Indian Creek Designs Alley Cat II From PaintballCommand.com (http://www.paintballcommand.com) Package Price: $154.95 (with Scott X-Stalker, 12oz co2, IS200 loader, elbow)      Let's get started by reviewing what this gun is all about…VALUE. The first thing that catches your eye is the extremely low price. This gun costs literally only a few more dollars than a Stingray, and a LOT less than a Pro-Lite (which is an excellent gun in its own right). For the price of an Autococker (gun only) or standard Automag (gun only) you can get an Alley Cat package and several cases of your favorite paint, go to the field, buy a years membership and play for a whole year. I'm not exaggerating here folks, this gun is VERY cheap (no one believed me when I told them the price).      Second, let's get to the most important part of this purchase…how does it perform? The answer is WOW. This gun right out of the box first strikes you as one solid piece of machinery. The whole thing is either aluminum or stainless steel, completely made by CNC Computer Controlled Machines. No cheap extruded or stamped parts (see: Shocker 4x4 trigger) AT ALL anywhere on this gun. This fact is made well known by ICD in their advertisements, and the only thing that scares me about their methods is: "How do they make any money?" I've come to the conclusion that Indian Creek Designs is not a company, but an organization of philanthropists who are simply trying to get as many people interested in paintball as possible! Why else would they make a gun with Tippman-like reliability/durability and fantastic accuracy for such a low price? Kingman charges twice the price of this gun for their new Spyder SE. Why? Because they obviously intend to make money, and ICD does not.      Well let's get down to the nitty-gritty. I followed the ICD instructions on fine-tuning the Alley Cat for peak gas efficiency and velocity (field limit 290 fps outdoors) and without a second thought this gun fires paint at consistent speeds without a regulator or expansion chamber (I have one, but more on that later). So I loaded it with 200 rounds of Marbelizer paint and hit the field for my first combat with this weapon.      First impressions (single words only): Quiet! Accurate! Reliable! Sturdy! I was impressed by the "thoomp" sound this gun made when fired. It was quiet, discreet, and didn't give away my position as much as the guys using Pro-Lites (crack! crack!). When needed you could fire downfield as far as necessary, and with quite decent accuracy. I must also state that Marbelizers are GREAT paint for this gun. I loaded it a few times with non-RP paint, and accuracy was still acceptable, but nowhere near as tight as with the smaller, heavier RP Marbelizers. This signifies that the (10") stock barrel has a tight bore size (0.688"), and works best with the smaller diameter paintballs, like Diablo, RP Marbelizers, and RP Premium. My recommendation: don't go with the cheap paints in this gun. The gun's accuracy pays for paint in decreased paintball usage and increased hit percentage.      Secondly the time does arise when you need to pull the trigger as fast as you can and let paint fly. Can the Alley Cat II handle it? YES! I had one little problem and that was that my loader could not keep up with my trigger finger, and on a few occasions I had to shake the loader to get more paint to load. An agitated loader will easily solve the problem, and it's probably worth it if you shoot a ton of paint. The Alley Cat WILL keep up with your trigger finger due to its somewhat heavy trigger pull, but who needs 14 rds a second? One paintball puts the other guy out. Controlled two and three-round bursts were a breeze with the Alley Cat, and the velocity and accuracy made placing those shots that much easier. I am curious to see how a premium barrel works on this gun, like a DYE or Armson, etc. If you have this info, please email me (epson@waste.org).      On to a somewhat overlooked aspect of paintball guns with the advent of almost-affordable compressed air and N2 systems: gas efficiency. I admit that I was erred in bringing my tank to the field already "sorta" full. I have no idea how many shots were taken from the tank before I hooked it up to the gun. All variables aside I still emptied at least three 200 round hoppers before I decided I was going to run my tank out of gas intentionally so as not to run out in the middle of a game. So… I take off the hopper, and start pulling the trigger…again….and again….and again….then I decide to hold the gun in my left hand and do the "full-auto" thing with my middle finger. I keep that up for a good 30 seconds. My ARM is running out of gas, not the gun. Finally after (estimated) 300 trigger pulls (shots) the gun finally stuttered and I ran it out of gas quickly after that. So according to my math, that's at least 900 shots from a single 12oz tank. My margin of error here is probably 100 shots… so estimated 800-1000 shots from a $2.00 co2 fill. I don't actually know how high that rates among other guns, but that's plenty for me. Filling my tank is an action that makes sure I go back inside for a drink or to go to the bathroom every 3 or 4 hours. Oh did I mention durability? I put this gun though a stream, into rocks, sand, mud, and anything else nature (or I) could throw at it, and had absolutely 0 foul ups all day long. The gun only malfunctioned once. The bolt did not blow back fully after a shot, and I have no idea why. I re-cocked and everything was back to normal. I have a suspicion something found its way into the space behind the bolt, like a twig or rock. This could happen to any gun with an exposed bolt system. Not a single ball broke in the barrel all day long, no curving paint, not a single one. That is an A+ in my book.      Lastly, something I consider very important to a paintball gun, how does it look? I decided I wanted a foregrip on my Alley Cat because the gun tends to be a little light in front compared to a real firearm. I purchased a cheapo ($20.00) expansion chamber and had it plugged up on the bottom, for use as a foregrip. I have no idea if the chamber actually functions as an expansion chamber in this mode, but nonetheless I still use it as my foregrip. With the tank mounted on the rear ASA adapter, and the barrel "foam thingy" on the barrel and the addition of the "foregrip" expansion chamber this gun was quite adequately described as a "Tommy Gun" lookalike. With the proper make-up (short barrel and a remote with expansion chamber or regulator) this gun also bears a distinct resemblance to the H&K MP5 series of sub-machine guns. This is a good thing. This gun plain and simple LOOKS COOL! When mounted with a vertial tank (this gun has the option of both tank configurations) it also looks cool, but slightly awkward with anything larger than a 9oz tank. A 7oz or 3.5 oz tank mounted vertically would be AWESOME for indoor speedball-type events. Finally, check out the Fun Supply's TOTALLY fly Alley Cat setup (http://www.funsupply.com). This has to be seen to be believed.      Finally in conclusion I would recommend ANYONE to get this gun. First time players will be happy with a solid, reliable feel that makes this paintball gun easy to own and maintain. Experienced players will want to use it as a backup to their Autocockers and Automags, Angels, Shockers, or whatever the 4 guns are that everyone uses all the time. The Alley Cat's consistent velocity makes for a low probability of a hot gun penalty. Should you buy this gun instead of a Spyder or a Tippman? YOU make the call. My call is "yes".