September 2020 Issue September 2020 | Page 63

Inception make, it’s polished to a nice internal hone like the rest of the Stella barrel line, and it’s compatible with Stella peripherals. The Genesis barrel boasts an eight-inch back section for control of the paintball and the best combination of accuracy consistency and efficiency and is delivered in a .686 bore for a “jack of all trades” fit to most paintballs compared to stock barrels. Then there’s that “inexpensive doesn’t mean cheap” thing I was referring to: the Stella Genesis barrel is forty bucks. Let me say that again: $40. Two crisp twenties. Two twenties (or four tens or a bunch of fives) doesn’t mean a damned thing if the barrel doesn’t shoot straight. So it’s a good thing this one does. We ran Valken Graffiti and Empire Marbalizer through an Eclipse EMek with an Inception Stella Genesis barrel threaded on, and we were pretty darn happy with the results. The stock barrel delivered on the EMek is just that – stock. It’s not a bad barrel, it’s just short (I don’t want to hear it) so groups at longer ranges tend to open up and it’s there to shoot most any paintball a player might pound through it. The Stella is a big improvement – it features a nice clean, sleek look, it’s long enough to push through brush or stick bunkers, and it absolutely keeps the groups tighter at all ranges. We were one and two-shotting chain link fence posts all afternoon with this thing, with both brands of paint. The Genesis offers a few holes drilled into the tip of the barrel to act like a bit of a muzzle break, but they don’t exactly muffle this thing. It’s not as quiet as some other barrels, and that’s literally my worst complaint. That said, if you’re too busy shooting people in the goggles because now your gun shoots straight and groups tight, who’s worried about a few decibels. The other side of that coin, too, is that this thing would make a great rain barrel – while other barrels are curve-balling because water got into their ports, you could be dialed in and making pretty neck welts. So there’s that. Bottom line – this is a lot of paintball gun barrel for forty bucks. It’s well-made, looks good, shoots straight and is upgradeable and expandable to become a full-blown barrel kit that can grow with a player on any level of the game. If a simple, affordable paintball gun barrel sounds like your next upgrade, you’d better start with the Genesis. InceptionDesigns.com www.paintball.media 063