Monster XL pumping - A little on the heavy side...

[Peter MJ]

After having dusted off a display Monster XL that I have in my room and taking it outside for a few practice shots, I noticed some odd behavior. I bought this Monster XL last year from a German seller, and restored the coloring as the gun had faded a bit in the sun. I did not use it that much prior to restoring it, so I don't have any reference from the past concerning its firing behavior. Pumping is extremely heavy, but doable (gives you a good workout though ) and one of the firing chambers fills up before the other does. When firing, the one that filled last, also empties first. Both firing chambers take about 40 pumps to fill after which the safety valve kicks in. Ranges appear to be slightly longer that the stats that are stated with the review in the armory section, with the 5x reaching appr. 13 meter. I don't know if the firing chambers dried out a bit during restoration, as I took the gun apart (note to isoaker: I still have a few images of the internal components that I took when disassembling the gun. If you are interested I will send them to you and so you can put them on the site if you like them), though I did not open the chambers themselves; or if I accidentally misconnected something (the gun does not leak). As the gun is more a display unit than a combat weapon, I don't mind, but if someone has some advice in this case, please share it with me.

[ZOCCOZ]

I seem to miss the odd behaviour. Pumping is normal with 39-41 pumps, one PC fills up first and then the second which is also normal. And the shot distance is quite good and above average. My MXL shoots above average also with 40 feet on the 11.5x/11.5X dual nozzle. (Mine is also faded, perhaps all the sunlight gave our soaker super powers :;): .) Other users get 30 feet out of their MXL.

[isoaker]

@ Peter_MJ: I welcome any images of soakers anyone can provide and is willing to have posted at iSoaker.com. Your pics of Monster XL internals would be good to have. I've opened up mine, but never opened up the actual inner PC-area.

As ZOCCOZ noted, PCs willing and emptying at different rates is normal. MXLs I've used have done similar things. The PCs are interconnected in the middle, thus nozzles get equal treatment (sorta), though admittedly linear flow from one PC out its same-side nozzle does yield a better stream than cross-flow.

Pumping MXLs is one of the worst things about them (apart from their sheer weight). Thing is, with a set of PCs the size of the MXL, one would have hoped they would have put a larger volume pump. Sadly, the pump actually only pushes around 30mL per stroke, meaning a good 35-40 strokes to fill it. I also don't quite like how the bipod holds against the soaker when retracted. My pumping hand tends to hit the foot of the retracted MXL bipod. To pump well, I end up leaving one of the bipod legs lowered, but this worries me for fear of dropping/hitting something and snapping it off.

Soaker ranges vary. I should really put a notice on iSoaker.com that the stats I take are usually only from one (sometimes two) soakers. I cannot say that the soakers I test represent a true 'average' for a particular model. The numbers are simply what I had managed to achieve with my blaster. Some others have noted slightly differing results with their own soakers than what I have posted. This is why I really welcome other people's stats and reviews on soaker models since the more people test what they have, the closer we'll be to knowing the true range of a model's performance.