PaintballX3 Magazine June 2014 | Page 74

74 The M17 accepts its compressed air source at the back of its receiver via a bottle adapter that points the bottle straight out the back of the marker. Though intended to be used with a tiny compressed air bottle that the included butt stock adapter can fit around, any size air bottle can be threaded in. Unfortunately, this leads to a minor disruption of ergonomics as a larger bottle prevents the shooter from assuming a comfortable cheek-weld that allows the included, bolt-on AR15 front and rear sights to be utilized effectively. Some players will get around this with using a smaller bottle, others a remote line, June 2014 while others will simply use a sight or scope on a raised sight rail. The standard barrel included with the Milsig M17 is a relatively short, aluminum Marksman barrel with internal rifling, a few small ports near the front and a threaded muzzle break. While this barrel may work great and deliver First Strike rounds well, with standard .68 caliber paintballs we were less than impressed during testing. At close range accuracy with both Valken Redemption and GI 4 Star paintballs was decent at best, while at longer ranges accuracy was…just a word that didn’t