Hi all,
Very interesting topic! Let me bring some of my personal experience to this. Thanks Sam for sharing some of it already!
I started hunting iguanas with a .22 caliber and was also a spring rifle and I still have that rifle around, a TX200 and it was a good rifle to start, my problem was that after a while this pesky iguanas learned to keep the distance and was much more harder for me to have a clean kill at distances longer than 40 yards.... Then enter my precious Taipan Veteran in .25 cal, was my first .25 cal and for what I do I think it's a great caliber, I can have more power and also at longer ranges I can achieve more accuracy, so for my particular application this is my go to Caliber.
I had the chance to test Steve's Veteran when he was here with me and his was in .22 caliber, I can say both were really accurate but you need to find the right pellet, I was getting spirals with H&N Barracuda Hunter Extremes on mine and I was never able to test those Hades in .25, the gun was sold after they released them, but the .22 loved those Hades, we were hunting with those exclusively and also the Polymags. The .25 caliber has a bark if you compare it with the .22 caliber, I will say you really don't need a suppressor on the .22 but it's a must on the .25, it was my experience there.
I don't recall the shot count on Steve's gun but I was getting from 40 to 50 shots out of mine, and after almost 2 years of ownership I never replaced a single O-Ring. So in my opinion if you want a gun that is super reliable out of the box and need nothing to be done, the Taipan is my No1 option, this gun is like a Camry, it will go and go and go and never had any issues.
People are talking about power adjustability with the Taipan using the HST and it's true, you can change the power with it, but at least I personally believe there's only one setting on that HST that match the regulator pressure, you can move a bit up or down but if you go crazy with it you will lose efficiency and my shot count will be reduced drastically, so for me that was one of the reasons I sold the Taipan, I was searching for something that provide more adjustability in an easy way.
Originally I was really into the Raptor, but well, it didn't happen and I'm happy because then I start looking into other guns and ended up pulling the Trigger on the Priest 2, and Oh boy I couldn't be happier. The Priest is not like the Taipan that out of the box is performing how you like it, but it has a lot of potential, I like you can tweak almost everything and this gun is really simple, another plus on my book. The magazines are crap (and expensive as hell), I made the mistake to order one from AoA to later realize is the same crap, then ended up ordering one from Carm-Magazines and his version is way way better.
In the video Sam shared before I ran over all the issues I've found with the gun, and I don't know if I should do a follow up because at this point I have solved all the pain points. I worked with Donny and we created an adapter for the suppressor that extend the shroud a bit so you can use a suppressor like the Sumo. I was really pissed when I realized my suppressor won't fit because the shroud was short, but now that's solved
My other issue (that really make me mad) was that I had a leak in the regulator, and that's also solved, initially I bought a Paint Ball regulator on Ebay for 20$ but just got a notification that RTI sent me a new regulator as Warranty, and the new regulator is the same we will see on the Prophet. That's another point for this gun RTI customer service is second to none, Mr. Rob itself was replying my emails and making sure I was getting my gun up and running.
I tested the shotcount and I'm getting around 80 shots when filling to 275bars, My guess is that a fill to 300bar and if I can get my hands on the bigger plenum we have on the Prophet I'll easily get more than 100 shots on .25 cal and that for me is a great great plus.
This is my gun:
Oh you might be wondering about accuracy! In this video I was able to hit 3 tablets of vitamin C at 40 yards with 3 shots, I don't need better than that
https://youtu.be/BVmJm_Zj6vc
Sam mentioned that I miss the trigger on the Taipan, let me say, the trigger on the Taipan is better but this gun's trigger is almost there, what I really miss is the anti double feed mechanism on the Taipan, if I have a pellet on the chamber and want to decock this rifle, I have to remove the magazine
because if not when I cock again I'll pushing 2 pellets on the chamber, and when I'm hunting sometimes I don't take a shot that I was ready to take.... and I don't want to have the rifle cocked with a pellet ready to shot if I'm not aiming... that's what I really miss from my Taipan, apart from that, I'm really happy with this gun!
Hope you find this useful! Even when I know you already have ordered a Veteran
