 Overview:
The impulse was designed by Smart Parts [ http://www.smartparts.com ] as a slimmer, more lightweight version of the now famous Smart Parts shocker. A direct spin-off from the original shocker design, the impulse can operate at input pressures as low as 120 PSI.  The impulse we tested was equipped with the Smart Parts Vision Eye, a great feature that helps stop balls from being accidentally chopped by the gun's bolt. The impulse's low pressure combined with the Vision eye makes for a great combination that nearly eliminates ball breaks in the gun. We will go into more detail about the vision eye upgrade for the impulse later on in the review. During the course of our review of the impulse, we fired over 4,000 paintballs (RP Evil, Severe, and Diablo Inferno) through it with only 2 ball breaks. Of course low ball breakage isn't the impulses only stand out feature. The impulse also made a strong showing in the field testing, accuracy, and consistency tests as well. If you are looking for a tournament ready gun at a price that almost every serious paintball player can afford, the impulse is currently our number one recommendation as of September 2003.Parts Included:  Included with the impulse was a 12 inch progressive barrel, a set of well illustrated instruction manuals (one for the impulse itself and the other for the max-flo regulator), a barrel plug, 1 9V battery, and 1 oz. of Dow 33 lubricant. There were no tools included with the impulse, so players should figure in an extra $20 for a quality set of allen wrenches and a precision screwdriver kit. Both owners manuals that came with the impulse were easy to read and understand a breath of fresh air after having tried to decipher some other paintball gun manuals. The picture to the right shows everything that is included along with the 2003 impulse.First Glance: The impulse we tested was black, as you can probably see from the pictures, however the impulse is also available in red, blue, and silver finishes. We ended up with a tie between blue and silver as the best color for the impulse during a quick vote at the field. In addition to a nice color selection, the impulse also is cleanly milled. The impulse has the right looks to stand out in a pack of Spyders and Piranhas at the local field, but it may get lost on the tournament scene unless of course you buy a custom impulse. Features: The impulse comes loaded with a great stack of features. The most prominent of which are the new "cricket board", vision eye (upgrade), smart parts max-flo regulator, electronic trigger, and low pressure operation. Several of these features are discussed below. Feature: Vision Eye The vision eye system is a great upgrade for the impulse, however it is not included on the "bone stock" impulse, but you can buy the impulse with vision equipped direct from most retailers. So what is vision and what does it do? The "Vision Eye" is an electronic sensor that checks to make sure that a ball is loaded in the impulse's firing chamber before it will allow the gun to be fired. Having the vision eye activated makes it near impossible to chop a paintball with the impulse's bolt. Basically, the vision eye system stops the impulse from firing until the next paintball in the feed tube has fully entered the firing chamber.  During our field test of the impulse the vision eye system worked extremely well. We shot over 3,500 paintballs through our test gun with the vision system turned on and never experienced a single ball break. We were however advised to use bright colored paintballs, as the vision system detects bright shell colors very well. To confirm this, we tested 3 dark colors of paint in the impulse to see how well the vision system would detect them. We tested the impulse with black, dark blue, and dark green paintballs and found that the vision eye would occasionally "not see" the darker paints enter the chamber, and subsequently the gun would not fire. When the gun would not fire, even with a paintball in it, we had to quickly switch back to the "non-vision" firing mode for a few shots. We only recommend using the vision eye with brightly colored paints. We used neon green and yellow PMI Evil paintballs and found them to work near flawlessly with the vision system active. Having the vision system on the impulse was a great bonus since the impulse frequently out shot the loading speed of our 12V Viewloader Revolution with X-Board I can see either a Halo B or Egg II in the near future. So all said Get vision on your impulse! Its awesome.Feature: Cricket Board  The cricket board is the newest circuit board design for the impulse. Older boards in impulses that were equipped with the vision eye system needed to be adjusted to operate correctly with different color paintballs. Sometimes adjusting the vision eye sensor was more of a hassle than it was worth. The new cricket board in the 2003 impulse automatically adjusts to different paintball colors. There is no fooling around with the cricket board. Older impulses were also limited to less than 13 balls per second firing rates by their old boards. The cricket board has a 13.7 balls per second cap when vision is turned off, however with vision turned on the impulse has a cap at 20 balls per second. Throw a Halo B on the impulse and it can rip. The cricket board has proven itself a strong, reliable electronics platform for the impulse.Feature: Low Pressure Operation Key to the impulses low ball breakage is its low pressure operation. Many rec level paintball guns operate at pressures near 300 - 500 psi (pounds per square inch), the impulse, as many of the current high end guns, operates in the range of 120 - 200 psi. Throughout our review we tuned the max-flo regulator to give our impulse a 160 psi input pressure. Initially the max-flo regulator needs to be broken in so don't be surprised if input pressures slowly creep up throughout the first three-hundred shots through the impulse. After the break in period, our max-flo regulator held very steady at 160 psi. Field Tests Consistency Testing:  Accuracy Testing: We mounted the impulse to our test bench and made sure it did not move between shots. It was 70 degrees outside with minimal wind when we ran this test. We shot the impulse at four different ranges; 45 , 64, 85, and 105 feet. We fired 10 RP Evil paintballs at each target using the stock progressive barrel. The pictures of the accuracy testing results are below.  On the Field / Upgrades On the Field: On the field the impulse is truly a force to be recognized. Lightweight, reliable, well balanced, and a real fast trigger sums it up pretty well. The impulse is a very easy gun to operate and a pleasure to let loose out on the speedball field. I did however notice a couple of things that I feel need a little changing on the impulse. The first is what impulse owners call "first shot dropoff." Pretty much any impulse owner should have noticed this. If you gas up the impulse and then decide to fire it after say 5 - 10 minutes, the first shot may have as low as 150 fps velocity. The rest of the shots will all have normal speed, but the first shot is notably slow. The only way I know of to correct this problem is to buy a $125 low pressure regulator kit (LPR). Personally, I don't really have any problem with "first shot dropoff" on the speedball field because I always fire a few shots right before play starts. I can however see that in a long woods game, when you may want to take a single shot from concealment, that this could be a problem. There are however two upgrades that I would have to recommend for the impulse to all new buyers. The first upgrade I recommend is the "tapeworm". The tapeworm is a $20 fitting that allows the impulse to be dry fired. Without the tapeworm, the impulse will not cycle correctly unless there is a paintball in the gun. This problem is an effect of the impulse's very low operating pressure. The tapeworm creates enough back pressure to allow the impulse to cycle properly. Again, for $20 and about 10 minutes to install this is an upgrade most every player is going to want. The other upgrade that I recommend for the impulse is a new trigger. A nice trigger, like the eclipse blade series, can make a huge improvement on firing speed and snap. The eclipse blade trigger brings the impulse to its full firing potential. They run around $25 - $30 and take about 1 hour to install and adjust to your preffered setting. Just as an example of how adjustable the blade trigger is, you can literally adjust the trigger to the point where the impulse will fire if you blow, yes blow, on the trigger I tried it. However, I don't recommend trying to play with the trigger adjusted this tightly as you're probably going to end up shooting randomly even when you don't have your finger on the trigger. Field Stripping:  The impulse is a modestly easy gun to maintain. The only real time consuming step in cleaning the impulse is getting the solenoid cleaned. It requires time to access the solenoid as it is located between the grip frame and body. Additionally, the screws on the solenoid valve housing have 1 mm heads and require a precision screwdriver to remove. Aside from having to clean out the solenoid (I do it every 2000 shots or so), cleaning the bolt and hammer assembly is very easy. The vision eye only needs to be cleaned on occasion, and again is very easy to access.Conclusion Pros: - Excellent value for the money. - Very low operating pressure (120 psi - 200 psi / adjustable). - Vision Eye available. - Low ball breakage. - Lightweight. - Well Balanced (Recommend a drop forward for perfect balance.) - Excellent Stock Regulator (Smart Parts Max-flo). - Solid design and construction (Durable). Cons: - First shot drop-off (requires a low pressure regulator kit ~ $125 to fix). - Vision Eye requires that paintballs with bright shells be used. - Cleaning solenoid is time consuming. - Plastic ball detent (not a big deal ($8) but a better one could come stock). As you have probably already gathered from my review of the Smart Parts Impulse with vision eye, I really think this is an excellent gun. Its only current competition for its price bracket is from the ICD Bushmaster 2003 and Evil Omen, which just hit store shelves. Beyond those two, the only guns that offer performance equal to the impulse are $600 - 700 and up (intimidator, angel, e-autococker, automags). I can say with confidence that of any gun under $700, the Smart Parts Impulse with Vision is my choice (preferred over the Omen and ICD Buchmaster). There is a reason why the impulse has been nicknamed by some as the "Ghetto Angel" its like buying a Ford Mustang Cobra for the price of an Escort. Sure the Dodge Viper is always out there, but who the heck needs to program their paintball gun with a computer anyway maybe some of you Angel owners can answer that for me, but as of yet I haven't seen any good reasons to hook up the laptop to my paintball gun. So to wrap this review up, I recommend the Smart Parts Impulse to any player who is looking for a great price on an excellent performing gun that has the potential to compete at the highest pro levels. Get the impulse, you won't regret it. Reviewed September 17, 2004-09-17 Mark - Team DirectPaintball.com |
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