First Endeavor Paintball Quest
Text and Photography by Joshua D. Silverman
Printed Paintball Games International Magazine April 2006

Looking at the high-end paintball gun market today, I probably wouldn't have advised any company to bring out another thousand-dollar machine gun. In fact, I don't personally think there are a whole lot of markets within the paintball industry that need yet another anything, considering how many magazines, how many barrels, how many Spyder clones, how many tournaments, how many goggles, how many paint brands, how many clothing lines and how many high-end electronic face mowers there are in this sport already. However, having just spent some quality time with the Quest, I get the feeling that if I had told the guys at First Endeavor Paintball not to bother with their new electro, I'd have made a big mistake. The Quest, a new electronic tournament paintgun from FEP, is an impressive machine that has the capability of making the “big guys” in high-end gear production glance over their shoulders.

One of the advantages to bringing a thousand dollar electronic gun to market in 2006 is, I suppose, that you can find a million examples of what to do and what not to do along the way. One of these examples is the square cardboard box in which so many paintball guns are shipped these days; square cardboard boxes are so nineties. Obviously First Endeavor saw this as a problem, so they ship the Quest in a small cardboard coffin. If nothing else this is quite a way to make a first impression. Prying up the nails and steadying myself for the midget vampire that I was convinced would pop out of the Quest's box prepared me for a surprise of quite a different fashion; how well appointed this marker is from the factory. Inside the box of every Quest is, in addition to the gun itself, a two-piece aluminum barrel, two ninety-degree macro line fittings, a length of macro line, a tin of replacement o-rings, a tin of lubricant, an Allen key for bolt removal, a manual and a warranty card. Color availability is basic but attractive, with polished red, blue, black and grey models all accessorized with black rolling off the assembly line.

Lifting the Quest from its final resting place, I was immediately blown away by just how little it weighs. The aluminum, Autococker-threaded barrel hardly adds any weight to the gun, which steps through the ropes and into the ring at just two pounds and change. Obviously this sucker was in a sauna wearing a sweat-suit cutting weight just before the weigh-in. Constructed from aluminum, the Quest is a sleek machine, with a smooth, polished finish and practically no machine cuts at all, save a few teardrops at the back of the receiver and some meat removed from the top. Anodizing is luscious and no matter how many ways I twisted and turned the Quest in the light, I found no pits, mill marks, scratches or other imperfections. In contrast to most modern electros, which are cut and milled in six different directions often leading to edges sharp enough to shave with, the Quest's receiver is subtle and understated. I like that. Sponsored teams and players will love the flat sides of the receiver, perfect for big stickers.

The Quest's grip frame extends to the back of the receiver, doubling as a snatch grip. The trigger is well forward, nearly underneath the vertical, clamping feed neck reminiscent of a CCM model, and is a forward-swept design with three adjustment points. The trigger pull of my Quest was so perfect out of the box that I refused to adjust it, as I was able to pull the sucker as speeds I could never touch with other paintguns. The Quest's trigger guard is large, perfect for big fingers or gloved hands, though I wasn't fond of how the swooping, almost gothic curves of the guard mixed with the smooth, flowing lines of the receiver or even the back of the grip frame. Aluminum covers hold dual ball detents and protect the break-beam anti-chop eyes that are enabled automatically when the shooter switches the Quest on, via the single button at the rear of the grip frame. The rubber, wrap-around grips standard on the Quest are a bit much if you ask me, with a sword sticking through a skull and some spider-web designs and grey accents. Though the LED light flashes through the skull's eyes (adding serious “cool points”) some slightly more understated rubber wrap-around grips with a window for the LED light would, in my opinion, give the Quest a more serious, stylish look. Two sets of inline holes are drilled through the bottom of the grip frame, allowing for longer or shorter bottle setups.

Up front, the Quest is equipped with both a high pressure inline regulator and a small low pressure regulator with gauge at the front of the vertical adapter. Both regulators wisely adjust with the same wrench. The Quest shoots at just over two hundred PSI and the LPR operates at approximately ninety pounds per square inch. Internally the HPR is reminiscent of a Torpedo regulator, round, small and knurled to act as a fore grip, with a large internal spring. This is a good thing, however, as the Torpedo has proven to be a quality reg, easy to maintain and capable of providing consistent air at a high flow rate. The Quest's regulators should be no different, simple to clean and lubricate and capable of operating efficiently even at high rates of fire. While some paintguns ship with barrels big enough to shoot golf balls, FEP ships the Quest with a fourteen inch, two-piece aluminum “007” barrel with three rows of in-line porting in a .689 bore size more suitable to most reasonably-sized paintballs.

While the trigger pull of the Quest out of the box is excellent and its semiautomatic mode is uncapped, you're not cool in my neighborhood if your bicycle doesn't have baseball cards in the spokes and your gun doesn't ramp to fifteen. Opening the manual I learned how to adjust the settings of the Quest, a relatively simple undertaking requiring opening the grip frame, adjusting dip switches and pulling the trigger. However, when I opened my grip frame, I found a board that didn't actually have any dip switches, somewhat complicating the process. A quick email to First Endeavor informed me that I had the new stock board, made by Wicked Air Sports, but that I must have accidentally received an old manual. The company immediately shipped me a newer manual; a prompt and courteous service.

Resigned to playing in semiautomatic mode, attempting survive at twelve balls per second battling angry hordes of heathen barbarian children wielding ramping battle axes, I added a rail and ASA using the macro line and fittings provided by FEP, dropped a Boost customized HALO B into the clamping feed neck and topped off my Crossfire low pressure 68/4,500psi bottle. Pushing the on/off button yielded no response and I discovered that the battery shipped in my Quest was dead. Replacing it took only a moment and the Quest powered up with no problems. Initial chronograph readings were low but consistent, at 236, 238, 239, 233, 231 and 237 feet per second. A quarter inward turn of the adjusting nut at the bottom of the inline regulator increased the Quest's velocity to 255, 259, 254, with another quarter turn bringing velocity to an acceptable 274, 280, 281 feet per second. Continued velocity testing of the Quest yielded strings consistently within a ten foot per second variance and while this was more than acceptable, consistency should improve from there as regulators break in.

As expected, the light, crisp standard trigger pull enabled me to rip off semiautomatic strings in excess of ten balls per second almost immediately with my test Quest. No paintballs were chopped or broken during testing at any time. Accuracy over all ranges was solid, with no surprises. At close range groups were tight enough to drive tacks, but for a thousand dollars' worth of paintgun this is to be expected, if not demanded. At longer ranges groups stayed tight and predictable. Advertised firing modes include capped and uncapped semiautomatic, capped PSP ramp and a fully automatic NXL mode, covering all the bases. While 1,500 rounds per 68/4,500psi fill are advertised, I found my efficiency to be closer to 1,100 or 1,200 shots per tank, still excellent numbers. Efficiency, however, is not an exact science, and will vary depending on barrel to paint match, weather, phase of the moon, how soon the girlfriend wants me home from the paintball field and various other factors.

The Quest may not be supported by a dozen pages of advertising in all the big magazines nor have banner ads popping up on the big websites, but maybe it should. In my hands, the Quest proved a lightweight, consistent, efficient, fast and relatively attractive paintball gun. I didn't figure out how to break it while I had it, short of beating it against a rock, and that's not something I do much of any more. Players who want all the performance of the big dogs in a package that isn't already used by every kid and his cousin at the local field owe it to themselves to pick up a Quest; they may not want to put it back down.