Sly Carbon Fiber Barrel on test

Sly Equipment Barrel
review by Daniel Tyler

Sly's marketing director, Tyson Evenson, intrigued me about this barrel a few months ago and I finally got one to test out.

As the name implies, the Sly Barrel is a hybrid of carbon fiber and aluminum. The Sly Barrel is a two-piece. Unlike what is common with other barrels that separate on the market now, the Sly Barrel has a sizer at the back of the barrel.

During testing the weather was really cold and the paint was rebelling a lot during the day. I also made the mistake of loading up paint that had been sitting around since the San Diego NPPL last season. So maybe the weather wasn't the sole factor. Being broke, like most ballers, I tried to shoot this old stuff and the old paint kept blowing up in the barrel. Like that was a surprise.

Playing a back bunker in the corner on the snake side, I had to stop shooting and had a thought... "would the Sly Barrel work with just the back piece?" So here I am, with a two inch barrel (using just the back piece of the Sly Barrel) and guess what? I was capable of shooting that old paint and actually collecting some Gs. I turned a lot of heads cuz without the porting from the tip, the Proto 6 Matrix sounded more like an old gatling cannon from the civil war days. But I got away with not having to ditch the old stuff and played till I had gone through it all.

The finish on the carbon fiber tip has a stylish look that reminds me of the ACI Graffiti barrels from back in the late 90's. Six lines of porting run down the first three inches of the barrel and during testing the porting really helped quiet down the Proto 6 Matrix even further.

After going through paint that had no business being out on the field, and for a practice no less, I "obtained" a 1000 balls from a teammate and used the whole barrel. Usually I like to see how well a barrel will clean itself out after breaking a ball in the bore. I was happy to say that I only needed to shoot a short burst into the ground for the barrel to shoot clean the broken paint and I regained (for the most part) my accuracy prior to the broken paint.

Usually I nit pick to find something negative about a product, but I don't have any when it comes to the Sly Dual Carbon Barrel. I think that Sly Equipment did a great job in their product introduction into paintball. Were I to shop for a great high end barrel, this one would be on my list for consideration.

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