WDP Angel in Rain

It was a cold a dreary day, clouds were hovering overhead, and the mud was wet with the elements. Perfect weather.
I jumped out of my Jeep and decided that today would be the day we put the WDP Angel to the test. I loaded her up, tuned her full-auto chip to a very high speed, and hit the chronograph range. After attracting much attention, and about 15 minutes of explaining, I finally got her under 300 fps. I had to turn down her firepower, she would not shoot properly at full speed.

I pulled out my box of expired paint, filled up the hopper, and prepared for the games ahead. As we waited for the rules to be explained, the clouds also gathered and decided to punish us. Within seconds, a heavy yet exciting drizzle came pounding down. The faces of my guerilla comrades turned from an excited delighted state to a very determined and willing look. We were up for the challenge.

As we headed out to the forest, the wind began to sweep the rain. The rain was now challenging us from all directions. The canopy of the forest offered some protection, but hardly enough to ward off nature’s mischievous forces. Images of horizontal rain and Vietnam came to mind. We were the target of nature’s momentary and whimsical uneasiness.

The whistle blew and we ran to our predetermined outposts. My mask quickly fogged up and all I could see was a greenish brown blur in front of me. Anything that moved caused an explosion from the muzzle of the Angel. The wet paintballs were flying in all directions. The standard Jacko barrel did not offer much protection from the moisture. The angel was wet, and it began to show signs of fatigue. Balls were being chopped, double feeding became chronic, unpredictable flight patterns for the paintballs ran rampant, and I was rendered ineffective. Not only could I barely see, but I could not aim very well. I also noticed an air of spray-and-pray take over my instincts. I was shooting at everything that moved. This did not please me. Hell had boiled over.

The Angel was obviously not designed to be used in such excruciating conditions. Terrible paint, water inside the gun, in the barrel, and probably in the hopper too was not taken into consideration when the marker was being designed. While these are extreme conditions, we feel that they are within the realm of possibility. After all, it did happen to us. We feel that despite these minor complications, the Angel is an excellent marker. Obviously, the stock version is not the choice for everyone.

The Angel overall, is an excellent marker. A few design enhancements are absolutely necessary. Firstly, we question the choice of barrel. Sure the Jacko may be a nice barrel, but it is much longer than is necessary. Furthermore, it has too many large-opening ports. A barrel with smaller porting and shorter length would have been just as effective. This would eliminate the amount of things that can go wrong as the paintball travels down the barrel i.e. sloughing through water.

If you would like to make your Angel more “elements” friendly, we have some suggestions. Namely, change the barrel. Choose a barrel between 8 to 10 inches without spiral porting. We recommend the basic Aluminum DYE barrel. Another suggestion is to slow the speed of the marker down. We even will go as far as to say, leave it in semiautomatic mode. But we know that you would not have bought an Angel for only semi-auto applications. Get used to the gun first, then switch to a slower full automatic.

Stay tuned for our long term evaluation.

Any other questions, send them in.