In a world where kids playing paintball for the first time in their lives can head to the local Wal-Mart and pick up an electronic paintball gun for less than some of us can remember spending on a case of paint only a few short years ago, it's easy to wonder where a basic, mechanical paintball gun fits into the grand scheme of things. This question is especially poignant for a company like Spyder, that produces and sells no fewer than seven different electronic gun models from the Pilot to the VS and MR series, and has built and sold nearly twenty other electronic Spyder models. I was forced to ask myself the same question when, after heading over to the Spyder vendor display at a recent tournament and asking if they had anything new for me to check out, I was handed a fresh, crisp and crunchy new Spyder Xtra; a new mechanical gun.

Available in matte black or an equally matte color Spyder refers to as “grey blue” because, well, it's a little of both though still attractive, luckily I got hold of a black one just before heading to a scenario game to test it out. The Xtra has a long and storied history with Spyder, dating back to the early days of the company's sponsorship of longtime embattled pro team Bad Company when they bolted electronic grip frames to the Xtras and made the finals at the World Cup shooting them. Reshaped and redesigned, the new Xtra features attractive milling cuts and all aluminum construction that, while making the gun just a tad hefty, also scores it big points in the durability department.

For a basic mechanical gun with an asking price of just over one hundred dollars, the new Xtra offers a solid list of standard features. Velocity is adjusted via spring tension at the back of the receiver, while takedown is accomplished via a push pin that retains the internals. A basic, replaceable vertical feed neck is standard, as is a double trigger, aluminum .45 frame that won't crack under pressure, Delrin bolt, a small drop forward and basic bottle adapter and steel braided hose that carries either CO2 or compressed air through a rubberized vertical fore grip that do their jobs well. Unfortunately the owner's hopper attaches to the basic feed neck by way of a plastic vertical “elbow” that will easily crack or break, so any owner planning on holding onto their Xtra for any amount of time would do well to slap a twenty dollar aftermarket clamping feed neck on. A basic, ten inch stock barrel in classic Spyder threads is unremarkable, though well-polished internally.

Game day was a humid, ninety degree summer afternoon at a scenario game in Tennessee . There were plenty of reactive triggers and full-auto electros on the field putting down well in excess of fifteen paintballs per second. Though the field was wooded, there were plenty of bunkers, allowing us “speedball” types the ability to shoot and move. In such an environment, putting down my thousand dollar electro and picking up a hundred dollar mechanical gun surprised more than a few teammates, but it was the perfect environment to see how the new Xtra stacked up.

Upon breaking it out, I found that my compressed air bottle would not thread into the Xtra's bottle adapter more than one turn thanks to the gauge bumping into the back of the grip frame due to the small drop forward. As the Xtra costs less than most compressed air bottles, this was probably for the best, as most owners will use CO2 as their propellant source. A little digging through my gear bag and I came out with a chrome-moly twelve ounce CO2 bottle that threaded on with no problems. As I didn't have a basic two hundred round hopper handy, I added the hopper Spyder would have wanted me to use, an LCD Spyder Fasta motorized model. With the plastic “elbow” in place, I was surprised at how tall the game-ready Xtra was, knowing that this would inevitably lead to shots in the top of the hopper if I wasn't careful, all the more reason for a serious owner to add a low-rise, clamping feed neck.

Heading to the chronograph on that humid afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Xtra went over the red box at an impressive 273, 270, 275 on CO2, perfect for the day's 280 chrono limit. Without the need to adjust, I topped off the hopper with DXS Rec-Sport, the field paint for the day, and hit the field. I didn't get far before it was time to see what the Xtra was capable of, as the opposition had mounted a strong push while I was out switching guns. The bad guys were holed up in a small cluster of buildings, and a few teammates and I started playing whack-a-mole with them through the windows. I found the Xtra's short barrel surprisingly accurate, delivering tight groups over most ranges, though at the longest distances the occasional ball got squirrelly on me. Though it was tall, the hopper sitting atop the plastic feed adapter had one advantage; a longer ball stack made rapid firing, such as it was with a mechanical gun, safer, as not one single solitary ball was chopped or broken at any time during the day. As a final positive, I found myself able to shoot a full 750 balls, most in rapid-fire strings, on a twelve-ounce bottle before running short of air, and whether pointed up, down or sideways, the Xtra never went “liquid.”

The 2007 Spyder Xtra is a sharp little mechanical marking device. Simple, easy to maintain and well-built, the Xtra's features and performance do it justice and enable it to hang with any other mechanical gun and even a few budget electros at a low price. For entry level players, ‘ballers on a budget or those who just enjoy playing paintball without a battery in the grip frame, the Xtra is an excellent paintball gun.