Got my Eigenbarrel today, it's a 14" one-piece .678 single bore barrel. Available for $39.99 from Lurker Paintball:
http://www.lurkerpaintball.com/eigenbarrel.htmlThe barrel is available only in 14" and either dust or polished black. I picked up a polished black version. Right now I'm just posting some pictures up and will write up more as I use the barrel.
A little background, the Eigenbarrel is the first in a new category of barrels, one-piece super tightbore barrels that are intended for the practice of
underboring, which is all the rage today. Without going into too much detail, the deal is that putting a heavy squeeze on paintballs provides maximum shot-to-shot velocity consistency, and on closed-bolt guns prevents rollouts and fun stuff related to that. Also, in many areas, including Hawaii, paintballs seem to be getting smaller and smaller. Testing and experience seems to show that you can go pretty far with underbore without breaking any more balls than normal, so it was postulated that a single-piece super tightbore barrel might be a good alternative to expensive barrel kits, most of whose bores are not useful in the modern era. Several other makers are reputedly considering such barrels.
Anyway, without further ado, the gloss Eigenbarrel, compared with my current barrel of choice, a .682 14" Kaner.
Barrels only
I consider the Eigenbarrel to be relatively close to the Kaner in design, in terms of it being a forward-tapering barrel, if only mildly so.
Eigenbarrel on gun
Kaner on gun
The Eigenbarrel is a very lightweight barrel, with the walls kept to a minimum thickness. The only issue this creates is a bit more gap between the barrel and the pump:
Eigenbarrel
Kaner
I do not expect this to be an issue.
Eigenbarrel on couple other guns:
The Eigenbarrel weighs 3.6oz/103g, while the Kaner weighs 4.9oz/140g.
Small observation: On my two mini bodies, a Jackal and a Turtle, the barrel bottoms out before the "shoulder" meets the upper tube, leaving a small gap. I use a o-ring which fills the gap, but it's something to perhaps be aware of.
To be continued ...
