EPIC STORY TIME: The Angriest Barrel You've Ever Seen (or Heard)

The Cannoniser

       I'm starting a new series of posts today, a sort of story time entertainment kind of entry for the blog. Every once in a while, we have exceptional experiences when playing on the field, and also have some epic failures. As a referee, I get to watch even more of these stories unfold before me since when I'm not assisting players it's my job to observe while being right in the middle of the action. Regular readers have probably also noticed that I like to add a little story, or personal history to every review I do as build up to how I ended up with a particular product. Here's story number one, I hope you like it.

       Earlier this year, around January I believe it was, a team mate was asking for a barrel suggestion. At the time he was looking at several options from Tippmann such as the somewhat expensive Sniper and Straight Line barrels, as well as the Marksman barrel from Milsig. The summer previous a friend had pulled out a FLASC (Frozen Land And Sniper Creek) barrel kit which had me piqued my curiosity due to it's double threading, modular design, long backs for sizing as well as a price tag that greatly undermined anything from Freak or Tech T. What 129 Canadian dollars could get you from FLASC was amazing so after doing my research and drooling over their kits myself, I suggested to the team mate that he purchase a control bore kit from them as a solution to his barrel woes. After all, why not spend a little more than you would on the other options and get a kit? The full meal deal so to speak.

       He purchased the kit with a normally ported 3 and 5 inch extension as well as the four-prong tip as for the muzzle break that came with the kit. The kit it all came in was quite nice I might add, but he also picked up one other item: the Cannoniser barrel tip. It was more than a month ago that several of us gathered around the local field's chronograph and were checking out the barrel kit. He first showed off the various bore backs and extensions with the normal tip, and shortly after, he pulled out the Cannoniser tip. He squeezed the trigger, and.... pop, pop. Business as usual, no sound or pitch difference. Ha! Sorry, bro, looks like you've been duped by advertising! After yesterday however (public Sunday), we know what the problem that day all the time ago was.

       The same team mate (on the opposing team) was letting me test out the kit yesterday to see how I liked it. Over bore was good, so was under bore, matching the bore in this case was not the best option but I was liking the kit. I was using the Cannoniser with a ported extension just behind it and was noticing the same lack of noise difference but wasn't too concerned. Going in to game three, an experienced autococker player was also checking out the kit was examining the set up I'd last used. He unthreaded the tip, then the ported extension, and placed the tip on the un-ported bore back. “Here, Kris,” he said, “try this, no porting, right? Maybe that'll jack the sound up a little since the gas isn't escaping before the tip.” This is a very logical idea, I think to myself. I like it. So before going back to the X7 Phenom's stock barrel, I decide to try one more FLASC barrel combo. Also worth a mention: I didn't bother to test it before walking out for the game and had no idea what to expect from it.

       Fast-forward a minute and the team I'm on is standing in front of our starting base waiting on the horn blast to send us into combat so just to see how consistent and accurate the combination is, I take a few shots. Pop, pop? Nope.

CRACKOW! We all know that the higher fps a marker is shooting at, the louder it generally is, correct? This was close to twice, possibly three times as loud and a much higher pitch too. the velocity it sounded like was definitely over 500 fps but I was still shooting 290. I know my own eyes went very wide after that first test shot, the ref off to my side almost jumped and stared at me with the same look I was giving the barrel, and every person on the team stopped chatting and started to stare too. I began to feel myself grin wickedly. I knew that the first time I opened up with auto in the next game, even for suppression's sake, I was going to scare half the other team back into their starting base! My team decided I should sprint ahead for the game and lay down some fire with this angry barrel to shake up the opfor while they brought up the rear.

       Kicking it into auto, the thing screamed like a banshee. I'm not even kidding when I tell you my ears were ringing at the end of the game after all those bursts of auto and I was behind the tip, not in front of it! FLASC is correct in warning players not to use this tip if you're in close proximity to someone else, next to them in a bunker for example. Myself, a team mate, and a handful of renters created enough cacophony around midfield to let the same autococker user who'd suggested the barrel combo to slide down the left flank and decimate the members of other team who'd made it so far. I have no idea what part the barrel played in this but we were shooting forward like lightning and the Cannoniser was the thunder. Under normal circumstances this would have been a winning tactic, but in this case we were playing capture the flag, and having the whole other team hiding in their base after five minutes with their guns trained on the flag was not a great move on our part.

       In the end we didn't accomplish the objective. I made a last ditch suicide spring to grab the flag at the one minute remaining mark but got lit up, business as usual. My team mate caught up to me after the horn sounded to end the game. “I think I want my tip back now” he said, as we walked off the field.

       I will have my own back bore and Cannoniser tip the mail shortly.