Comments on 3022's Review

3022 Sunday, October 21st, 2007 Period of Product Use: 6 months 2 of 2 people found this review helpful. Paintball Experience: More than 5 years Similar Products Used: There is nothing similar to 3357. Marker Setup: Old style PGP (many), PGP-2001, ZGP-94 (two), Sterling Bronze (three), P68SC (two), AGD MiniMag, AGD Automag, Kingmann New Hammer, Spyder Compact (two), Crosman 3357 Spotmarker Recommended Upgrades: .177 cal Crosman 357 BB barrel and some .177 cylinders for plinking new custom made metal parts instead the stock made from of plastic little trigger work & performane tune ...new custom barrel and cylinder for more common 43. cal RAM paint? Strengths: Real look and operating hight ROF no rollouts, no doublefeeds .50" paint Weaknesses: accuracy, efficiency .50" paint six-shooter Weak parts Big, heavy bad trigger pull Review: Spotmarker is great marker if you will have something unique, something with more real look and handing. It is not the best marker if goes on performance, but he is very interesting. It is great marker for you, when you are colector, old-school, scenario or milsim player... who has likewise other, more common marker as reserve for other than purely recreational games - because playing with this marker is really not easy... but it can be a lot funnier. Spotmarker is... generally quite big and heavy, inaccurate, non-powerful, Stock class pistol. With Spotmarker, you will be in pernament disadvantage, even compared to other stock class players. Classic Sheridan PGP - for exception - is simpler, more durable, smaller, little lighter, better balanced, has more paint in magazine, faster reloads, better triger pull, upgrades are more available for them, mods well-known and he uses attested and extended .68" cal paint, whith is cheaper, easier to find and so even easier to get in better quality. So, for regular Stock class play, if you will have good pistol, PGP is imho far, far better choice than Spotmarker. Spotmarker really looks and holds like real firearm. Those who wrote reviews before me have said, that with Spotmarker you have feeling like be Dirty Harry. That is not exact, to my mind. With the big cylinder and most weight on front, Spotmarker reminds more than modern .357 Python revolver old .45 cal percussion revolver, so it is feeling more like Wyatt Erp :-). Even while the double action trigger is not great, it is better use them as single action revolver and the reloading style reminds likewise more first S&Ws for black powder. But what do you mus know... Crosman 3357 was not build as original paintball marker, it is only converted Crosman 357 .177 cal pellet airgun - the entire backside is equal, only the barrel and cylinder makes 3357 from the 357. That can be good and bad. Good because you can use this toy with .50" barrel & cylinder as paintball marker and with .177" barrel as cheap plinking gun. Good because you can use parts from more common Crosman 357 airgun. Bad because 357 is generally only cheap gun intend for fun shooting, plinking, and cheap introducing of new shooters. And hence even the Spotmarker is cheap build. Some key parts (gear transmission on the cylinder for exception) are made from plastic, some springs are weak, trigger mechanism is really not the best (especially in Double action mode). This marker haves simply not rugged, durabilite design like of PGP - for exception - and is far more complycated. But these shortcomings are not critical - some can be fixed rellative easily, others commonly do not cause problems for many years of use. This can be adequate price for the real look and feeling of this marker... The real problem of 3357 Spotmarker is bad (or better horible) accuracy. Barrel has too large diameter (13,4mm = .528") to the paint and holes in cylinders (13,0mm = .512"), and on the other side, the space between of the cylinder and barrel is to big (more than 1mm = .040" !!)... so in reality, the efficient barrel lenght is here limited only on the cylinder lenght. Besides, the holes for paint, the detents and the gearing in the cylinders are not manufactured very accurate, so every shoot pertaining to every hole in cylinider flyes in little different direction. So, with some shoots you can hit the opponent on 60 foot, but with most of them you will be happy to hit them on 30 foot. But accuracy and range is not all. In indoors, 3357 accuracy will be enought for you. For balistic performance of this marker is important to know, that 300 fps velocity limit was supposed for .68" cal paint - on the basis of his weight and surface area. Because the .50 cal paint has half of his surface area and only two and half of his weight, you have in reallity 475 fps safety limit with the 3357... but most of paintball players and field operators do not know and understand that and even the Spotmarker is not able go for these velocities without mods - in stock conditions, only first two, three shoots have muzzle velocity around 280 fps, following 15-20 shoots around 210 fps... yes, the CO2 efficiency is really not great out of the box. Only 30 usable short-shoots (five cylinders) from one powerlet are common, what is nothing great for .50" cal paintgun with vertical placed powerlet. Improving of the stock efficiency is not easy, but possible. You can lighten the hammer, change springs, devolumize the valve chamber, seal better the space in between the cylinder and barrel, polish the "barrel". That will help a little, anymore. With good paint and consistent velocity around 300 fps, the 3357 Spotmarker tends to be realy far more usable... But improving of the very bad, stock accuracy is imho not possible - it will be necessary change the barrel and cylinders what generaly makes the entire 3357... The .50 cal paint... the .50 cal paint is little hard, but not inposible to find - Palco Marketing make them unter trademark "Flying Colors" years for Splatmatic blowguns and cheap paint airguns (look at www.palcosports.com or www.blow-gun.com) in good quality and you can buy them on many e-shops... in USA and even in Europe. And even if this shall be problem, it is possible convert Spotmarker for the new .43 cal paint for RAM or more common .40 cal paint for other paint blowguns. So the logistic is not unsolvable problem. Worse is that most of paintball competitive actions have .68" cal paint in rules and most of fields have Field Paint only (FPO) in rules. Here will you have more problems with .50 cal paint. But if you do not have big competitive ambitions with your 3357 (ehm... ehm...), then that will be imho likewise not problem for you. If you are in good terms with Field operator, he leave you surely play with this old rarity for only small charge and if you play outlaw, there will be surely none who would be remonstrated. Practically, the .50 cal paint does not break as easy, what should be little disadvantage for you when you play "on blood", but in reallity it is not handicap for you - because of bad 3357 accuracy, you mus go very close to target, anyway. It is pistol, not sniper rifle, actually. ...Spotmarker is not particularly hard for mods, but he is simply different to other paintball markers. He is more like real firearms even inside. Your gunsmith will be surely more familiar with his trigger mechanism, because it is simply cheap clone of common SA/DA revolver trigger mechanism. You self shall be careful while stripping, because this marker has a lot of little parts, but on other side, all parts are easy accessible here, so if you understand how the mechanism works, you can make a lot for them without problems. Conclusion: OKay, many people loves this gun and I can't blame them for being nostalgic, but there are a many essential drawbacks to this marker. This marker is the only one real paintball revolver. It is first "Real Action Marker", RAM of his time. The result is not bad for year 1987, not bad for his price... but not good enought for present-day fields. This marker has many weaker points (accuracy, efficiency, small magazine capacity, weak plastic parts, less common caliber)... but if you can live with them, and if fun is more than victory for you, then it will be great gun for you. ...trought that all what has been said, I give 8 from 10 because there are in reallity none rivals between paintball revolvers. And that is what you get - the only one paintball revolver. Rating: 8 out of 10 Last edited on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 8:31 am PST