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The milling is as clean and polished,
and the anodizing seems to have been improved quite
a lot from the original Dark Angel. It doesn’t
look any better, but it’s more scratch-resistant
than the original coating. Mind you, as good as the
teardrop cuts looked on the original, they look that
much better when extended down the entire paintgun’s
length on the LCD. They add some real character to the
stock LCD. Anodizing is available in silver, green,
red, blue, pewter (blue-gray), purple, black, and "doo-doo-brown"
which is a brass color. Fades and splash can be special-ordered,
at a high price.
The Dark Angel’s feature
set is pretty much identical to what you’d find
in a stock Angel LCD or WDP’s own custom milled
and anodized Carved-and-Colored LCD. Not surprisingly,
the price for a Dark LCD is about the same as for a
Carved-and-Colored.
Warped Sportz offers you a bit more though; the Dark
Angel LCD includes both a high-rise feed neck with integrated
VL adapter and a low pressure chamber, both anodized
to match the gun. If you prefer a lower hopper height,
they can set you up with a lowrider feed neck instead.
For a few more clams you can have an Armson Pro-Dot
sight and DYE Boomstick barrel anodized to match.
The triggers in all LCDs now come with both forward
and backward trigger stops so the trigger can be set
up however you like. Just specify how long and how heavy
you like your trigger to be and Warped Sportz will custom
tune your trigger just the way you like - no extra charge.
Warped Sportz also has the nutty professor of Angel
techs, Rocky Cagnoni. This frizzy-haired super-freak
is one of the most respected Angel techs in the world.
He’s the guy who handles Angel repairs for Warped
Sportz, and this brings us to one of the Dark Angel’s
best features: the warranty. Every Dark Angel comes
with the standard WDP one-year parts warranty, plus
a lifetime warranty on labor from Warped Sportz.
The Dark LCD is very quiet. The old "whack!"
that used to accompany every pull of the Angel’s
trigger has been replaced with a low "chuff"..The
difference between this and original Angels, even those
with low pressure valving is not subtle, and point players
who like to sneak between bunkers will appreciate how
this may allow you to keep firing unnoticed by opponents
for longer. The Dark Angel LCD also seems to have less
kick than before, which makes the gun more stable.
Balance is about the same as with the old Angel. With
a bottom-line nitro system it tends to be rather tail-heavy.
Even a drop-forward bottom-line mount doesn’t do
much to help bring the balance point forward. Most of
the Angel’s weight is over and behind the trigger
frame so unless you run your gun remote you’re
stuck.
The trigger is pretty much the
same as before except for the fact that you’re
stuck with a two-finger trigger. A choice would be nice.
On the plus side, there is a full size trigger guard
to ensure insurance legality for the foreseeable future,
while leaving room for even the biggest gloved fingers.
As both forward and back trigger stops come in the LCD’s
trigger, you can have it set up with as much or as little
slack before and after the firing point of the trigger
pull as you like. Set to the absolute minimum length
puts it shorter than a mouse click. The only danger
in specifying that you want it as short as possible
in a new Dark Angel is that there is a break-in period.
There is a short, moderately flexible lever arm on the
switch that contacts the trigger. Over the first few
hundred shots, this small metal plate flexes a bit before
it achieves its final shape. If you set the trigger
as short as possible before the switch breaks in to
its final position, when it does break in, the switch
point may actually no longer be within the trigger’s
stopped out range of motion. To put it more simply,
if you stop the trigger out to the shortest possible
pull in a brand new Angel, it may stop working after
a few hundred shots and require you to adjust the trigger
stops before it will work again. Leave a little slack
until you put a case or two through the Dark Angel before
going for the most radical trigger possible.
Through three tournaments, the
gun we were sent did not break a single ball. The only
problem with it is self-control. Like most electropneumatics,
the Dark Angel is ridiculously easy to shoot fast, and
this kind of rate-of-fire can be addictive. Not only
can your paint consumption double in a hurry, but you
can backslide into bad playing habits and miss out on
easy eliminations that otherwise would have been there
if you’d just taken an extra second to aim. Remember,
a high rate-of-fire is only really useful in cutting
down people on the move. A well-aimed shot is the better
choice in virtually all other situations. Keep that
in mind and the Dark Angel LCD can enhance your game.
Forget it and you’ll find your game going stagnant
or getting worse.
The Dark Angel LCD is small, light,
and shoots ridiculously fast. It looks good enough to
draw admiring glances everywhere you take it and will
always be highly praised by everyone who shoots it.
What more needs to be said?
Well, the price for one. Dark Angel LCDs go out the
door at $1650. Compared to other electros on the market
though, this is a whole crapload of money to spend on
a paintgun. How in the world do WDP and Warped Sportz
move so many of these paintguns at such high prices?
The Angel has dominated this market for a long time
and name recognition alone goes a long way towards moving
product. Part of it is also the rich, unparalleled feature
set that is now built into every LCD. Granted, a lot
of it is gimmicky and not terribly useful, but just
as much is genuine improvement.
Perhaps the biggest reason though, is that the Angel
sets the standard for high-quality construction in a
paintgun. You’d be hard pressed to find anything
to criticize about its manufacture. Virtually the entire
gun is made of thick-walled aluminum, giving it a solid
and tough look and feel. There are no cheap plastic
parts, no loose hoses, no gaps where parts meet, no
loose bits that wiggle or rattle, and the whole thing
is packed into a slick, tight and stylish package. For
a perfect example of this, just open the rotor breech.
It swings out to the side without flopping loosely or
binding. It doesn’t scrape or grind against the
body, yet you can barely fit a sheet of paper between
the breech and body when it is swung back in place.
And even with the lowrider hopper adapter you always
have room to open the breech. None of this will make
your paintballs fly further or make you a better player,
but for some it’s worth having none the less.
Warped Sportz/Ravi
Chopra
www.warpedsportz.com
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