The Angel 1 was a major step forward technologically for Angel aficionados, offering greater accuracy, smaller size and increased reliability over the A4-based A4 Fly and A4. As is tradition with Angel Paintball Sports, the ultimate expression of a current marker design is the Fly. So it is with the A1 Fly. Angel Paintball Sports’ engineers and designers took the basic A1 platform and went to work on it to increase reliability, efficiency, and ease of use and maintenance.

One of the hallmarks of the Fly version Angels is light weight, hence the name Fly. The A1 platform is already a light marker, but even so Angel’s engineers aggressively attacked any excess weight on the marker, shaving off weight wherever they found it. The result is an aggressive milling design, intended to take off any excess weight whatsoever. This applied to the marker’s internals as well, with a new hammer design to complement the A1 Fly’s Magno-Valve, which allows for lower operating pressures, decreased dwell times and increased efficiency, which was an issue on the A1′s.

Out of the box, the first thing we noticed was the rough texture of the grips and the panels on the inline regulator. Angel refers to this as ‘fly paper’, and it’s intended to enhance the gripability of the marker no mater what is on it, be it dirt, paint or in wet conditions. We also noticed that instead of a one piece foregrip that houses the inline regulator, the Fly has a US-threaded ASA that an inline regulator screws into, which makes upgrading to a different regulator an easy proposition. Also standard on the Fly are Angel’s 3-piece eye covers, which feature more robust rubber nubbin type detents.

The feed neck is new as well, featuring a shorter, stronger lever to clamp the feedneck down on a hopper. The previous A1 lever had a tendency to bend. The feed neck itself is a sleeker, lighter part. What really sets the Fly apart from the parent A1 is the trigger system. In the Fly, the trigger sits on a precision-ground shaft with bearings at either end of it. The trigger is secured to the shaft using a set screw. The trigger is fully adjustable for front stop, back stop, magnetic return and activation point. The result is a trigger that is buttery smooth with no lateral movement at all. We took our time about adjusting the trigger to our tastes, and the effort was worth it, giving us precisely the feel we wanted for the trigger.

The Fly comes with three barrel backs, with .691, .693, and .695 bore sizes. The front of the two piece barrel is made by Sly Equipment out of Carbon Fiber. On the test piece, the front was white in color, to complement the blue velvet dust finish. The Angel Fly uses the same proprietary A1 threading as the Angel 1.

Also setting the Fly apart from the A1 is the Magno-valve, which uses repelling magnets to locate and return the valve stem during the firing cycle. In the A1 model, the valve was located and returned by a spring, which in reality was too long to afford precise opening and closing of the valve, which led to mediocre efficiency. With the new Magno-Valve, which is backwards compatible with the A1, the repelling magnets control the valve, which allows for shorter dwell times, more consistency, and efficiency on par with other high end markers. During testing, we fired 1160 paintballs on a 3500 psi fill, which would get us 1500+ shots on a full 4500 psi fill. While this is somewhat less than what Angel Paintball Sports had observed on their markers, we feel that the paint used during the course of the test was the deciding factor on the efficiency front. We used the stock .691 barrel back with ProCaps Blaze and ProCaps RecSport , which measured roughly .686 in diameter.

On the field the Fly works like any other A1, except that we noticed a lot less time in the air fill station, and with the new, lighter hammer in the A1, almost non-existent perceived recoil. This helped with controlling the marker during high rate-of-fire, keeping the stream of paintballs on target. We found accuracy to be slightly better than previous A1′s, we felt that with the addition of an aftermarket barrel that more closely fit the paint we were using, the accuracy would improve above and beyond the very acceptable accuracy we were seeing with the stock barrel system and small paint we used during the course of the test.

For this review, the marker was fed by a Crossfire LP airsystem, while the paint feeding duties were handled by a DYE Rotor and Hard Corps Torque. We encountered no broken paint during the course of the test, aside from 3 barrel breaks we encountered during field testing, which was attributed to cold weather conditions and the badly abused ProCaps Rec-Sport paint we were shooting at the time.

We did encounter two minor issues with the marker, one attributed to a defective macroline fitting on the ASA, and a small air leak we found in the vertical ASA, which was found to be dry o-rings at the body/ASA joint. These minor issues were quickly and easily corrected, and once everything was sealed up, the marker performed very well.

The A1 Fly is available in several different colors, and several limited edition models exist. The MSRP for the A1 Fly is $1195, while the Gothic Fly goes for $1245. The limited edition Flys like the Cobra Fly go for $1295, and last but not least, the Joy Division Fly goes for $1395. The Angel Fly can be found online at www.angelpaintballsports.com, Ken Crane’s Performance Angel (www.PerformanceAngel.Com), and Bob “P.I.” Moon’s www.fixmyangel.com