p r o d u c t
r e v i e w
Zodiak Paintball Pod Pack
Words & Photos By Steve Maguire
This is may be the strangest review that you
have ever read. I say this because I am going
to take the standard review structure and
throw it out the window. I must for this pack
as it has some strange twists that I think
are crucial to the pack’s story. So, throwing
caution to the wind, I am going to say right
at the very beginning, I love this pack. I think
that it is arguably one of the single greatest
woodsball packs ever created but there is
room for some serious improvements.
To start this story, lets go back a few weeks.
I was talking with Kevin Donaldson, team
captain of the Master Blasters out of New
York. They are kind of a big deal if you are a
fan of paintball’s tournament history and the
current woodsball tournament movement.
We got to talking about the Master Blaster
pod packs, and how they had a strange
retention system. I was excited because it is a
rare thing when you see something actually
“NEW” in paintball. I was told that they
were created by Kenneth Hefferle of Zodiac
Paintball. (It is actually a collaboration but
more on that later. Don’t jump ahead!) Me
being me, I just started asking questions as I
was excited! Look at the way this works! It is
an original design that would take the loud
Velcro ripping noise out of the game. That
is a big deal in woodsball! In no time I was
talking with Kenneth Hefferle directly and I
had a brand-new pod pack speeding its way
to me in the mail. I could not wait..
Once it arrived, I was so excited that I
snapped a couple quick pictures and posted
them to my Facebook group. The interest
it generated was like no other post I had
made. People loving it, people hating certain
things, people calling it a knock off… wait…
what? It is a knock off? That got me too.
So, I did some research. It is most certainly
NOT a knock off. Remember when I said
that it was a collaboration? Yeah. Kenneth
and a gentleman named Jon Paul of Critical
Paintball designed this system. So, both
Zodiac Paintball and Critical Paintball are
making similar systems. Critical however is
focusing on adapting the design for speedball
and airball competitions whereas Zodiac is
more focused on woodsball competitions
and scenario play. The pod pack in my grubby
little paws however is from Zodiac so we are
going to focus on that.
On to my opinion of the pod pack I have
in my hands. I want to say this one more
time right now. I love this pack. I think it is
amazing. I am repeating that because I am
about to tear it to pieces, and I do not want
to you to be confused. I just want to be
completely honest. The absolute first thing
that I noticed was not the pod retention
system. You would think that, but it was
not. The first thing that I noticed was that
the camouflage material did not match.
The pattern on the loops was not the same
pattern on the base. This is a huge red flag
for me about any product. When materials
do not match, I automatically assume that
the product in question is made poorly. At
this point I immediately started to inspect
the stitching, the material and just the over
all quality of the build. I must be honest;
I was being brutal about it. At this point, I
WANTED to find a flaw to justify my snap
judgement. The pod pack however was
made to be bullet proof. It is as solid as they
come.
078
paintball.media magazine