I've managed to grab an hour or so to give the PMR a proper going over and write an unbiased review to help the many players out there considering this as a purchase make your decision. Many of you will know that my team are sponsored by Proto and may therefore have a tainted view, and whilst I would agree that I am a great fan of the Matrix platform, those of you who know me personally will agree that I am perfectly capable of being objective in these situations. So, here we go...
First off, the PMR comes neatly packed in a tiny little box that gives you a hint of what is to come. If you've ever owned a Proto Matrix before, the packaging is very similar to the PM5 and PM6 with all of the following packed neatly in foam: the PMR itself, a 12" single piece Proto Barrel, a plain barrel condom, a set of standard allen keys, a bag of O-Rings, spare detents and board-buttons, a tube of new formula DYE slick lube, the manual and warranty card, and finally a nice little touch - a Proto branded 9V battery. All the usual stuff then? Well yes and no. The lube, allen keys and spares pack are obviously areas where Proto have saved money, but lets remember the price tag here and these are minor details. Great to see that you still get all of these with the budget price tag.
On to the marker itself, the PMR is surprisingly small, astoundingly light and pleasing to the eye. Not everyone will like the polymer and rubber frame, trigger and feedneck, but seeing and feeling these in the flesh blew away any fears I had about them giving the gun a "plastic" feel. In fact, the two materials work incredibly well together to create very light, but tactile and sturdy components. They look pretty neat too. These parts compliment a smoothly milled and well anodised metal gun body, FBM, hyper2 reg and airport. The whole package looks unique and of high quality.
Dissasembly took just a couple of minutes to strip everything off of the gun (a process made a lot easier by the absense of an LPR to mess around with) and seemed very easy to me, but that may be because of my familiarity with the Matrix shooters. However, the strip down did reveal one thing about the Rail that would be a slight bug bear to me - the FBM (Front Bottle Mount) is connected to the main gun body through the Polymer grip frame by a large "gas-through" screw. This just adds an extra step to stripping the marker down and means an extra O-Ring to potentially damage or part to loose, but it is a minor annoyance and an absolutely neccessary one to allow gun to retain its good looks and low price tag, whilst ensuring your Hyper2 reg is frimly locked in place. Also, lets remember that this is a bolt-out-back marker and we shouldn't need to take the grip frame off too often.
This raised another potential concern as I realised that the Airport (ASA) may be railed directly on to the bottom of the Polymer grip frame, but I soon discovered that the good people at Proto had already thought about this and the ASA sits on a metal rail inserted into the bottom of grip frame which is very sturdy. This demonstrates how well the design of the Rail has been thought out. Whilst we are discussing the Airport, it has no on/off or purge, but is compact and has a front hose connection for a tidy, unencumbering set-up.
The body is of usual Proto high quality and can not be faulted. It has very neat polymer eye and detent covers which have allen-key screws set in to them. This particular design feature is a god send, meaning you don't have to worry about loosing those little buggers and the whole process of removing and replacing these covers is very very easy. They also fit very snugly, eliminating the chance of any crap getting in the gun's breach. The locking feedneck is a great feature, looks good and works great. No need for any replacement here. Metal Proto logo inserts finish the body off nicely.
I don't need to talk about the Hyper2 Reg - this baby has been proven over and over again over the last couple of years.
The bolt itself strips out of the back of the Rail in one piece and has been simplified over the PM6 design that I am used to from Cynergy's armory. I can see no problems here, but I am no expert on bolts. A good indicator of the bolts rebust qualities though is the fact that we took this gun straight out of its box, screwed an air system on and let all the good peeps at Round 12 of the NSPL last weekend shoot for all they were worth all day long without any problems or adjustments needed. The same bolt shows no signs of wear or damage and has been removed and replaced a dozen or so times too. Time will tell, but the indicators are good.
We are then left with the electronic internals and the solenoid. The solenoid is of good quality and seated neatly into the underside of the body. It is connected to the board in the grip frame via the usual harness. The eye ribbon follows the same path as those wires and has been improved to make removing and inserting the ribbon much easier. Another nice improvement here is a much sturdier battery connection as these tended to be a little weak in the PM6. The board itself sits securely and parrellel to the back of the grip frame and features the usual dip switches to access programming modes and the two-button, multi-coloured LED operating interface that Matrix owners will be used to. Programming features include Anti-Bolt-Stick, Trigger Sensitivity, Dwell, Rate of Fire, and Fire Mode settings. Factory default for ROF is 20bps, but can be set from 10bps to 30bps! Fire Modes available are Semi-Auto, PSP Mode and Millennium Mode.
So, that's the gun stripped down to its bare bones. I don't think I have missed anything, but if I have, please let me know and I will investigate for you.
That's all I have time for today. Tomorrow I will try to put aside another hour to give the gun a real test out by the chrono station outside of the Paintball Warehouse shop. I'll be getting back to you with details of the shooting experience including kick-level, efficiency, consistency and accuracy.
So far, I am genuinely impressed with the PM Rail and can't wait to field test the one I am working on. Watch this space for the results.
First off, the PMR comes neatly packed in a tiny little box that gives you a hint of what is to come. If you've ever owned a Proto Matrix before, the packaging is very similar to the PM5 and PM6 with all of the following packed neatly in foam: the PMR itself, a 12" single piece Proto Barrel, a plain barrel condom, a set of standard allen keys, a bag of O-Rings, spare detents and board-buttons, a tube of new formula DYE slick lube, the manual and warranty card, and finally a nice little touch - a Proto branded 9V battery. All the usual stuff then? Well yes and no. The lube, allen keys and spares pack are obviously areas where Proto have saved money, but lets remember the price tag here and these are minor details. Great to see that you still get all of these with the budget price tag.
On to the marker itself, the PMR is surprisingly small, astoundingly light and pleasing to the eye. Not everyone will like the polymer and rubber frame, trigger and feedneck, but seeing and feeling these in the flesh blew away any fears I had about them giving the gun a "plastic" feel. In fact, the two materials work incredibly well together to create very light, but tactile and sturdy components. They look pretty neat too. These parts compliment a smoothly milled and well anodised metal gun body, FBM, hyper2 reg and airport. The whole package looks unique and of high quality.
Dissasembly took just a couple of minutes to strip everything off of the gun (a process made a lot easier by the absense of an LPR to mess around with) and seemed very easy to me, but that may be because of my familiarity with the Matrix shooters. However, the strip down did reveal one thing about the Rail that would be a slight bug bear to me - the FBM (Front Bottle Mount) is connected to the main gun body through the Polymer grip frame by a large "gas-through" screw. This just adds an extra step to stripping the marker down and means an extra O-Ring to potentially damage or part to loose, but it is a minor annoyance and an absolutely neccessary one to allow gun to retain its good looks and low price tag, whilst ensuring your Hyper2 reg is frimly locked in place. Also, lets remember that this is a bolt-out-back marker and we shouldn't need to take the grip frame off too often.
This raised another potential concern as I realised that the Airport (ASA) may be railed directly on to the bottom of the Polymer grip frame, but I soon discovered that the good people at Proto had already thought about this and the ASA sits on a metal rail inserted into the bottom of grip frame which is very sturdy. This demonstrates how well the design of the Rail has been thought out. Whilst we are discussing the Airport, it has no on/off or purge, but is compact and has a front hose connection for a tidy, unencumbering set-up.
The body is of usual Proto high quality and can not be faulted. It has very neat polymer eye and detent covers which have allen-key screws set in to them. This particular design feature is a god send, meaning you don't have to worry about loosing those little buggers and the whole process of removing and replacing these covers is very very easy. They also fit very snugly, eliminating the chance of any crap getting in the gun's breach. The locking feedneck is a great feature, looks good and works great. No need for any replacement here. Metal Proto logo inserts finish the body off nicely.
I don't need to talk about the Hyper2 Reg - this baby has been proven over and over again over the last couple of years.
The bolt itself strips out of the back of the Rail in one piece and has been simplified over the PM6 design that I am used to from Cynergy's armory. I can see no problems here, but I am no expert on bolts. A good indicator of the bolts rebust qualities though is the fact that we took this gun straight out of its box, screwed an air system on and let all the good peeps at Round 12 of the NSPL last weekend shoot for all they were worth all day long without any problems or adjustments needed. The same bolt shows no signs of wear or damage and has been removed and replaced a dozen or so times too. Time will tell, but the indicators are good.
We are then left with the electronic internals and the solenoid. The solenoid is of good quality and seated neatly into the underside of the body. It is connected to the board in the grip frame via the usual harness. The eye ribbon follows the same path as those wires and has been improved to make removing and inserting the ribbon much easier. Another nice improvement here is a much sturdier battery connection as these tended to be a little weak in the PM6. The board itself sits securely and parrellel to the back of the grip frame and features the usual dip switches to access programming modes and the two-button, multi-coloured LED operating interface that Matrix owners will be used to. Programming features include Anti-Bolt-Stick, Trigger Sensitivity, Dwell, Rate of Fire, and Fire Mode settings. Factory default for ROF is 20bps, but can be set from 10bps to 30bps! Fire Modes available are Semi-Auto, PSP Mode and Millennium Mode.
So, that's the gun stripped down to its bare bones. I don't think I have missed anything, but if I have, please let me know and I will investigate for you.
That's all I have time for today. Tomorrow I will try to put aside another hour to give the gun a real test out by the chrono station outside of the Paintball Warehouse shop. I'll be getting back to you with details of the shooting experience including kick-level, efficiency, consistency and accuracy.
So far, I am genuinely impressed with the PM Rail and can't wait to field test the one I am working on. Watch this space for the results.
