MILSIG magazine collar comparsion

I should note that the magazines I am using is an older gen 19 round magazine for both MILSIG and RAP4.     Since the release of the MILSIG Paradigm Pro’s new magazine system, the square head collars, many people have asked the question “What is the difference between the round collars and the square collars?” “How do they operate from each other? Pros and Cons”.

    Throughout the years before the Paradigm Pro square head magazines were introduced it is frequent that people did not really have a clear understanding what the differences are between the RAP4 magazines and the MILSIG magazines. At most people knew they are interchangeable and compatible with each others markers. Thus the question is, what really separates the three magazines in terms of operation mechanics.

    I will start with the new MILSIG Paradigm Pro. The current square head magazines is designed for the Paradigm Pro What is new about the square head collar is the head is constructed from polymer. The only metal parts is collar detent and the spring that holds the detent bar up. The MILSIG square head collar replaces the ball bearing round collar system. There is a bar that runs lengthwise across the farther side of the opening with both ends of the bar protruding out the sides of collar body a little bit. When the magazine is inserted into the magwell; there is a little ramp within that will push the bar down as the magazine is inserted. The balls than are clear to enter the chamber without being hindered by anything.

                                                                 
    In comparison to the round head feedneck collars; the round collars uses 3 ball bearings to hold the balls in place. When the collar is depressed it creates room for the ball bears to “roll back”. With the spring pushing the paintball rounds upwards , the paintballs squeeze through and then is chambered by the bolt. The problem with the ball bearing design is shooting low to mid-grade paintball or paintball that have not been storaged properly. These are the paintballs that are oblong, dimpled or a shape that is not spherical. The problem is non-uniform paintballs get stuck in the ball bearings which leads to either a misfeed or a ball chop. 

    The RAP4 magazine uses 6 ball bearings as opposed to the MILSIG’s 3 ball bearing collar. However, the RAP4 ball bearings are smaller than the MILSIG ball bearings and this leads to problems with smaller paintballs. In my personal experience when storing the magazines upside down (feedneck facing downwards) smaller paintballs in the 0.679 caliber region will roll out past the ball bearings. This is the main difference I have discovered between the MILSIG and the RAP4 round collar feedneck and can lead to problems for some users. The RAP4 has a shorter collar clip and the MILSIG round feed neck has a taller collar clip.

                                                                 
    I hope this helps clear up some confusion between the differences in the magazines. I often hear people wonder what the differences are between the RAP4 and the MILSIG magazines and excluding the internal mechanics, physical differences of the winder and what not, the feedneck ball bearings is the biggest difference.

In the next article I will talk about the MILSIG Paradigm Pro magazine in detail. Stay tuned and thank you for reading!. Visit www.magfedpb.com for more magazine-fed paintball information!

MILSIG Paradigm Pro - First Impressions

On Friday, 28th of September 2012, I picked up the Paradigm Pro from the MILSIG Canada office. I have been eagerly waiting for this ever since it was announced and after decisions and questions from announcement to release, it is now in my possession.

I should note I will be mostly writing this in comparison to my Paradigm 1. The K-Series is roughly the same size give or take.

This passing Saturday I brought it down to my local paintball field, North Shore Paintball where people were anxiously awaiting for me to show them this new toy. My initial impressions when I brought the Paradigm Pro home is the look and feel. The coating is a different from the Paradigm 1 nor the K-Series Mk II. It has a nice texture and feel to it in its own form. The platform has been working out and shedded some weight!. The Paradigm Pro is lighter than the Paradigm 1 and K-Series Mk 1 and features a brand new one piece, 400mm rifled barrel which has been rifled for First Strike rounds and of course, is First Strike round capable! The marker is also equipped with MILSIG’s new spool-valve blow forward internals known as the HEAT core.

Paradigm Pro @ North Shore Paintball , Vancouver, BC

The new square head magazines for the Paradigm Pro is a big improvement over the traditional round magazine heads. The traditional round collar heads have 3 ball bearings that retain the rounds and thus occasionally you could get oblong balls stuck in the bearings. This would result in either a misfeed or a chop. The new square head magazine collar uses a sliding bar so when the magazine enters the chamber; the bar is depressed allowing the rounds to be fed and chambered. This eliminates (I would hope so) a lot of misfeed issues. The user does not have to worry as much about oblong shaped balls getting stuck during feeding.

The Paradigm Pro features a nice egro grip handle and a smooth trigger pull. Although I think in the future having a switch safety will be pretty wicked. That just complicates the mechanical aspect of it. The trigger has a small amount of slack giving you ample amount of space to get to the razors edge and then a smooth pull to the rear to fire.

The weight of the Paradigm Pro has been reduced. I don’t have the exact numbers yet but reciever of the Paradigm Pro vrs the Paradigm 1 is noticable and feels ligther and more versatile. Not having that steel hammer in the action group probably helped reduced the weight too.

In the next part I will write about the magazines, the operations, advantages and disadvantages (that I have found so far, although so far I have not found any negatives yet).
I am looking forward to more games with the Paradigm Pro. Overall I am impressed at the overall build. It feels solid, balanced weight and operates quite smoothly. The sound report is also not as loud as the previous K and M series markers and does not blurp when the marker is out of air.

MILSIG Paradigm Pro "unboxing"

Here it is, everybody. The MILSIG Paradigm Pro. Although this is belated from the day I actually got it. I have no had a chance to do a video of it. Slowly starting to get into the whole video aspect of things.

I am eagerly waiting for this upcoming weekend to come up so I can play. :) Anyhow; through the series I will be doing videos of shooting, reloads, dry fire with reloads and anything else that I can come up with. Magazine overview and the marker overview itself. Some will be more in-depth and some videos will be just a video of me doing something.

Northshore Paintball - May 6th 2012.

    The weather was peaking beautifully on Sunday. On Saturday I was contemplating if I wanted to go because I was feeling sore from basketball on Friday. However, this Sunday is the first Sunday of the month which means free entry for gun owners. I had to break the trend of being lazy and I figured with the way things have been lately I am going to go. I woke up in the morning around 0800 and looked out to the window I saw the sun shining in.

    However, that morning I'm still feeling sore and did not really want to be running around carrying a marker that weights 3kgs and probably 10lbs on my chest rig. I cleaned my pump off and packed it in my bag and put it into the car along with my Milsig. I arrived at the field around 1100 and parked my car. A fair amount of people already have arrived and I'm thinking today won't go too badly. A group of young kids had a planned a birthday party and a few scattered group of renters. I unpacked my pump, put my knee pads on and then went to air up my tanks. After the air tanks were filled up I went to grab my pump, put my mask on and went to the chrony range. A moment of truth awaits me as I cock my pump and put it over the chrony. HUZZAH! My pump is working! (I will be talking about this a bit more in a different post). After a good year and a half since I put it together. With the help of various friends with their knowledge and experience; have given me insight in figuring out a few extra steps to getting my pump working. This is great because I don't have to run my Milsig setup for the day. Saves me having to lug all that weight around!

    There I am excited to get the day started as some of the regulars start to show up. First game of the day for me starts with Two Fort flag push. We started on the right hand side (facing down the field), Kiernan and I went up the left side of our spawn towards the field exit and it was a mad rush as we started to engage their team. Kiernan is in the front while I am in the rear covering his open side on the right. For the most part he and another team mate (I don't know how to spell his name!) is moving up around the left an all of a sudden Russel pops over the barricade. I see Russel trying to stay tucked in behind a tree as he tries to shoot Kiernan. I line up my marker and fire two shots. I miss a little bit so I adjust my position to be a bit more stable; I wait for a clear shot; just as Russel moved leaned forward I fire a shot and splat. The paintball hits him right in the masks mouth guard. At this point I am grinning massively because not only did my shot hit someone at distance; I hit Russel!. Overcome with joy we finished the game and won via elimination. For the rest of the day I could not stop being joyful. It felt right that after such a long time the pump is finally working. This also meant that I did not have to use my Milsig gear for the day. The game ended and we all met up, refilling our airtanks and the likes and discussed the game. It is always great to start the day with a good game. It gets your mood going and in my case I felt fantastic

    The day went along pretty progressive and nicely. I got out of the house despite being sore and played for good portion of the day. As the field got really busy I decided to take a break and help the staff out. They needed someone to man the air station while they dealt with the front counter. Throughout the whole day I reveled in the fact my pump is finally hitting the sweet spot. All I need to do is fine tune it but other then that it felt great. I hit the field next Sunday and I look forward to putting the pump through its paces. The highlight of the day was smacking Russel in the face with a shot. It feels like a fire has been relit after my pump clicked together. Anyhow, I will have a post more about my pump coming up next seeing as I kept mentioning about it but really that was the main highlight of the day. :P

Northshore Paintball : July 17th, 2010

         The weather took shine as I hit the field this afternoon. Around fifty people were present at one o'clock, by two twenty to three there was 120ish people. A good amount of renters played on sight and it got things going.

My left arm looks like an army of mosquitoes bit me, however, 4-5 shots that hit my arm bounced and never exploded, leaving no cuts. Annoying thing? Mosquito bites are more annoying then my paintball injuries.
Rounded out a few good tags today.

Short post tonight, want to get some sleep and I was only there for three hours. Wanted to get home so I can shower and head out for a family dinner.


Next up for home is some CUDA and C++ Reading. w00t!.


Signing out,
Shroker

Northshore Paintball: July 10th, 2010.

Paintball turned out great today. Few scrapes and bumps from thorns and sliding into rocks in shorts is a bit iffy. Probably will be heading out again next weekend. Hopefully I can get some other people to show up.


The sun was beaming and there was a light breeze in the waiting area. I estimated about 80 people present at a given time and counted about 25 female players. On Friday's Northshore offers free entry (and I think rental) for girls! All you have to do is buy paint!.

Because of the summer heat, sweat does not precipitate and drip onto the visor as easily compared to the cooler days, which is a trade off for the heat. Met a few people there and grabbed a few e-mails. Thorn bushes are evil; I have cuts everywhere on my arms and legs from them.

I am hoping to start taking some pictures of the waiting area and perhaps some in-game pictures. We will have to see how that goes. Wanting to get some pictures of me out on the field too. The summer season is starting so will be out more often to get exercise in and hoping to get outside more frequent in general.

Take care everyone!.

Northshore Paintball : July 4th, 2010.

A few of the pictures that were taken.
Some pictures my friend took.

   That was a great day, was completely exhausting after the second game. Massive sprinting depleted my sleep deprived body. Came out totally blurred and almost wanting to collapse; took a breather and drank some water.

  The rest of the day progressed very well. Some steep action and entertained crowds. Which was fun scaring the crap out of them as I was sprinting past the viewing area (is mesh protected of course, but I had a whole bunch of people firing rounds off at me. They were a little bit freaked out when the mesh just started flapping and splatter landing on wood panels near me.

  Scratched my left leg a bit badly and forgot to wear knee pads throughout half the day so bare-kneeing was a bit annoying. Other than that exercise has been well and loving my marker more and more everday.
Now to make up for the money spent on all that gear.


  On another note: As my online radio has been offline indefinitely, I will be changing the name of this blog sometime soon. It will no longer be called Companion Radio Ghost!. Perhaps "The Journeys of Shroker: Behind Enemy Lines" Same content, ranging from computer related topics to everyday things to sports and recreational activities like Paintball. Old topics also include music too.

  Photography has been coming along well and slowly getting back into it again as the weather sets in.
My ankle has been well for quite awhile now but never really journeyed much with my 5D as shortly after I got it I had injured my ankle. It's been nearly two years now (wow!). I really should put my loving camera into work.

See you guys around,
--Shroker

MilSig M-Series Paradigm

This is a quick snapshot of the MilSig M-Series Paradigm Limited Edition Paintball marker.
It is a magazine fed paintball marker but can be converted to use a hopper within a few minutes.
It features a beautiful CNC body. Machined with 7-Series Aluminum and 6-series Aluminum it gives the body a strong body and rugged frame.


Specifications 

• Caliber: 0.68 Cal.
• Weight: 3.150kg (without Mag & 13CI HPA Cylinder)
• Fire Mode: Semi-Automatic
• Length: 39" Full Length / 33" Without Extension
• Power Source: HPA, Nitrogen, CO2
• Operating Pressure: 800psi
• Barrel Length: 18" Full Length / 12" Without Extension
• Velocity: 250-350 fps
• Stock: 13CI HPA Stock
• Construction: 7-Series Aluminum, 6-Series Aluminum, Polyethylene Plastic, ABS Plastic, Steel Nuts and Bolts

The Paradigm features Zinc Allow Open Style Front & Rear sights. The peep sight can be adjusted with 4 different peep hole settings on a rotating dial. 

A air-in stock (referred to as Moible Air Tank Stock (MATS ) houses a 13CI tank and has adjustable positions. Although the shortness of your adjustment comes down to how long your tank is.

The OEM MilSig tank is a about 20cm long.

The MATS allows mobility and no remote lines. 

So far I have been able to shoot off about 130 rounds.
Which is equivalent to 5-6 magazines.

The magazines themselves hold 19 rounds each. The ones I own
are in smoke color. These magazines use a winder and a spring to
feed the paintballs into the chamber. The winder pulls back the spring and a clam shell style nozzle with ball detentes in it keeps the paintballs from dropping out. When the clam shell is pushed down, it releases the detentes and allows the balls to be fed into the chamber. When the magazine is clipped into the marker, it presses a pin and releases the winder.

When I get the chance I will write up another post about the internals of the magazine and possibly the marker itself during a cleaning process.
The 557 Holosight is a separate purchase but once you have it dialed in, it shoots wonderfully and hits on target.

A bonus feature of the MilSig Magazine Feed System is that their markers can be easily converted to become a hopper based shooter within minutes.
All in all. It is a well built paintball marker. Durable and a great strong feeling to it. It fires well and is great for MilSim scenerios.
Also satisfies the need of a replica firearm. In later post I will write up about the MilSig Solid Gear product line tactical vests.

MilSig Paradigm Paintball Marker

About a week ago I decided that I will be attempting to take back up Paintballing and use it as a form of off-site exercise. I love paintballing and it is a great sport to enjoy. However, I didn't want to use rental stuff anymore and decided to research and invest into it.
Although it was not cheap I came across MilSig.
A Canadian company and there goods are manufactured in Taiwan. Being a local Vancouver person there distrubution office and warehouse is in Richmond. (They are not a retail store!).

However, there are places that do carry MilSig stuff and are their registered dealers.
Paradigm is one of their top of the line paintball markers and is also a limited edition series.
With that said. My serial number is 000137. They released the Paradigm last year in 2009.

I will have photos posted soon but at the moment I can say it is beautiful.
Most of the body and the shroud etc is CNC Machined Aircraft grade aluminum.
It is a magazine fed marker but can be converted to use a hopper (which is a simple conversion. Not hard to do at all, the marker includes the kit for it). But the main intent of MilSig Markers are that they are magazine fed which is great for those that love to run Mil Sim Scenario Paintball and just love Mag Fed stuff themselves.

Anyways, for now I will be back later.