Feedback about the Desert Fox

Well, I bought the new Desert Fox from Indian Creek, the people who made my
accurate and reliable Puma.  I have used it for two days now.

Hopefully next week I will be able to post a full review, AFTER I GET THE
DAMN THING TO WORK RIGHT.  The gun seems to have some potential but I have
experienced multiple failure modes.  I will call Indian Creek today, and post
an update on the results, but in the meantime maybe an Automag user can help.
The bolt mechanism on the Desert Fox seems to be copied more or less directly
from the Automag, and seems to be the root of my problems.

First the latest problem.  After I shoot the gun for a while, maybe 400
rounds, it starts slipping into full auto and occasionally jamming (I.e., the
bolt stops in the forward position and the gun won't shoot.)  This may be
related to low tank pressure as it has happened only when the tank is starting
to get low, but warming things up doesn't help and the tank still has more
than enough juice to shoot either this gun or my Puma.  This is doubly
irritating as the main appeal of the blow-forward design is that low pressure
gives low velocity rather than failure to recock.  (In fact this is what
happened the first time I ran out of gas - the shots just got slower but the
gun recocked fine.)  When the gun fails this way and I take it apart, the
piston does not slide easily in and out and seems to want to be lubed again.
I hope that I am not expected to disassemble this gun and lubricate the piston
pin every 400 shots.  I had to clean and lube thoroughly several times during
the day - once before starting should be enough.

Second, at seemingly random intervals, the gun starts shooting very hot the
first shot after it sits for a while.  I *assume* this means that the
regulator seal is leaking, so I replaced the rear O-ring in the
internal regulator (it was nicked).  This fixed the problem only temporarily,
as did anything else that required dissambling and lubing the regulator.  Last
night I replaced the cup seal in the regulator, the problem has not recurred
yet but it has gone away (and returned) before.

Third, once or twice each day the O-ring seal around the piston pin failed,
allowing gas to leak down the barrel.  One time the O-ring was nicked, one
time the brass o-ring retainer had unscrewed itself (it has to be screwed down
with padded pliers or will slip) and the last time I could find no problems at
all.  Is this a chronic problem with this design?  The piston pin is not
mirror smooth as it seems it should be; it is not visibly rough but with a
fingernail I can feel the tiny ridges from the machining.  Is this normal?

Fourth, the gun jammed several times on a cold morning (35 degrees) after
some balls had broken in the breach (due to the hot-firing problem.)  I guess
this is due to paint gumming up the travel of the bolt.  Does every ball break
require dissassembly to clean off the bolt?  How does one unjam this gun
without taking off the barrel and thumping the bolt?  Thumping the barrel
has no effect.

I know that the bolt and regulator need to be clean and well-lubed, and I
have not tried to crank the velocity above 280, or 240 on a cold morning.

I hope I have better news to report next week.

Gordon Hanka
Asst. Prof of Finance
Penn State University

I bought myself a Desert Fox, the new blow-forward gun from Indian Creek
Design (makers of the Puma).  I have used it several times now, and here are
my impressions.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Overall, the gun offers good price/performance, and I think I will be happy
with it.  However, my experience with Indian Creek Design indicates that
they are, alas, willing to ship a useless gun, and cannot be counted on to
keep their promises.

ABOUT ME
My name is Gordon Hanka.  I have played perhaps 30 days of paintball.  I have
used VM-68s, Pro-Lites, and various pumps.  I also own a Puma, which I bought
last year because my brother has one and likes it.  I have no connection to
Indian Creek Design or any other paintball-related company.

FEATURES
Externally the Desert Fox looks similar to Indians Creek's excellent previous
gun, the Puma.  The Fox has one external velocity adjustment, and a nice
trigger-travel adjustment.  The stock barrel is identical to the Puma and is
decent quality, honed (not swaged), braked but not ported.  Power feed,
Venturi bolt and integrated pressure regulator are standard.  The gun is very
lightweight, they claim 2.2 lbs. The blow-forward design responds to low CO2
pressure by shooting low-velocity rather than by failing to recock.  The tank
adaptor is rear-mount only; the Puma's flexible adaptor is gone, as is the
Puma's ability to shoot liquid.  The manual is a bit sparse but is pretty
good.  The construction is solid: no welds or stamped parts.  Most parts are
machined aluminum, with a pleasingly precise and solid feel.  The power feed
obstructs the sight line, so if you want to install a sight you will need a
$25 sight rail, which may be worth getting anyway just because it looks cool.
The salesman at Indian Creek claimed that recent models include a pressure
gauge, a very nice feature, but I haven't seen one.

INTERNAL DESIGN
The bolt is a close copy of the Automag.  The action is more complex than the
Puma, but tear-down is not too difficult and all spoogable parts can be
cleaned without tools.  The only tricky part is getting the pistons out of the
regulator: you have to partially disassemble, blow one piston out by hooking
up the gas pressure, then drive the other piston out with a small punch.
Hopefully this will not be required very often.  The internal fit-and-finish
is decent.  On the upgraded version, which is the only version you should
accept, the machining is all good.

PERFORMANCE
Accuracy is good; I paced off a 50-ft range in the back yard, and then (with
a red-dot sight) put more than half my shots inside a 3-inch circle.

Shot-to-shot velocity usually stays within plus-or-minus 3 FPS, similar to or
perhaps slightly better than what I get with unregulated guns.  I have not
tested the cold/warm and morning/afternoon velocity stability.

For gas efficiency I don't have a completely clean test yet, but I have seen
enough to be fairly confident that the posted rumors of miraculous gas
efficiency are not true.

Maximum rate of fire is pretty high.  The trigger pull is crisp and
reasonably short.  I found myself routinely firing much faster volleys than I
ever cared to attempt with a Puma, Pro-Lite, or VM-68.

Noise is similar to every other gun without a ported barrel.  The salesman at
Paintball Games of Dallas made some grand claims about quietness, but such
claims are false.  I am sure the gun would be very quiet with full-length
barrel porting, but what gun wouldn't?

Recoil is so faint that you need an agitator to get reliable feeds.

RELIABILITY
On a humid 60-degree day I got a full day's use, about 500 shots, with ball
breaks on only two occasions, both due to preventable mishaps.  The power feed
got turned once (it is way too loose) and caused a misfeed.  Awhile later
the take-down screw worked loose and the resulting mayhem broke a ball and
damaged an O-ring (fortunately, reversing the O-ring fixed the problem). This
mishap was arguably my fault.  I judge this reliability performance to be
good.

However, it should be noted that I was first sent the non-upgraded version of
this gun, which suffered an astonishing four (4) distinct failure modes in
one day's play.  Hence Indian Creek is demonstrably willing to ship a
catastrophically defective gun.  In addition, the Automag design is finicky in
cold weather.

MY PURCHASE EXPERIENCE
My purchase experience was poor.  First, the gun I purchased (from Paintball
Games of Dallas) was cheap ($278) but turned out to be an early version and
was complete crap.  After two frustrating days of failures I called Indian
Creek.  The salesman I spoke to (Brian) told me to send it in for a free
upgrade.  He promised me the following:

1) Free upgrade including mostly new internals.
2) Two-day turnaround so that (if I pay for express shipping) I would have
the gun back in time for the weekend game.
3) A free parts kit.
4) A free internal pressure gauge (to compensate me for my grief.)

Brian talked at length about the pressure gauge, and I was quite excited
about it, as it seems like a hugely useful feature, especially since I often
play in cold weather.  I was so pleased that I also ordered some other stuff.

I Fed-Exed the gun on Monday, called Indian Creek on Wednesday (everything
was fine) and when Friday came I eagerly awaited the arrival of my upgraded
gun.  It never came.  The next Tuesday I called again, to find that the
technician "hasn't come in for three days."  The bottom line: I paid Fed-Ex
charges both ways ($42) and still took two weeks to get my gun back.  When it
finally arrived it had, you guessed it, no pressure gauge.  The free parts
kit?  No sign of that either, though I did get what appears to be an O-ring
kit for my Puma, which I had also ordered.

I took my newly upgraded Desert Fox out to the back yard, and after about
twenty shots it began leaking down the barrel.  After much swearing and
stomping around it turns out the leak was due to the brass snout on the
regulator coming loose.  This snout has to be cranked down tight with padded
pliers.  After that problem was fixed the gun worked well.

The bottom line on service?  Indian Creek eventually got me a gun that
appears to work well, at a good price.  However, they are willing to ship a
useless gun, and cannot be counted on to keep their promises.

DISTINGUISHING THE OLD AND NEW MODELS
My early verion of the Desert Fox had an all-metal bolt.  The upgraded
version has a part-nylon bolt.  There may be other visible differences in the
all-new model, but I have only seen the early model with and without a
retrofit.  The early model is (in my experience) worthless.

DESIGN QUIRKS

1) Between the pressure regulator and the bolt there is a cylinder with a
brass snout.  This snout holds the main piston-pin O-ring in place.
Unfortunately the snout tends to unscrew (despite the presence of a retainer
O-ring) letting gas leak down the barrel.  The snout must be held in place
either with Loktite or by using padded pliers to screw it in tightly.  Neither
solution is ideal as the snout must be removed to change the O-ring.  This is
an issue because:

2) The piston-pin O-ring takes a lot of abuse and apparently fails fairly
often, letting gas leak down the barrel.  This problem seems generic to the
blow-forward Automag design; Indian Creek claims they are working on it.

3) Breach breaks are difficult to clean up, as they spooge the part of the
breach that does not come out with the barrel.  In addition, such breaks can
gum up the bolt, causing it to jam in the forward position, especially in cold
weather.  When this happens the gun will not fire.  To unjam you must push the
bolt back with a stick.  To clean up you must de-pressurize and remove the
bolt.

4) Like some versions of the Puma, the power feed on-off gate is too loose,
and tends to turn itself off during a game.  This can probably be fixed by
installing a slightly fatter o-ring.


OVERALL, The upgraded Desert Fox is solidly constructed, lightweight and
shoots well.  The only after-market parts I want are an agitator and (perhaps)
a quiet barrel.  However, my purchase experience demonstrated that Indian
Creek is, alas, not reliable.

Gordon Hanka

"Stefan A. Werner"  wrote:
>Actually... the Smart Parts barrel does NOT work too well on a Desert
>Fox..
>Since the Fox is designed like an automag, it seems to have some of the
>same problems...

I had always heard that SP barrels worked extremely well on Mags, and
not as well on Cockers. I had a BOA and J&J on my mag though...
Steve
deadpool@phoenix.net

I got a Desert Fox marker a month ago and I'm VERY PLEASED with it
overall. I did have a problem with my regulator (seems the regulator body
was slicing pieces of the small O-ring and sucking em up) but they did
take care of it right away, and even made a cup seal instead of the ball
seal in my regulator. Since then, I haven't had any problems. Anyone know
of any good mods, or just have comments in general?

Shan

P.S. - If you ever need to call them, Steve was one of the best Customer
Service people I have met - and he REALLY knows what he's talking about -
Thanks for everything Steve.

I called Indian Creek about my Desert Fox problems.  It turns out there are
at least two models of the Desert Fox, an upgraded version and the
non-upgraded version.  Paintball Games of Dallas sold me the non-upgraded
version, albeit at a good price.  Anyway, the upshot is that Indian Creek
agreed to give me the upgrade, all I pay for is shipping it to them.  They
seemed optimistic that the upgrade would solve most of my problems.

Overall, I felt much better after talking to them.  Indian Creek seems eager
for me to feel like I am getting a good deal, and of course my excellent and
trustworthy Puma has left me with a reservoir of good will toward its
makers.  They promised to have the gun back to me by this weekend, so
hopefully I will be able to post a review next week.

Overall, raspberries to Indian Creek for selling a defective new model, but
kudos to them for being (apparently) willing to fix it and make me happy, and
for having made good guns in the past.

Gordon Hanka
Asst Prof of Finance
Penn State University

After more use of my new Desert Fox I have concluded that most if not all of
my problems happen when it drinks liquid CO2.  This causes double-firing (with
the associated ball-breaks) and occasionally trashes the piston-pin O-ring.
Unfortunately this gun comes with only a rear tank mount, exacerbating the
problem.

Has anyone else solved this problem?  Here are the options that I see.

1. Go remote.  Unfortunately, I have tried wearing a backpack and don't like
it, so I want another solution.

2. Go vertical.  IDC eliminated the wonderful vertical tank adaptor found on
the Puma, for no apparent reason, on this gun that actually *needs* a vertical
tank.  Is there a good way to mount a vertical tank on a Fox?

3. Get an anti-siphon valve.  This is cheap and easy, but the field I play on
has big hills and an anti-siphon won't help when firing a back bottle downhill.

4.  Add some sort of filter or expansion chamber.  I don't want to add much
weight, but is there a good solution here that works even when firing down a
steep hill?

5. Nitrogen or compressed air.  Not an option, too expensive and no easy place
to refill.

Thanks for anyone's help.

Gordon Hanka