Todd Ferrante's Smart Part's Ion

It had been about a year and a half since the last time I played paintball when my neighbor invited me to play in early December, 2006.   We played a private game at a farm up near Toano, VA.  We had a most excellent time playing with a great group of guys.  I played with both of my guns, the Piranha and the Firestorm Autococker.  Most of the time I played with the Firestorm, but near the end of the day I switched to the Piranha, mostly for sentimental reasons.  I was a bit surprised at how light it felt in comparison with the Firestorm.  That got me thinking, and doing some internet research.  Back when I purchased the Firestorm, I had also considered the Indian Creek Designs BKO because of it's light weight.  Though I had gone a different route, I wanted to take a look at where the current state of the art in paintball guns might be.  I discovered that you can now get a much more advanced gun for the same money as when I was last considering a gun purchase in late 2004.  I ended up treating myself to a Christmas present of a Smart Parts Ion Pro.  Here is a picture of how it came.

The weekend after Christmas, we played up in Toano again, and I got to try out the new gun in the out-of-the-box stock configuration.  My neighbor had a brand new HPA tank he wasn't going to use, and he let me borrow it for the day.  I absolutely loved how the gun performed.  The stock configuration had a couple drawbacks.  First, it was a tad air inefficient, according to the internet chatter.  I had anticipated this and ordered a QEV valve with the gun.  This valve replaces one of the elbow fittings inside the gun body and is supposed to reduce air consumption by about a third.  Hopefully this will allow me to play a whole day of woods ball with a single 3000psi 68 cubic inch tank fill.  The second drawback was the tail heavy balance of the gun.  I corrected this quickly by adding a drop forward purchased at a local paintball store.  I ended up with a gun configuration that looks like this:

Because I didn't have a HPA tank, I was faced with the prospect of buying one, or doing the expansion chamber to regulator trick I've done on my previous two guns.  I wasn't thrilled with this option because I specifically selected this gun for it's light weight.  I ended up purchasing the HPA tank from my neighbor, as he had indicated an interest in selling it off.  So, for now I'll be playing with the configuration shown above.  This is perfectly acceptable, and I expect this setup to perform wonderfully.  I am a little bummed, however, that this configuration uses only off the shelf parts.  It just doesn't seem right that I should not have some custom machine widget on the gun somewhere.  To that end, I've decided to set an ultimate goal of making this gun as light as I can possibly make it.  This goal ought to provide some opportunities for custom made stuff, even if it just means drilling lightening holes in strategic places.  To that end, I've used a digital scale to do some weighing of components to seek out areas where weight might most easily be spared.  The results were quite interesting.

PGI Firestorm Autococker, CO2 powered

Firestorm w/ drop fwd, regulator, expansion chamber, adco sight	5 lb 1.3 oz
Ricochet AK hopper, empty	11.7 oz
20 oz CO2 tank, full	3lb 5.0 oz
total	9 lb 2 oz

This includes the freak barrel at 5.2 oz.

PGI Firestorm Autococker, HPA powered

Firestorm w/ drop fwd, expansion chamber, adco sight	4 lb 4.0 oz
Ricochet AK hopper, empty	11.7 oz
Pure Energy 3000 psi, 68 cu inch HPA tank	2lb 6.4 oz
total	7 lb 6.1 oz

This includes the freak barrel at 5.2 oz.

PMI Piranha STS

Piranha w/ drop fwd, regulator, expansion chamber	3 lb 14.2 oz
Ricochet AK hopper, empty	11.7 oz
20 oz CO2 tank, full	3lb 5.0 oz
total	7 lb  14.9oz

This includes the Piranha barrel at 3.1 oz.

Smart Parts Ion Pro

Ion Pro w/ added drop forward	2 lb 13.1 oz
Ricochet AK hopper, empty	11.7 oz
Pure Energy 3000 psi, 68 cu inch HPA tank	2lb 6.4 oz
total	5 lb 15.2 oz

This includes the freak jr. barrel at 6.0 oz.