New(ish) Action Cameras

I've been looking at cameras lately and have noticed some more action cams have cropped up over the past year.

My DriftHD's still work great, however, their casings are starting to break down (4-5 years of Texas heat will do that to plastic), and it's difficult to get replacement shells.  I still think they're overall the best helmet camera for paintball given their overall design.

Sony HDR-AZ1

This revision of the camera received a significant shrink from its previous versions; enough so that I would actually consider using it now.  It kind of looks like they just ditched the retarded accessory shit on the bottom.

A large part of the shrink is probably the removal of the internal GPS.  I kind of suspect maybe some other things under the hood, but that's the biggest one.  The GPS is a part of the live view remote now, which is actually a sensible thing to do.

The SteadyShot mode I think will be pointless for paintball use, but possibly more interesting for RC, which is the primary reason why I'm looking at it.

The remote feature I really like.  Originally, I didn't think it would be that big a deal, but having used Drift's remote for a while, it's something that I appreciate much more.  (Like forgetting to turn the cam on before a game, and being able to turn it one while you make your initial breakout.)  You can also use it with a smartphone instead of the official remote, which is really nice.

The lens housing looks kind of crappy.  If I'm not mistaken, there will be 3 layers of glass before the sensor.  The waterproof "exo-suit" is one layer, then the inner camera will have one layer, and then you get the lens.  That screams "lens flare" to me, and some of the sample footage I've seen confirms this.

(Drift HD, when run bare, which I do, has 2 lenses, and not very much lens flare.)

The online video samples of the HDR-AZ1 unfortunately seem kind of "meh".  Most of the videos look like someone farted on the lens, kind of like when GoPro's seem to go in one of their moods.

The housing and mount options are still shit, but the size reduction might help alleviate some of that.

The bare unit itself is "splashproof", but I wouldn't trust that alone against a paintball hit.

Other notable about the HDR-AZ1 is the file format and the editing software it comes with.  Haven't had much time to look into those, but they might make nice bonus features.

Also notable:  the WiFi control API might actually be documented.  Something about some JSON-RPC interface.

Oh, and the battery is replaceable.

Questions remain:  can the thing record on external power alone?  Apparently it will pick up the time from the Android phone that connects to it, but does the live view remote keep time as well?

What is the threading on the front mounting hole?  1/4-20?  Looks smaller than that.

Panasonic HX-A1

This one's not out yet, but it's pretty small and has a nice, sane round body which will be much easier to make mounts for.  Also appears waterproof without another outer housing, which I like.

They appear to support an external power supply by default, which is somewhat unusual, and sounds great at first that they thought ahead...

...  but then you realize it's probably because you can't get at the internal battery.

This is speculation until the camera comes out, but we'll see.

(Drift HD allows access to the battery AND an external power supply to be used.)

(I'm telling you the Drift HD's are kind of the gold standard for usability.)

Panasonic HX-A500

Totally crazy 4k action cam.  I can barely handle 1080, and now we're moving to 4k?!  This one goes back to the remote-image-sensor unit design of old, which fell out of fashion for obvious reasons.

It's tough to say whether this form factor will ever really be popular.  You only do it because you have to.  In this case, for the 4k.

4k itself is interesting because it will allow for digital zoom down to 1080p, so you can still possibly see what happened on arc'd shots if you gun mount.  Kind of.

They might have some image stabilization as well, but again, for paintball I think that's pointless.

I can say that having the battery on a remote unit can be useful for cold-weather usage, but then again, an all-in-one unit which supports and external battery pretty much can do the same thing.  Details on the battery are sketchy right now.

Drift Stealth 2

Drift came out with some other models as well, but the one I think is really interesting is the Drift Stealth 2.  Basically, it has all the features I liked about the Drift HD, but minus the live screen, which is replaced with WiFi connectivity, which is just as good (I'm pretty sure the screen absolutely chewed up power, even when it was off).  Slight size and weight shrink I think which is also good.  Good picture quality, good mounting options, rotating lens, works without an extra exo-suit, replaceable battery, external power capable, remote control, the whole bit.  My favorite action camera.  And some of you know that it's rare that I give something top billing, but this camera gets it.

Possibly significant caveat:  WiFi preview appears to cut off when it starts recording.

What I'm Actually Going to Do

Right now, I'm leaning toward the Sony for use in both paintball and RC, mostly because I want to try the stabilization out on my quadcopter.  If only for paintball, I would go for the Drift Stealth 2 hands down.  In fact I will probably wind up buying both.

On, and as usual, GoPro came out with some revisions to their Hero's, and they all suck.  Shit case, shit mounting, shit overall.  A lot of guys talk a lot of shit on the forums about the Hero's, but surprise surprise, most of them don't post shit for videos.  Because Hero's are shit and unbearable to actually use for paintball.

If you're thinking of shitting on yourself with a GoPro, save yourself some money and just buy the Xiaomi Yi.

MCBers

You know, sometimes you find some people on MCB talking shit, and you're like...  are you really this much of a dweeb, or do you just have one of those personalities that doesn't translate very well to forums?

Well, I happen to click on some video links, and what I found, well...  everything makes sense now.

Oh dear.  Well, he's young.  Plenty of time to...  uh...  yeah.  Young Jeff Albertson in the making.  No gameplay videos despite the lulzworthy camera setup.  Cool wolf t-shirt bro.

Goddamn does everyone on MCB still live with their parents?  "Ergonomics" and "snake playing".  LOL.

You know who he reminds me of?  Jon Lajoie, when he does any of those creepy singles dating videos.  Goddamn the guy is a windbag.  Half the time he's just talking a bunch of gibberish anyways.

So anyways, yeah, that pretty much settles it.  No more of that.

I've been doing this for a long time, and I've met lots of people from "online".  I'm no social butterfly, clearly, but the thing that has always struck me was that people always comment, "You seem like a totally normal person."

That's kind of always puzzled me.  I'm like, "What exactly were you expecting?"

It seems clear now that they were expecting one of these guys, and they got me instead.  That's fucked up, yo.  For the sake of humanity and paintball, don't be like one of these guys.

Field Operations Codified: The Chrono Station

Every field, that I have ever visited mismanages the chrono station procedure.

The daily chrono session is a serious bottleneck, particularly for large crowds.  Here is how it should be managed.

1. Player steps up and fires a shot.
2. If it's OK, fire a few more to make sure it's not a fluke.
3. If there is anything wrong, PLAYER GOES TO THE BACK OF THE LINE.

Step 3 is kind of the important one.  That entire line of 40+ people is waiting for 1 limited resource:  the chronograph.

There is no reason for someone with a shitty gun to stand in front of the chrono just to fuck with his gun.  He can do that in the back of line while other people proceed to get their guns chrono'd.

That's it.  It's real fucking simple.  Maximize throughput of people through the chrono station.

Field Operations Codified: Turnaround

A lot of fields seem to have issues with game turnaround.  They just don't run the games fast enough, and players are left in the staging area twiddling their thumbs.

The procedure seems to pretty obvious.

1. Walk out for a set of games.
2. After the games, check paint status.  If people need to head up, then head up.
3. When you get to the staging area, start a stopwatch.  Announce when the next walkout is, and give warnings a 2 and 1 minute marks.

That's pretty much it.

Pendleton actually took it a step further and was recording what groups were on what fields, as well as what fields they had already played on apparently.  I was actually kind of impressed by that.

The Efficiency Bullshit Parade

I mentioned what should be the test method for measuring efficiency in paintball guns a while back.

The topic came up again on MCB.  The MCB shitheads, as MCBers always do, proceeded to lie, mislead, and misinform each other with non-information, because that's apparently what decent people do to each other.

This time around, I decided to validate some of my previous findings with the test method.  I've run the test multiple times, and came up with the following numbers:

• Automag - 0.25g per shot
• Invert Mini - 0.25g per shot
• Spyder Compact 2000 - 0.20g per shot

Anyways, I reverse calculated the results and collated them together here:

Y CANT MCBERS MATH

The criteria for accepting a test:

1. They had to chrono the marker.  Duh.  An SL8R can get really fucking good results if you, you know, never chrono the fucking gun.  Idiot.  The most basic fucking thing, and you can't even do that right.
2. They couldn't be using the stock barrel.  Paint-to-barrel match is pretty important, and I figured if they changed the barrel, they might have cared about this.  If they were still using the stock barrel, then all confidence is lost in the tester's ability.

You'll notice a distinct pattern here.  Spools tend to do about 0.25g per shot, and poppets get about 0.20g per shot.  And as a further validation, the two Spyders and the Resurrection are actually using the same valve.

Misc. Takeaways:

1. I'm pretty sure my efficiency test works.  My data matches what others have found, as long as you filter out the shitty results.  The difference being that I didn't have to literally blow through hundreds of rounds to obtain it.  Don't fucking create a test that's so goddamn painful that nobody wants to reproduce it.
2. Why the fuck is everybody quantifying efficiency as "number of pods"?  Fucking pods vary from <140 to 160, depending on fill.  It's a bullshit way to report results.
3. Paintball player impressions are completely fucking unreliable.  For example, the person running the Resurrection test looked at the results and went "meh" when they were actually pretty good.
4. What's worse is the manufacturers themselves are just as fucking clueless as the players.  They have all this fancy talk of "engineers" and shit, but really, the poppet manufacturers could easily be claiming higher numbers.  You know those fuckers would take every opportunity to market that shit if they knew about it.
5. As fucking predicted, damn near nobody ever started from a full 4500 fill.  And yet you look at other threads where shitheads collate the data, and they don't fucking take the partial fills into account.
6. NO FUCKING EXCUSES.  We don't need to hear shit about how your results might be skewed because your gun was leaking or your battery was low or whatever.  FIX YOUR FUCKING SHIT.

Mag to Cocker Barrel Adapter

I've released my Mag to Cocker Barrel Adapter here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Ub05cFvbYmZHNpUlJFTXRhU0E/edit?usp=sharing


Enjoy!

Sony AS30V/AS100V

Sony released some "updates" to the HR-AS(S) line of sports cameras.  Honestly, the only reason I was even looking at them was for stuffing on my RC plane.

The newer models are slightly smaller.  The AS100V is "splashproof" without the exoskeleton.  No idea if this means it can take a direct paintball hit, however.

They've added some features.  Like GPS, which is not particularly interesting for paintball.

The new remote control is actually kind of neat and I can see myself getting some use out of it.

However, the case and mounting are STILL overall fucked up.

They STILL haven't added even a image flip in hardware.  It's the easiest fucking thing for them to do, and they STILL can't fucking add the feature.  Hello?  Imager has to fill the memory anyways, and if not there, then when the frames are pulled they can be flipped at that point as well, still completely in "hardware" without making the user do it in post-processing.

It is fucking bizarre how inept Sony is.

Field Operations Codified: Team Selections

I think I posted this, or something like this, on MCB, but here's the rundown.

It's real fucking simple.  There's nothing more fair than completely fucking random.  No predefined teams for recball.

All you need is a binary criteria applied to some random (something you had no control over) input.

Even/odd is a binary criteria.

Most people have no control over their date of birth.

VOILA.

Even/odd birth date
Even/odd birth month
Even/odd birth year

That gets you three very quick randomization options.

Once things are broadly split, look over the teams and make sure they're not retardedly stacked, and make adjustments.

Refs need to take the initiative here for the rec groups.  It's rec play, not scenario play or tournament practice.  You all get fucking randomized, no arguments.

You want to play together or some shit?  Make a private game, or go play on the airball field.

Field Operations Codified: Separate And Totally Unequal

The field where I normally play at doesn't have an airball field, which is actually great because it tends to keep the field and players more rec oriented.  There are other fields in town with airball, and that's where those folks go.

The owner has mentioned that he would like to add airball to get that part of the business.

Here's how my take on how to deal with the situation.

The field should strictly be partitioned into two parts:  recball and airball/tournament ball.

Field fee is $20, and this gets you admission to one of the two partitions.

If you're a rec player, you pay $20, and you only play the rec fields.

If you're a tournament player, you pay $20, and you only play the airball field.

Pretty much everybody should be plenty happy and there's no need for the groups to mix, ever.

• The tournament players can be all snotty and claim a field all for themselves, in peace.
• The rec players don't have to listen to the tournament players baiting them to go play the airball field so they can get stomped.  "Oh, you want me to play airball?  Pay my field fee."
• If the tournament players want to fuck up the rec business, they have to pay.
• Either way, the field at least gets some money.

So here are some hypothetical situations:

Tournament baller is getting bored on the airball field and wants to play recball.  No problem.  Pony up another $20 field fee to play the rec fields, and by the way, if you cause any drama on the rec field, we're still kicking your ass off both fields.  No bones about it -- tournament players are second class citizens, and we'll take your money AND kick you off the field if you start shit.

Rec baller wants to get wasted off the airball field?  Pony up another $20 to hit that side of the field.  If you want to have a bad time and never come back because you were too stupid to stay off the airball field, then pay up.

Tournament baller shows up, pays his $20, plays on the airball field.  Airball crowd dries up.  He wants to play with the rec group.  That's fine, cough up another $20, same rules as before apply.

Rec baller pays $20 to play with the rec group, and the rec group dries up.  He wants to play on the airball field with the airball players.  That's fine, cough up another $20.

Private groups play on the rec fields.

The Fine Art of First Strike Round Loading

TBD:  Red springs, Spyders, and shitty overall strategies.

Krotary Rifle

Look at the grin on this guy's face at the beginning of the video.

Speaking of which, I think it's great that people are posting videos of their creations online.

This was basically what I was wanting to do myself, but I realized there was no fucking way I would be able to pull it off with my resources.  He has the basic elements I wanted -- a rotating feed and a feed gate.  And obviously he had FS rounds in mind.  I'm totally copying his 10rd tube dispenser as well; what an awesome idea.

Not overly complicated; just a nice, elegant bit of work.

Only problem is, of course, it's Not An Automag.  Being a bolt action gun, that means that once the bolt is forward, you can't rotate and load up the other chambers at-the-ready.

But at least you are damn sure you're not going to have a misfeed when firing.  That is one of the few remaining useful purposes of (closed bolt) pump guns outside of class-based games/rules.  (I.e. pump only games.)

I also hate shooting vids, but there are a few things to note.  I'm going to guess that he actually has pretty good dexterity, and probably does things like practice motions.  His motions and placement of items appears careful and deliberate.  I think that people with similar dexterity levels may wind up coming up with similar preferences.

FS Drum Mag

So I found this on the ol' Intertubes as well.

I kind of want to hesitate to call this a rotary loader because it's really more like a curved magazine loader.  The rounds are still fed from the back by a single pusher; it's just that it's using a torsion spring like mine instead of a compression spring.

Being a single pusher design, it shares the same shortcoming as the other pusher designs -- inability to load new rounds in on the fly.  And this has a pretty large dead zone.  Pushing the entire stack from the back instead of distributing over multiple rounds can also be problematic.

This compensates for that with increased capacity of course.

Still, an interesting design and worth thinking about.  Plus he 3D printed it like I did, so extra points.

CCM SR1

I was taking a look at the other FS options available to see where my mag would fit in and decided to maybe do a rundown of some of the other options.

The first is the CCM SR1.

I do not get this gun at all.

It's a fucking single shot paintball gun.

I don't see much interesting or special about the gun. It apparently takes AR-15 accessories, but big fucking deal. Real firearms stuff doesn't always make sense when carried over to paintball (hello facemask?); Hell some of that stuff doesn't even make sense in its own field.

It's a spring+hammer poppet valve. Proprietary barrel. CO2 in the magazine along with regulator. (Kudos for actually putting a fucking regulator in there. In fact, that is the *only* good thing about this gun.)

The only thing I see here is that stupid faux shell making it easier to breech load rounds. Which is kind of fucking stupid to begin with. A properly designed breech would fix that. Or how about a properly designed magazine?

The bolt action is hilariously long due to the shell. You only need to move a bolt like 0.750" or so. Cycling a bolt 3-4 inches for a fucking 0.680" round is re-fucking-tarded.

The worst is all the fucking ridiculous ass-kissing going on with the gun. Why is everyone incapable of calling this thing out for what it is -- a fucking stupid gun? Everyone is breaking themselves trying to kiss CCM's ass.

Watch the stupid ModernIntel "preview". Do they cover the valve type? Is the action ambidextrous? Is there a safety? Do they mention any regulation? Do they mention how to even adjust the fucking velocity? How to change the CO2? Any mention of efficiency? Oh, but it's "Well balanced." And it's "Very cool." Oh, limited paint "makes you pick your shots"? You know what else makes you pick your shots? JUST PICKING YOUR GODDAMN SHOTS. If they made a talking rifle like the Auditing Morningstar which constantly reminded you to pick your shots, would you be like, "OMG that's awesome!"?

And how about this "opinion"?  The entire thing makes no fucking sense whatsoever.  I think I'm going to dedicate an entire post tearing this piece of shit apart.

$450 for just the incomplete kit, but you know that CCM being CCM will probably blow the price of this thing easily past that for just the single shot version if they ever decide to fully release it. Oh and that only includes 3 shells. It does come with allen wrenches apparently though, lol.

For what is effectively a bolt-action SpydeR1.

There's a paintball player born every minute.

The only way I see this gun being viable is if they flat out change the rules, such as at Living Legend, where pump guns can chrono at 300 while semis chrono at 280.  I would not be surprised if they found a way to further bend the rules for CCM seeing as the drive to kiss ass is so rampant.

That does remind me -- a friend of mine said he was getting an SR1, so I said we should have a FS shootout.  He immediately started laying out ground rules for the engagement.  "No bunkering, no getting within 50 feet, blah blah blah etc etc."  Go figure.

3D Printed Parts Roundup

First Strike Capable Automag

Shot Data

TopGun Paintball Recap

Disclaimer:  I was with a private group for the majority of the time I was there, so that may change the perception of certain items.

• Restrooms - Port-o-potties, untested
• Spacious staging areas
• Spacious dead areas; netting was pretty good in most of the areas, which was impressive given the size of the field
• Fill stations actually filled to 3k
• Remote fill stations also actually filled to 3k
• There were even some remote chrono stations, but no tools by any of the stations
• Refs were generally good
• rotated fields
• balanced teams
• announced next game start times, kept things moving
• generally did a good job when they were in the right place
• weren’t always in the right place for paint checks; particularly on the larger fields.  I don’t think it was for lack of caring; I think it’s a procedural issue and they just need to be trained to know where the hot spots on the field are and when to go to them to make sure things go smoothly, and radio’ing requests for paint checks to a closer ref if necessary.  For instance, the fort in the middle of the fort field.  You know if both sides get in there, it’s going to get dicey with all the CQB.  So I chalk this up more to management and procedure than the refs.
• Nobody chrono’d?  Admittedly I was with a private group so we were all pretty good, but I can’t recall seeing any indication of other groups chronoing.
• Some of the open group players were totally douchy.  Actually some of the players in another private group were totally douchy too.  Must be the local culture...
• Did I mention this was in NJ?  Fuck NJ.  God what a fucked up state.
• Lots of fields, lots of variety.  This is a very large plot of land.
• Some of the bunkers were kind of ratty and had holes and gaps, which is kind of a pet peeve.
• Was there a morning briefing for all the players?  Admittedly, I was with the private group, and I was seriously late for the first day on top of that, so I might have missed it.  But there was no signage regarding ground rules either.  I asked one of the regulars about the surrender rules since that is usually what varies between fields, and he said they basically don’t have any.
• I don’t know what normal field fees were since I was with a group, but the paint prices were bizarre.  $35 for a bag.  $60 for a half-case.  $80 for a case.  I...  don’t get it.  The regressive system encourages groups (understandable), or it encourages hosing.  The folks at the counter were cool about it and tried to help me out and get me to try getting in on a case with other people, but most other people had their paint already and by this time it didn’t matter much.  It’s not like I was going to tote the extra paint all the way back halfway across the country.  I think I used maybe 700 rounds over 2 days.
• And on that note the people running the counter (and there was always someone behind the counter) were efficient and pleasant to deal with.
• Good turnout; lot of players, even ignoring our rather large “private” group.
• Actual pro-shop on-site in case you need stuff.  Didn’t really look at their stock though.
• Paint sucked.  Marballizer.  Seemed about 0.680 bore.  I’ve never liked Marballizer.

As a lone wolf player (not looking for a wolfpack), I dunno how interested I would be in playing here.

All told, my experience with this field was largely positive.  The biggest caveat I would say is go with your own group.  That way you can all chip in for paint, and you mostly don’t have to deal with the douchebags.

Empire Resurrection Thoughts

• Appears to have best- or near-best-in-class components
• Excellent sliding single-trigger design
• clamping feedneck
• halfblock
• on/off t-rail ASA
• Couple of design niceties thrown in which make it more modern and easier to work on (some of this stuff is strongly overlooked by people in lieu of complaining about other shit)
• ram comes off without removing it
• 3-way piston comes out the back (I think)
• ego detents
• no tool needed to remove valve
• (Spyder) valve still has to ride over IVG threads when removing/installing
• Barrel kit is overkill and is an attempt to prop up the apparent value of the marker

So here's the argument:

The Empire Resurrection, just looking at the parts involved, is easily a more expensive marker to produce than many electros.  So from that perspective, it's easy to justify the price of the Resurrection.

HOWEVER, this assumes that the sum is greater than or equal to the total of the parts, which in most cases you hope to be true.

If you take all these parts, add them up to form one sum, what do you have?

You still have a mech autococker.  It might be the nicest mech autococker in the world, but it's still just a mech autococker.

Here's where the whole thing gets ugly:  in my opinion, they should have released it as an upgrade to the Sniper.  The thing just shares way too many parts with the Sniper to justify a completely separate gun.  Having two products that are so similar in price and parts seems like a bad idea.

A player who is thinking about mech play has to start thinking, "Well, do I buy a Sniper, or do I buy a Resurrection?"  The first obvious thought is:  "Well, for just a little more, I can have a semi-auto."  Which leads the user to think, "Well, if I'm going to drop that much coin for a semi-auto, I might as well just go for an electro."  BOOM, neither product sells.  The products just do not look very good stacked right next to each other in a product line.

Another way to look at it:  pretend I actually want both.  I want a Sniper (and at one time I was looking at buying one), and I want a Resurrection as well.  But not both at the same time.  For pump days, I run the Sniper, and for normal days, maybe I'll run a Resurrection.

What happens if I want both?

I HAVE TO BUY NEARLY THE ENTIRE FUCKING GUN TWICE.  LITERALLY.

So I've got to plonk down on two bodies, two feed necks, literally 6 extra barrel backs that I probably won't be using, an extra front, two regulators, two grip frames, two ASA's, two valves, two bolts, two hammers, and an assortment of other parts just so I can basically have the front pneumatics.

Yeah, about that?  Not so much.  Again, the end result in my case -- neither product sells.

We'll see how the market reacts.

Notes about the Empire Trracer

1. I don’t give a shit if it’s a ‘Nelson’ valve -- put god damn regulator on there, or at least leave space in the design for one as an upgrade.  Make a small regulator, like the one for the Mini, and sell it to us as an upgrade!  SHUT UP AND TAKE OUR MONEY. It’s not like it has to be a superfast regulator.  Tiberius built a tiny reg into their pistol.  Tippmann built a tiny reg into their pistol, and they’re clinically retarded!  The bolt is simpler to make since you’re not adjusting velocity there, and you don’t need the stupid ass long allen wrench, so that reduces cost too.  And if you need another cost reduction, just fucking drop the barrel.  Nobody wants that fucking thing anyways.
2. Backbottle?  Seriously?  Backbottle?  I know the original had backbottle.  I know you wanted to reissue teh gun, BUT IT WASN’T NECESSARY TO COPY THAT FEATURE, THANKS. Fucking playing with backbottle sucks. Just put a 1/8 NPT port on the side, and make it so you can flip that back end so that the port is on the right or left side. That's it.
3. Detent is weak; could use two of them (one up, one down).  Smallbore paint rolls right through.
4. Pump arm Picatinny didn’t extend back far enough; had to carve it to get the AFG2 to fit where I wanted.
5. Somewhat wobbly pump arm. Minor issue.

Ah, the Empire Trracer.  Would have been a great gun had they not fucked it up.  Maybe they deliberately fucked it up so the Sniper would look better.  I dunno.  Guess I'll get some custom work done for mine.

Next OpenSCAD extended rail

Weight comparison: