Ultimate Rental Gun?

[Toestr]

Fair enough to the points on the Emek. My experiences with Emek rentals have been negative. Trigger switches stick, leaks down the barrel, and malfunctioning low force bolts are the issues I have seen. Can't say my field is knowledgeably staffed though.

Yes to the point on barrels dirty barrels. Most of the time though renters won't notice or know that it's bad to have breaks and will just continue their flamethrower. My field will soak their barrels and hoppers in a bath of hot water at day's end. I don't know how clean this actually gets them, and I don't know how much it really matters when the breach, bolt and barrel are all scratched raw from sand.

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[Chuck E Ducky]

One field owner used WD40 in the ASA to clean their new emeks and toasted his entire rental stock I guess it worked for a lil bit. I remember seeing a post about it on BookFace. Guy was asking for rebuild kits purchased in bulk. User error Causes the issue with them.

I know OSG had issues with the valve bouncing like full auto on there first gen Emeks but they got like the very first batch and I think it had to do with the output pressure of the rental tanks. PE quickly solved the issues with an update and they have been running strong for some time now. They have a ton of them with tons of trigger time. Markers never went down they would reset if you pulled the trigger again. But it sounded like a 98 when it runs out of gas. There rentals fleet is huge and used often. If they are maintaining them properly they make great rental markers I can’t think of a better one since the 98. PE stands behind there products to with awesome CS. Parts are super easy to find for them if you ever need them to.

[Killerito]

Haha I have a buddy that Sears By Remington gun oil. Claiming gun manufactures know more about lubercating orings than any paintball company ever will.
Have also had to rebuild his emek several times.

[MrBarraclough]

AGD actually made a rental variant of the Automag at one point, though I think only a handful of fields bought them due to the high upfront costs. Anyone here actually play at a field that had rental mags? As I recall, the rental versions had some kind of built-in velocity limiter and I think some kind of retaining clip to keep renters from trying to remove the twistlock barrels themselves. In theory, the simplicity and robustness of the Automag should have made for a great rental. No slot for a cocking knob or other external openings to let dirt in, very few moving parts, can be immersed in water as long as it is pressurized, etc. I imagine that in practice they were probably troublesome. A bone stock Automag back in the CO2 era was bound to have problems. They really needed an expansion chamber or external reg or remote line or some other means of keeping liquid CO2 the hell away from the valve. Individual mag owners were of course going to do all that; nobody ran the things stock and AGD didn't really expect anyone to. But outfitting a rental fleet of mags with--say--VASAs, expansion chambers, and bottomlines would have been a pretty heavy investment for an already expensive marker.

[coyote]

Cousins paintball on Oahu had a rental fleet of gold Ule Automags with air tanks.

[Bow]

I actually have a rental mag from Hawaii All Stars. It had rental engraved on the body and Lasered on the valve. Thing was super solid. I have the valve as a back up to my Xvalve but I haven't whipped out my mag in a long time. Shoots just the same as any of the other mags I've owned.

[Cunha]

EMEK's are awesome but they are way more complex than a blowback, when they start needing work they will need more work and they will be more fiddly with more O rings to work on, then reg seats and stuff. I wouldn't want to maintain them on a field.

I second TRBO323 on the Azodin Kaos (non regulated version) based on his experience maintaining field rentals and my experience with similar guns of earlier design.

Being able to completely field strip the gun in moments is a big deal. Only 1 O ring size is a huge deal.

Piranha blowbacks are also high quality and easy to maintain and very cheap on ebay and anywhere. The basic looking black ones with a 2 tube look no fancy milling are made in USA and high quality with hard black anodizing. The trigger frames are the kinda plastic that never ever breaks. They field strip TOOL LESS in 5 seconds leaving nothing but the valve, valve spring and valve stem in there. Another 20 seconds gets the rest of the guts out and you have 2 empty tubes.

Tippmann 98's are my favorite simple reliable gun, but they are not as good for high use high turnover situations or high abuse situations because as others mentioned they are much more difficult to open up and maintain (even though it isn't that hard, its way harder than zero tools piranhas)


So I'd say piranhas or Azodin

This is the kinda piranha for reference. https://www.ebay.com/itm/PMI-Piranha...AAAOSwdg1gPmYT they're all over ebay

The next generation looks identical but could be had with a centerfeed which I think is worth seeking out. These are made in USA and very bullet proof. I assume sears are still easy to get and thats the main wear part. Main springs also wear out eventually.

Here is a Kaos https://www.ebay.com/itm/Azodin-Kaos...UAAOSw7GhgEhzP

Honestly any decent quality blowback is fine.

Tippmann Pro Carbines BTW do have the later CVX valve stock. All of them do.

[Toestr]

As far as reliability goes, I do think a level 7 (or even 10) automag would be an excellent rental gun. Field stripping and velocity locking is also very easy, which is a plus. Proprietary seals are really the only downside imo. Considering stock mags work beautifully on HPA and are fairly cheap, I'd say it would be a pretty good option to buy basic automags to use as rentals nowadays. I've seen a few automag rentals come up, but mostly the red CCI bodied ones. When did fields start carrying compressors/start using HPA for rentals? My local was using HPA for rentals since at least 2005.

I really like seeing the variety guns fields used to use for rentals. PGI FROGS, mags, and other more obscure blowbacks are certainly more interesting than the Tippmann 98s, stbbs, and more recently the Emeks of today.

I guess the two schools of thought are easy to fix but has serious issues more often, and harder to fix but has fewer serious issues.

In terms of blowbacks, I think the stbb wins over the Tippmann, as you don't need to completely disassemble the gun to clean a chop (which is 90% of the issues a rental gun has). The valve may not be as robust, but is still more than robust enough, for regular use.

Higher end rentals like the Emek are nice because they definitely chop less (if at all) than any blowback. Situations where a blowback might be better is when a field is sold out of guns, and when a rental gun goes down, that same gun needs to be rebuilt asap. An Emek will require more troubleshooting and thinking, meaning more time, while a blowback is faster and more economical to do a complete cleaning and rebuild to, without really having to do any troubleshooting.

Bit messy, just putting my thoughts out there.


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[Killerito]

Emek for the win. If you have one decent tech at the field they are easy to maintain.
hell the local field only really takes care of them when they have an issue their end of day cleaning is literally dunk it in water fire it dry de gas and onto the next one.

easier to tear down and fix issues on the fly than say a clam shell 98 or a5.

They are also much more set and forget as far as velocity. Consistent shot pressure I guess would be why.

pluce I feel the “higher end” the standard rental is the more likely you are to get people back out to play again.

local field has maybe 25 ish in their fleet and I can go thru all of them during the 1 hour lunch break is need be for wipe down and re lube (havnt had t replace any seals yet). Only annoying. Thing on occasion is the spool. But even then it’s a quick 3 minute job.

[Trbo323]

EMEK's are awesome but they are way more complex than a blowback, when they start needing work they will need more work and they will be more fiddly with more O rings to work on, then reg seats and stuff. I wouldn't want to maintain them on a field.

I

Yeah to me this is one of the biggest factors as well, eventually they are going to need work, can you trust the 16 year old ref who you pay in paint to do the work? Probably not, you need someone who knows what they are doing, and unless that person is there all the time you then also need to buy extra markers for when some go down so you have enough markers until your competent airsmith arrives to fix the broken ones.

The costs associated are huge and I just don't see the benefits. Do they shoot nicer? Sure, is a renter going to know or care? Hell no.

At $270 you can get 4 azodin kaos for every 1 emek. Decent option for an upgrade but not a main fleet



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[Mr. Hick]

The costs associated are huge and I just don't see the benefits. Do they shoot nicer? Sure, is a renter going to know or care? Hell no.

I assure you that the individual renter is not going to notice or Care. However the significantly better experience they have while playing with make a grand difference not only to the sport but to the experience of everyone on the field.

One of the largest battles we have in paintball is good fields, that offer good experiences. Lazy fields that provide garbage rental packages because they only have one O-ring size is a big problem in this industry.

[Trbo323]

I assure you that the individual renter is not going to notice or Care. However the significantly better experience they have while playing with make a grand difference not only to the sport but to the experience of everyone on the field.

But that's kind of my point, the experience for the rental players doesn't change because they have nothing to compare the experience to. You could hand them a dye m3 and they would still have fun. If it shoots paint, that's pretty much the end of it for a rental player. I think mask quality is a larger issue and plays a much much larger roll in the rental experience. But back to the marker, we have all seen the kid with the rental 98 having to put the tank in his arm pit because his arms are not long enough, I think the 98 platform is too long for today's rental players. Paintball is attracting younger players than ever. (Not my only issue with it but let's leave it there for now)

So if you need something shorter, emek fits that and so do most stbbs, but where the emek fails is price(for the most part) 4 kaos markers to 1 emek. That's a monster difference. A field could run 4 times as many players just by choosing the markers, that's a huge profit difference. You also don't need to have someone on hand who knows how to diagnose and fix the emeks. You can give a teen 3 tools and he literally can only take apart the things that need to be taken apart on a kaos.

I'm not saying a field can't run the emek, they just need a larger budget. I do think it makes a decent choice for an "upgraded" rental for those players who want to try something else but also if you run these as a main fleet, your "upgraded" rental package if you run one also gets much more expensive

One of the largest battles we have in paintball is good fields, that offer good experiences. Lazy fields that provide garbage rental packages because they only have one O-ring size is a big problem in this industry.

So your whole judgment on if a rental marker is good or not rests on how many different o ring sizes it has?

This is way wrong, your statement should have stopped at lazy fields. It has nothing to do with the markers they choose. Also just because a field chooses a marker that only has 1o ring size isn't lazy, it's smart. That 16 year old ref that you pay in paint, now he can fix the markers as well. You don't have to wait for your airsmith to show up, hell he can probably fix it between games.

We have all been to terrible fields, if what you are saying is true they should all be running the same markers because they are all "lazy".

Hell one of the worst I've been to found a tippmann 98 out on the playing field and said it must have been there for at least 3 days. Since it still shot and uses multiple o ring sizes along with needing more effort to tare down, that must have been a good field. I'll just have to put aside that the refs basically didn't wear masks or enforce anyone else to, they didn't chrono anyone (or even have a chrono available), had no safety briefing, no netting and I really doubt they had insurance.

Must have been a good field because of the markers they chose, I must be hallucinating all the rental players on the bus ride home mentioning how terrible the field was and asking me if that was "normal" in paintball

They closed down within 6 months

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[JeeperCreeper]

My local field rents EMEKs. Best functioning rental gun you can get. I'll take function over durability any day

[Trbo323]

Side note, do you guys think we will ever see pumps make their way back into the rental arsenals? As an "upgrade" or something different perhaps

I think it would be cool to see a legitimate "sniper" package. Run FS round and give them a few mags

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[Meleager7]

i'd argue we'll never see pump guns as rentals ever again. An experienced player knows better, that a pump in hands of a good player , is perfectly adequate . But to a new player, they are going to turn their nose up to a pump gun 100% of the time.

As cool as a FS upgrade option might be, so many fields ban FS i doubt we'll ever see it as a rental.

[Toestr]

Side note, do you guys think we will ever see pumps make their way back into the rental arsenals? As an "upgrade" or something different perhaps

I think it would be cool to see a legitimate "sniper" package. Run FS round and give them a few mags

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Cool idea. I think the Hammer 7 definitely could have been a good fit for that kind of roll. My only concern with having magfed rentals in general would be finding a way to keep mags tethered to the player. Losing a magazine is definitely a bigger financial burden than a pod that costs $1 or 2 (probably less if buying in bulk).

Also I've heard of fields that give out old Mavericks or other pumps when they are out of semis, with a warning of what to expect of course.
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[coyote]

I don't think there is a one size fits all answer to the original question.

Up front cost, service time, cost and available parts all play parts in the decision.

CO2 or HPA are considerations as well. Blowback works fine on CO2. I don't know if an Emek does.

The consensus is Emek, but it isn't the best platform for every situation. Most of them, but not all.

[Cdn_Cuda]

After spending a bit of time working on a bunch of spyders
and a BT-4 I still prefer working on the BT 4 over the STBBs. Never worked on an Azodins, so they might be different, but the BTs you it’s two easy to remove screws and the trigger frame is off and 4 more screws and the clamshell is apart and everything is accessible. Screws are all reachable with the gun sitting flat on a table, so no monkeying around with angle or parts popping off in weird places.

[MrBarraclough]

I think mask quality is a larger issue and plays a much much larger roll in the rental experience.

This right here. If you're looking to improve the rental experience, thermal lens masks are where you should invest first.

[martix_agent]

This seems like a good idea, but rental players abuse gear. a thermal lens may last a month before it's destroyed. Not to mention the time that it takes to clean them properly so that the thermal properties remain.

The best idea for thermal lenses is to have cheap masks that a person can take home with them. That way they'll have an incentive to return to the field, AND you don't have to deal with the cleaning and lens replacement. you can make it part of an upgrade package, and it'll seem like a good deal to players.