Zap ZXS 200 - Review... sort of...

[Dirtjump9]

Grrrrrrrr :D
I got my ZXS 200 in the mail today. I woke up and I roll over and there is this bright white Priority Mail box in my face. I almost pee'd my pants because I thought it was my E-bolt, but it was just the $2.99 pistol I bought from Ebay. Well... I wait all day, this I go out and see what she is made of. I thought to myself "Gee, I'm so lucky that dad had these 2 old 12 grams lying around." I gas it up with high expectations, when all of a sudden... WOOSH! I just wasted a WHOLE 12 gram! GRRR!!!!! WTF! I hope I didn't get ripped off! I sit there, all pissed off before I load the next 12 gram. Well, now it just slowly leaks but it wont fire! It seems as if there is no valve in it! :rolleyes: I undo the CO2 and let it empty out and warm up before I touch it and get frostbite.
I open it up, and low and behold... the valve is setup wrong! The idiots at the factory must have been a bit hung over or dizzy from sniffing Zap paintballs all day. I unscrew the pin and place it correctly, then, being the highly skilled ghetto-rigger I am, I take some nice teflon tape and I go over all the important threads. Now it's all set to go... All I need now is some more 12 grams. I'll get some tomrrow and report back on how it went. But as for now, I HIGHLY do not recommend this marker! :blink:

[SSDDismymotto]

you get what you pay for

[Dirtjump9]

Haha, no kidding! :D The marker was $2.99 and the shipping was $8.50 :lol:
I think now that I have addressed the problem, it might actually work tomrrow (hopefully)! :)

[SSDDismymotto]

im gonna get one and play airball

[Dirtjump9]

Lol! Good luck with that!
I think that if you oil the valve and seal the threads with teflon, it will work a little better. I wanna try again tomrrow when I get my CO2 :)

[danman2008]

Try cocking the gun first to.

[Dirtjump9]

Lol, I did. I'm not that slow :D
I cocked it like 20 times but I got nothing. And YES, I did pull the trigger! :D

[danman2008]

No I mean cocking it before you gas it up. That worked on one I bought about 5 years back.

[Dirtjump9]

Well, I finally got around to testing it! Before I get to the review, lemme tell you a quick story.
I wait ALL day until finally the carpenter dudes cleaned up and left (were getting our bathroom redone). My mom and I first stoped at Home Depot so we could pick up some flooring. $1350 and 17 cases of wood flooring later, I got into WalMart. I grabed a pack of 15 Game Face 12grams and got on line. I was forced to wait behind some lady with $300 worth of stuff. I finally got ringed up and guess what? I legally couldn't buy it! WTF! Today, I had to be born on 8/5/1989 in order to be able to legally purchase it. My 16th birthday is exactly a month away today. I told the cashier that but the ###### still refused to sell it to me. I walked away and called her a ###### ;) After dinner my mom came back with me and bought 'em :rolleyes:


REVIEW!:
Paint used: Draxxus Blaze
Well, I set up I piece of wood in the basement, loaded a 12gram (finally worked!) and a ball. Took a shot and... BAM..SPLAT! A 12 gram is good for about 30-40 shots, which is pretty efficient in my book. From about 25-30 feet away, the gun seems pretty accurate. The iron-sights are actually pretty good and the ball hits about 2" away where it's aimed. The gun is also incredibly light and easy to shoot. The trigger pull is pretty long and the pump stroke could be better but overall it is bearable. The gun really needs a ball detent because I had a couple balls roll out of the barrel.
Overall, the marker hits very hard, is pretty accurate, very efficient, very light and manuverable and very affordable! Just make sure you keep the valve well oiled and keep teflon tape on the threaded pieces. Also, don't dry fire the gun without CO2 because you run the risk of getting the valve stuck.

[F.T. Phantom]

Roll out is a common problem with closed bolt markers. You have to get a PB that fits tha barrel well before you can take care of that problem. The Draxxus/Diablo paint is small bore and will almost always roll on you. The ball detents only help to keep more thatn one pb from loading at a time. They work great on open bolt markers to keep paint in. They push the PB past the detent as they fire. The Pb doesn't have time to roll out the barrel. Closed bolt pushes the PBs past the detent and into the chamber before firing. The detent would be a hinderance if it was holding the pb in place in the chamber. You will only notice roll when pausing between pumping and shooting. I usually don't pump the marker until I am ready to shoot to avoid the roll out problem.

As for the cocking before airing up. Most pumps can not be cocked before you have air on them. They need the air in the vavlve before they will catch the hammer on the sear. They need the pressure in the valve. I have seen some old pumps that will, but, none made after the early 90's.

[Dirtjump9]

Honostly, I have really taking a liking to the style of this marker. I actually tossed around the idea of saving up for a stock class Phantom within the next year. I think once I play with this pistol a couple times then I'll make up my mind on what I want. The good thing is that I have a choice as to what style I feel like playing; I have the soon-to-be E-bolted 98C and I have this little pump gun.
Right now, this little pistol should prove to be fun, whenever I actually get a chance to play :rolleyes:

[Lee233]

I bought one of those today, I had fun with it and it works well for me. The pump is a little hard cause my little bro can't do it. Lol. Anyways, I liked it and it does seem fairly accurate, but I decided that instead of a paintball pistol, which it looks like, I use it as a paintball shotgun. I pump 3-4 times and that loads 3-4 rounds, One shot and they go flying out. I used Karnage bite paintballs and all of the paintballs broke when they hit the fence in my backyard. I was standing roughly 25-30 feet away.

THe shotgun blast was tight on some shots and more spread on others. Yet they didn't go flying wildly. I say it would be a very good backup weapon. Preloaded and just take the safety off, someone runs from behind whip out the shotgun and unload 4 shots in one go. Pretty fun. I say its worth the 10 dollars I paid for it.

[Dirtjump9]

Yea, I've been shooting mine in the basement the past 2 days and it's working like a charm. Occasionally it will accidentally load 2 paintballs into the breech and will suprise me :) My only gripe is the paint keeps rolling out of the barrel but then again, I am shooting small bore paint (Draxxus Blaze and 32 Degrees). The 12grams seem to last forever in this gun! I'm thinking about putting a couple 1/16" or 1/8" holes in the end of the barrel to quiet it up a bit. I really wish paintball sound suppresors were legal because it would be all to easy to build one for this marker. It is actually pretty quiet stock, so I can only imagine how quiet it would be with a suppressor :o
Anywho...
One tip: NEVER dry fire it without a 12gram in it because without the pressure pushing on the valve, the pin will fly back and get stuck and you will have to take apart the valve and fix it... Not to mention that you will waste your 12gram when you screw it in.
If you want to ditch the hopper in favor of a stock class setup, I have a tip for you. Take a 3/4" copper 90 degree elbow and put it on the feed neck. It wont fit all the way down, there should be about a 1/4" inch gap between the end of the elbow and the raised section of the feed neck. Next, cut a piece of 3/4" copper water pipe. I cut mine to 4 3/4" inches and connected it to the elbow. Then you can use a 3/4" end cap or a cork to plug up the end. The result is a slightly heavier yet lower profile pistol.
:)

[F.T. Phantom]

Ahhh, a old school homebrew SC setup, and, I don't throw old school around like some kiddies I know.

PVC is cheaper, but, you have to work a little more on the fit.

You can't beat the look of copper IMO. :D

[Dirtjump9]

If I had some, 3/4" ABS would be much better because it is much lighter. When ABS is made, many little air pockets are formed internally. Much like styrofoam, ABS is brittle but weights next to nothing. I'm not complaining; The copper pipe setup works fine and best of all... It was free! :)
I think once I have a few bucks, I might pick up some 10rd tubes and an elbow.

[Dirtjump9]

Just an update!
Right now my venture is into making it quieter. My idea is to make some sort of buffer between the hammer/powertube and the valve to eliminate the sharp "click" it makes when firing. I have tried using blue RTV gasket maker but it was too sticky and didn't work well. I think I might pick up some liquid electrical tape and trying that. I am also thinking of putting some light porting on the muzzle to quiet up the pop a little. I have to admit, it would be all too easy to make a custom suppressor for this but I'm a little leery on it after what I have heard about illegal suppressors. According to some firearm vendor, owning/making a suppressor without the tax stamp weather it be for a firearm, BB gun, paintball gun, whatever, the punishment is equivalent to owning an illegal/homemade automatic weapon.
But man, what I could do with a suppressor :wub: