget what he uses for "on" and then there is "delay" mode which is a different form of "on". The way the marker tells you what mode it's in is with a single letter on the screen so, study the manual

5) slide that ram sleeve in so you can..... Tare down the whole marker again. I hate this one, it's such a bad design. Ok, see how you can see the ram sleeve in the lower tube of the marker? That sleeve also has 2 o rings around it to seal the valve off. Think like a spyder valve in the front. The problem is, as you slide that whole ram sleeve in, those nice little cutout windows act like razor blades looking to slice the o rings. Even if you get it past the windows you then have the vertical valve hole to contend with. You can be really careful and use a o ring pick to make sure the rings stay tucked in as you are installing but the valve hole that goes up to the breach you have 0 access to so you just have to get lucky on that one. Bob didn't feel the need to chamfer any of these. So if you slice a o ring the only way to tell is to assemble the whole marker and air it up. Hear a leak? Tear it all apart again to get to those rings.

I have a few others but need to feed my daughter snack.

Bottom line, I hate working on them. They shot decent, I wouldn't say better than a ego of the same year

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Ecapnation]

Eh?

Delay and force wasn't turning your eyes on and off.... That was done by tapping the 2 mode button.

Delay was an eye setting for non force fed hoppers... Revy, and alike. It lagged the eye sensing to slow the bolt down to read longer.

Force was for force feed hoppers and allowed for higher rof's and less bolt lag.

[waffles2]

I’ve owned over 60 Gen 2/3 BL guns and can say they’re still some of my favorite guns to shoot. They’re unique and you have to know what you’re doing to avoid fucking up threads and barbs.

That’s a DM4. Also shoots amazing.

[Cdn_Cuda]

Hmm. Looks like I’ll avoid it unless I can get it cheap. Something else has caught my eye as well.

[cellophane]

That’s a DM4. Also shoots amazing.

I'll second that. The DM4 was the first fancy marker I every bought, and it rocks. I still have her, and she still shoots great.

[glaman5266]

Like Trbo323 said, they're a major pain in the butt to work on. Way over-engineered. Plus the lack of parts available. As much as I'd want to shoot one again, they just don't seem viable enough these days from maintenance & parts standpoints despite how well they shoot.

And even if you find one that's complete & 100% functional, the seller will likely ask for an arm and a leg for it. Not worth it for a nearly 20 year old paintgun with so few parts available IMO.

[Trbo323]

Also while we are on the subject, I used to work for dirty works.

I highly suggest people NOT do business with him. It's only one guy that runs that whole operation. He sells used parts as new (or at least doesn't list that they are used) tells you whatever you need to hear to get you to send him money regardless of if it's true or not. Some people have had to wait over a year for parts.

The reason I mention him is because he is a large player in the bob long community. He will actually buy parts on the used market just so he can have control of a larger percentage of the parts market. He is one of the reasons why used parts are at such high prices.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Ecapnation]

Did he buy out jim eatons lot of not quite finished parts?