Initial Testing Of a Stock Blue Viking Vs. A Maxed Out Blue Rat Impulse
Just remember, Vikings have a break in period of 5 cases or 10,000 cycles. Keep that in mind.
Alright, you all wanted to know so now I can finally tell you! I shot 3500 rounds through my viking. Unfortunately, it's still completely stock, so I had no eyes, no wicked switches, no special triggers, and the stock barrel. I used an 88/4500 on it and my blue TE halo B, but I do have a 5" drop with an on/off on it. The paint used was crappy and old, some it of it a good 4 months old. This story starts sad, but it gets better, so read it through.
Balance
This thing balances really well, which is wonderful. No doubt my drop forward helps a great deal, so I'd recommend 5" drops to people who own vikings. Anything larger will make it really hard to adjust your sidewinder reg.
The First Test Fire
First shot didn't go out the barrel, so I turned up the reg. The second ball breaks, so does the third. All of the paint is mysteriously 'bursting" at the end of the barrel. For those of you that haven't seen a viking barrel, it has little slits on the end that are likely to be there to help clear out paint. Though I'm not sure that was the cause of the breaks, it was still annoying. I squeegeed out the barrel, and turned the reg up a little more. Everything was okay, chronoed in at 270 (275 limit), and a few more shots went down.
The First 1500 Rounds
This wasn't a horrible experience, but I wasn't exactly pleased. The balls seemed to continually break at the end of the barrel. So I made sure to take my straight shot with me at all times. Without taking the barrel off, running that squeegee through it always cleared the paint out sufficiently.
Of course, ball breakage was one of three problems. Accuracy wasn't very consistant. There was wind and it was cold, and no doubt all that breaking paint had a great effect on it, but when it was shooting clean, the long range accuracy was very poor.
The third problem is a mysterious little thing that kept on happening. After shooting a string, rarely, the bolt pin would pop out. It would sound like I had some major shoot down, but in fact, the bolt simply just stoped moving. This was aggrivating, but I was patient with it. And it IS possible I wasn't pushing the pin in all the way. A Change of Fortune Without really directly noticing, these problems became less and less apparent the more I shot paint through it. The bolt pin started being a good boy and stayed in. The accuracy somehow dramatically improved (I have some good victims who can testify to that), and all of the ball breakage stopped. It started shooting VERY nicely, I mean VERY nicely. After that, there was nothing I could complain about, except I don't have my eyes, and I have needy fingers, so I couldn't shoot as fast as I desired. Things That Really Impressed Me Of course I mentioned it has amazing balance, but it gets MUCH better than that. Vikings use solenoids, and with that comes FSDO, naturally. There is absolutely none. No shoot down either, spite the fact that I can't go faster than 13bps right now. Even though it is still breaking in, it was rather consistant, chronoing at 272 +/- 4, which is pretty decent, especially considering it's still very new. Now, the really satisfying parts. Maintenance is easy as all hell. For those of you that don't know, it involves cleaning the bolt chamber with a cloth or a good squeegee, oiling the bolt up with a little oil, and dropping three drops of oil into the air intake of the sidewinder regulator. That is IT! Well, I suppose you could wipe off the old paint from the body if you take good care of your gear. The air efficiency seems sort of unbelieveable, but it really lives up to it's reptutaion. I used 3600psi on my 88/45, and that fired off a whole case. The fill was to 4000psi, and I refilled at 400psi. I only needed two air fills for my 3500 rounds, not only that, but I still have almost 2000psi left in the tank. That fill was to 3900psi. So, essentially, 4600psi fired of 3500 rounds on my 88/45. Seems unbelieveable, absolutely insane, but it's 100% true. I couldn't believe it. Conclusion Even before the viking started really living up to it's potential, I still absolutely loved it. I didn't mind the breaks or the bolt pin popping out, as for accuracy, I just had to get closer. Nothing would make me put it down. I give this a flat out 11/10, because it needs to outdo the rating that I gave my blue rat. It is now a first hand opinion: Viking > Impulse
And don't forget that it's a stock viking, compared to any impulse. Once I test out the EQ boards on the impulses, then I'll see it it still holds as much truth to it.
