Interview with
KT Tran from RAP4
By Alicia Bane
I RECENTLY HAD THE PLEASURE
of sitting down with KT, the CEO of RAP4, and talking to
him during the week of Oklahoma D-Day in Wyandotte,
Oklahoma. All throughout the week, I got to watch him
work and interact with customers and players. There were
a lot of vendors at this certain event, but watching KT and
his representatives Cortney and Muriel and their love for
the sport and the people that play it was the best out of
all of the others.
In the year 2000-01, KT played and then started getting
the idea to sell a product. When he started selling, people
wanted more and more so they got bigger and bigger.
RAP4 stands for “Real Action Paintball”, and the 4 came
from what they first started with, the Ram-M14.
RAP4 prides themselves on their quality products they
have as well as the reasonable pricing that comes with
them. One of their products, the conversion kit is made
so players don’t spend a lot of money. The products they
think of are made to fix problems that arise with other
products. RAP4 had their first magfed game in 2010. The
DMAG was made for reliability and durability. It helped
a lot that it is also easy on the wallet. You can get a
pack of DMAGs for under $60. One of the best selling
markers that they have is the 468. They cannot keep
102
paintball magazine
up with production on that marker faster than they are
being sold. This specific marker was made for military and
police training.
Some of the prototypes KT showed me at D-Day that will
be coming out soon are awesome! One of the newest
products to be released is the Helix Magazine. It is the
next generation of RAP4’s line of DMAGs. While standard
DMAGs utilize a “dual stack” design (meaning the
magazine holds 2 vertical stacks of either 7 or 10 rounds,
depending on capacity), the new Helix is a 20 round
continuous feed. Greatest advantage? No more flipping
the mag after 10 shots! The Helix also does not use a
winding mechanism like most other magazines do. This
keeps parts low and therefore price low. Completely toolless design means the mag can easily be disassembled
in seconds. It will fit any marker that is currently using the
DMAG mag-well; such as the 468, MKPII, Some T68s, the
new Storm markers, and many of the old Tacamo Magfed
conversion kits if they have been upgraded to use the
DMAG mag-well. The Helix will shoot round ball just fine,
but to shoot FSR/SP rounds reliably, RAP4 recommends
upgrading the Helix springs to stronger ones. Another
feature of the Helix is that unlike previous magazines,
FSR/SP are actually rotated 90° while inside the magazine