So the box arrives. In it is first, a beautiful custom Deception.
The striking looks of the Galaxy design make the Deception,
already a great looking gun, look even better. The Deception
shoots like we remember: one of the quietest, smoothest
guns available. $1,000, $1,600, spool, poppet, it doesn’t
matter this gun is right there with the best. It’ s efficient, low
maintenance, fits in your hands the way it should.
Now, as to the other guns, what we have been told
proves to be quite right with the Alien guns. The older
the gun, the more kick it has and the louder it is, the
more the improvement with the Morph Valve. Put a
Morph valve in a 2006 Remains and it shoots almost as
good as the Deception – “spooky good” to quote Rice.
The Independence with the Morph valve also shoots
silky smooth, but the Indy with its standard sweep valve
shoots almost as good. The Sniper pump, with a morph
valve and a hammer that weighs about a third as much
as a standard hammer, doesn’t “fart” and the lower
reciprocating mass equates to a smoother shot. The
efficiency is also somewhat improved. The efficiency
improves more in the Autococker Resurrection as the
gun is consistent without having the ball speed set by
the HPR and then over hitting the hammer to make sure
every shot gets a full blast of air. These improvements also
noted by players that have installed the Morph valves.
Still left is the ETEK, and the promise from Alien that
this same kind of ‘valve sleeve’ setup the ETEK uses
can be made to fit many different guns, most notably
the Intimidator guns. Most players know that ETEK’s are
good guns, reliable and good shooters—but maybe not
quite the tournament favorite that the similarly priced
AXE guns are. We’ll leave that to you to decide. That may
be because the higher priced, more prestigious EGO line
is there, and it may be that the ETEK is a bit louder and
has more kick. Neither of these matter that much in a
tournament gun and AXE guns have a bit more of both
than the best Spools. However we shot the “Alienized”
ETEK, it was the same as with the Remains. The ETEK’s
shot sound was decidedly quieter and a lower. It becomes
a deeper and less locatable sound, and almost on par
with the quietest guns you can own. The hammer, now
at half the weight or less, and not opening and closing
against the high pressure of the poppet’s pin, makes the
gun feel somewhat like the 2012 EGO. It wasn’t so much
an upgrade as a different gun. It’s like dropping a big old
V8 engine in a little car that had a 4 banger. Now if we
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will ever see these available for ETEK’s or for the Timmy’s
is anybody’s guess. What is known that you can get one
that fits the newer cockers, also that the Morph valve fits
a lot of guns that have poppet valves. To fit, the gun’s
bottom bore needs to be 11/16ths and where the spring
usually fits has to be big enough to accommodate the
Morph valve. The easiest way to know if a gun has that
sized bottom bore is that the poppet valve uses a bottle
O’Rings (015).
What is also true is that the Deception is very good gun
that doesn’t seem to have anything it doesn’t do well. And
it’s a singularly unique gun among so many guns that are
sometimes too similar. Goodbye our new old friend. • • •