Spyder MR3

by Joshua D. Silverman
Reprinted Courtesy PGi Magazine

I seem to remember a time when the bigwigs that ran this industry were convinced that getting as far away from the woods as possible was the best thing we could do for ourselves and the image of this sport. That's what we did. Kicking and screaming, we dragged ourselves out of the woods and threw away our camouflage, donning instead the bright colors of motocross, and we sold ourselves to the world as athletes. What grew from that was an industry built from the top down, with leagues fighting each other and often themselves, professional athletes demanding salaries and all the while acting like spoiled children, and desperate, high dollar attempts at television contracts. Hiding behind airbags, sliding and diving on Astroturf over asphalt, we did it; proved that we could take on the world and get more people than not to take us seriously.

Then, about a year or two ago, people began to look around and realize that while the people at the top looked at trees and saw the past, the vast majority of the players of the game of paintball still hide behind the nearest tree when someone starts shooting at them. People at the top slowly but surely began to realize that if more than ninety percent of the players of the game of paintball (note I didn't say the sport of paintball) dig trees, that's where the future of our industry, and with it most of the money, truly lie. At that critical juncture, some of the biggest companies in the paintball industry began turning their attention to the market they'd almost forgotten about, and the scenario industry began cranking out parts, pieces, clothing and even new lines of paintball guns marketed directly at those who picked up the camouflage when people like Bob Long, Danny Love, Chris Lasoya and Ron Kilbourne took theirs off.

A company that made their entire fortune on recreational players, but who never truly targeted the scenario or tactical players of the game until recently is Kingman, makers of the revolutionary Spyder that brought semi-automatic performance into the hands of the masses in an affordable manner for the first time, back in the mid-nineties. While the Spyder has soldiered on, evolving and growing with the technological advances of the game, only recently has Kingman seen the forest for the trees, and decided to see what all the hubbub was about. The result of Kingman's field trip into the woods was the MR line, a series of three paintball guns designed to appeal to the players who enjoy the military look of the scenario world. With the MR series of Spyders, led by the flagship MR3, Kingman has speficically targeted the scenario or tactical player for the first time and joined the rest of the industry in marching back towards the woods from whence we came so many years ago.

When I picked up the Spyder MR3's box as I sat down to see what made it work, I wondered if it had been packaged with a brick. I mean this box was heavy. Once I flipped it open and pulled the MR3 itself out, I figured out why. The MR3 itself is a beefy piece of equipment, blocky and with no unnecessary metal shaved off. To the contrary, Kingman left the metal on the receiver and even threw some more on, in a clear attempt to mimic the look of modern assault weapons used by the various armies of the world. Though the finished product ended up looking like a cross between a prop from Battlestar Galactica and a World War Two-era submachine gun, it certainly isn't fragile and it definitely looks ready to get down in the trenches, fix bayonets and take back some of Tippmann's territory. At its PT test after enlisting, the MR3 weighed nearly four and a half pounds.

The MR3 is an electronic paintball gun, a basic blowback like every other Spyder, but equipped with an electronic grip frame and, more importantly, with anti-chop eyes. The electronic frame, complete with a double trigger, offers semiautomatic fire with or without the anti-chop eyes and a fully automatic mode, all powered by a Kingman rechargeable 9.6 volt battery good for around two cases before a charge is needed. For scenario players, this may be a bit light, so a spare battery should be on any serious MR3 shooter's list of things to bring to the game. At the bottom of the .45 grip frame is a small drop forward and basic bottle adapter without an on/off of any kind. Like the rest of the MR3, it's blocky, it's simple and it does the job well. A durable steel braided hose brings the air from the adapter through the blocky plastic vertical fore grip and into the receiver.

Unlike most modern Spyders, which are equipped with vertical feeds, the MR line is standard with a right feed, allowing sighting down the top of the paintball gun and the use of scopes or sights. A raised sight rail is bolted to the top of the receiver of the MR3, which doubles as a carry handle. The MR3 cocks from the rear, via a charging handle much like that of the M-16 and M4 rifles used by the United States military. Much like that of the MP5 submachine gun (and also the Tippmann A5), the MR3 features a hooded blade front site. A tubular telescoping stock is included with the MR3 that bolts into the rear of the receiver's top tube. A Spyder-threaded stock barrel, matching the receiver's subdued, matte black finish, is relatively short but ported to reduce noise and features an extremely nice polished internal finish, much better than anything I've seen from Kingman in the past.

Adding first a twenty ounce CO2 tank and then a HALO hopper to the MR3 brought back a few memories of my own woodsball days back in the nineties, if for no other reason than because I had to use an elbow to put the hopper on. The two-dollar elbow could be the weak link in the entire gun if it cracked or broke on the field, so any savvy player would do well to keep an extra or two around. Adding these two necessary pieces of kit to the MR3 drastically increased its weight to a point that I wondered if lugging this beast around in the woods during a long day of scenario play would be any fun, at least until I flipped the switch to fully automatic and let loose with a burst of XBall Bronze. The MR3 started chattering and hammered round after round downrange at an impressive rate of fire, never skipping a beat, chopping or sputtering, though eventually liquid CO2 got into the valve and caused a velocity spike.

Any serious player should consider compressed air as their propellant of choice for the MR3. Once switched over to compressed air, the MR3 again hammered a full hopper downrange without a single chop, barrel break or mishap, sounding like a Tommy Gun. I was unable to resist the urge to fill the HALO, shoot the MR3 from the hip and spray down the entire target range, laughing and yelling “get some!” until the hopper had run dry. A nearby onlooker asked if I shot women and children. When I answered that I sometimes did, he asked how I was able to shoot women and children, to which I laughingly answered “it's easy, you just don't lead ‘em so much!”

The MR3's barrel proved extremely accurate, so much that this is one of the few paintball guns I would consider shooting without replacing the stock barrel, as there is simply no need to do so. Consistency was acceptable and rate of fire, both in fully automatic and semiautomatic mode, was very high. The anti-chop eyes performed flawlessly and not a single ball was chopped or broken at any time during testing or play. One point of frustration lay with the tubular stock. As it rides high off the back of the receiver, with a mask on shouldering the MR3 via the stock and sighting down the top of the paintball gun is impossible, and with the stock attached the bottle dangles oddly off the grip frame. I found the MR3 much more comfortable to shoot (and somewhat lighter) with the stock removed and the gun shouldered more traditionally, with the tank.

Kingman's assault on scenario paintball should go well thanks to their flagship model, the MR3, which shoots straight, shoots fast and looks the part. Simple to dismantle and maintain, relatively reliable and very durable thanks to its overstated construction, the MR3 is more than enough paintball gun for any scenario player and could hold its own on most speedball fields as well.