Xspyderman wrote: Cheetos3254 wrote: I'm gonna have to say get the flatline over the apex I agree.  The APEX is a weird barrel... forget about conventional straight shooting.

The Apex can shoot just like a regular barrel if you want it to.

dose the apex have differnt settings

A5 Man wrote: Should I get the Apex barrel

You have gotten a number of suggestions from people who obviously haven't even read the available literature on the barrel. First of all, it can be instantly adjusted to curve the ball right, left, up or down. You can easily adjust, literally on the run, the AMOUNT of curve the barrel delivers. Adjustments range from Flatline trajectory to sharply upward curving flight paths. The left, right and down paths can be adjusted from slight to extreme. AND, run the adjustments back to "0" and the thing shoots like any straight smooth bore. Looks like the best of all worlds to me. I just bought one off Ebay for $89 and am eagerly awaiting its arrival!

DeTrevni wrote: No, I hate apex. It kills the point of strategic placement of your team. Basically all cover is null and void, and you look like a cheater. Obviously, I hate the Apex. Get a Flatline!

At one time many people said the Flatline was cheating. The Apex is just another innovation like the semi-auto marker or the electric hopper, all of which were called cheats when first introduced.

Bruce A. Frank wrote:  I just bought one off Ebay for $89 and am eagerly awaiting its arrival!

Please provide a detailed review when you have a chance - some actual first-hand information would be great.

Thanks.

benttwig33 wrote: flatline + apex....both crap dont waste the money...well the flatline has potential if you freaking baby the thing...if you want a solid performer that never lets you down, get a lapco bigshot.

Hmmm! My Flatline never let me down!

If you are looking for accuracy, no but if you want to cheat, yes

I say get Freak Barrel System

OKay, I received the Apex barrel last Friday and had to fight my son for it. We hit the speedball field a 6:pm and played until 9:00.

We finally agreed that he would take it for the first 1.5 hours, then I would have it. We had a little bit of a problem with our new shippment of paint. It was Diablo Heat, as ordered, but it was black instead of our usual pink. Box was different, bags were different and the paintballs themselves varried in size from .684" to .690". We thought this could be a problem...and it was. We took two cases of paint to the field; one of the new boxes of black and a box from the last shippment of pink. Since this play period runs from 6 to 9PM and the lighting is not great when the sun goes down we thought to use the black until dusk and the pink for better visibility when they turned on the lights.

I started the evening with my Hammerhead barrel and had a lot of broken paint...one or two ball for every hopper full...not good! Robin, using the Apex, was breaking a lot more than that. Two or three shots and the barrel would shoot clean for good accuracy but this batch of paint was just too fragile!.

About 7:30 Robin actually wanted me to take the Apex because of the broken paint problem. About that time I filled all the pods with the pink paint. I screwed the barrel onto my marker and headed back to the field.

The pink Heat measures .683". I set the Apex to back spin like the Flatline. I found I needed to chrono the marker as clearly the velocity was down. Th Apex has relatively large vent ports about midway down the barrel and the barrel is LOUD. With the velocity adjusted to 270 fps the paint would travel the length of the speedball field virtually dead flat with just some tweaks to the amount of spin with the slide adjustment.

Unlike my Flatline, I could make shot after shot to exactly the same spot. For a while we played on the "castle" field that has windows in the walls through which you can shoot or be shot. The windows measure about 8" wide by 12" tall. At 100' I put 10 shots through the same window...finally taking out the shooter. Set up to function as the Flatline I had a flat trajectory to about 150 feet. As the ball slowed it would then actually begin to climb. I don't know what the max range is as the field ball screen is just a little beyond that.

We moved again to the air bunker field and the fun really began. The number of players were down to about 4 to 6 on a side which is perfect on these fields. I moved to a right 20 stand up and began battling with my mirror. I could lay paint virtually within an inch or two of the edge of his bunker. Shot after shot. The Flatline has never been that accurate with any paint. I could not time my shots with his  appearence so time to try the curve ball.

I twisted the Apex to give a left curve to try to wrap around the can he was behind. Not quite enough curve so I ran the adjustment all the way forward. It took about three shots to get the range and I nailed him on the fifth shot. Impressive! I could really get almost right angle turns! Later he said he was crouching and I'd walked the paint from the top to the bottom of the can and got him just when he decided it was time to move.

Next game I tried to use the divebomb mode against my son on the back dog house (I didn't know it was he  at the time) The down curve was so dramatic it would have worked. But, the dead man bunker was directly behind his position so I backed off to keep from raining paint on the people there.

I could actually hold the adjustable end of the barrel and shoot while I turned the adjustment. Dial-A-Shot!

In straight mode the barrel was as accurate as I have ever shot. In straight mode I broke none of the pink paint. In curve mode I broke 2 balls out of about 900. The broken paint shoots clean in 2 to 3 shots in curve mode, and about 6 shots to clean in straight mode. When shooting the curve, broken paint had little effect on ball trajectory. All the paint that broke actually broke in the adjustment part of the barrel (when my son was using the black paint)

I am impressed! The only problem was the new black paint that was fragile.  We had to shoot demo shot after demo shot for other players and the refs...a lot of Ooo's and aah's over the way the way the thing performed. Trajectory change was just a twist and, as I said, could be done while firing.

I have sold one of our Flatlines and will sell the other as soon as I can get it listed on Ebay. At $89 off Ebay, the Apex is the finest barrel I have used. Its ONLY draw back is that it is loud and the vent ports seem to dump too much gas too quickly. We have some ideas on how to reduce the loud report. I had to run my pressures up to about 200 psi to get the needed velocity. Accuracy is better than my Hammerhead barrel using the same paint.

I'll get some more info out after some daytime play. Someone wanted video. I am going to have to borrow a digital video camera so you will have to wait a bit.

Cool - nice review.

Did you have any breaks?  Was the barrel hard to squeegee/clean?

Clark Kent wrote: Cool - nice review. Did you have any breaks?  Was the barrel hard to squeegee/clean?

Read the post again. Yes, I had a couple of breaks. They took place in the spin adjuster and had little effect on the performance of the barrel...and even that went away in two to three shots.

County wrote: The Apex is pretty awesome. They're illegal in most speedball tournaments though. For rec ball, it will give you an edge. Up to you and the people you play with if it's "cheating" or not.

Can you tell me where there is published on the web or in a Paintball magazine this information about the Apex being illegal in tournaments? I stay fairly current on what goes on in the sport, but I haven't seen that info. 

County wrote: The Apex is pretty awesome. They're illegal in most speedball tournaments though. For rec ball, it will give you an edge. Up to you and the people you play with if it's "cheating" or not.

I just called Ben Tippmann with this question referencing this forum. Their response was that if it is banned in any tournament BT has not been informed.  I was told that when any part or marker is banned or restricted in tournament play there is usually a phone call directly to the manufacturer of the banned item to inform them. They will research it and let me know if they find such a rule made against the Apex.

I asked which publications would keep me up to date on such rule changes. She suggested three mags, two of which I subscribe to right now: APG, Extreme Paintball, and one with which I was not familiar Paintball News, a weekly publication.

Tippyprouser wrote: I'd say don't get it. I've seen one in the packaing it shows the ball start to curve right after the bunker to actaully hit the person....ya right like it will do that

Yep! It does.

Xspyderman wrote: I predict it will be illegal for rec ball... at responsibly run facilities anyway.

As is the Flatline, right?

UV Halo wrote: Okay, here is the big question.  Does velocity change between levels of effect?  Meaning when you turn the effect all the way up (creating the most spin), do you get a drop in velocity.

Yes, with full spin dialed in the velocity drops about 20 fps. This had been talked about on pbreview.com and we tested it on the chrono and found it to be true. Refs need to be aware of this so that velocity over the chrone is checked with no spin dialed in.