What's the best paintball gun these days?

Question

So I used to play competitive paintball back in the day, I forgot how many years ago that was. All you needed back then was a fully modified autococker/automag and you had a tournament gun. The angel and shocker just arrived on the scene as I quit. I look at some online sites and I see some familiar brands, dye, wdp, wgp, agd, but way too may options to even know where to begin.
I'm thinking about coming back into the paintball scene for some rec play, primarily speedball on weekends. I'm a guy, I want the best, and now that i'm not in middle/high school anymore, I can also afford a much better gun without having to wash cars for weeks to do so. but again now I don't have the time to waste modifying & retiming my gun every weekend.
I want a gun that's light, accurate, reliable, fast, close to tournament-quality possible requiring little or no mods, very little maintenance, for around $1.5k (pref under). So what would my best options, and why?
~G

I used to own a tournament quality autococker, big fan of closed bolt systems and they tended to be more accurate. Something similar would be great.
~G

Answer 1

you've played before so you know that this stuff is based on preference. i'll just list out a few notable markers.

the high ends
-dm7..it's part of the matrix series from dye. personally i'd go for a dm6 since it's pretty much the same ****
-ego..open bolt pneumatic from planet eclipse...the 07 is incredibly light.
-shocker nxt..this is the new shocker from smart parts. supposed to be amazing but i have no experience with it

the cheaper route would be these markers...but they usually have a good amount of ups you can buy to customize it and have it the way you want...i have listed the following in relation to the high techs...i guess you can call these the baby brothers of the ones i mentioned above...similar but was made cheaper....remember that big brother will pretty much always kick *** comparably unless the right ups are put in.....
-pmr...made by proto...the cheaper version of dye basically. this is also part of the matrix series. there is no lpr, made with a composite trigger frame, rubber trigger
-etek...the cheaper version of the ego. haven't used it but it's pretty damn nice from what i've seen
-ion...this is the original cheap "high end" made by smart parts. everything and i mean everything is upgradable. you probably don't want this one though unless you're an upgrade whore. stock wise it's good but you're going to need to throw cash into it to make it any good

-just a few other things you might want to get into buying...
the 48ci sized tanks from dxs or cp. small, light. great for speedball. these are pretty new and run anywhere from 180-220 depending where you buy it
-when you left halos were the king hopper. there are now new boards for the halo that make it even faster or you can go ahead and get it's competition which is pretty kick ***. the vlocity or vlocity jr. and the pulse (considered the best on the market right now). the eggs aren't all that bad if you like that style too.

yeah that's about all i can think of right now. you're probably best off with the ego. it's definately top of the line. the sl66 or the nexus is really top tier. should suit you well since the open bolts will feel like home since you had an autococker.

Answer 2

get an automag (from ebay or brand new) and drop an x-valve in it...it's blow forward, accurate, and won't chop paint and best of all: NO BATTERIES...you can upgrade the heck out of it as well...you can get a ULE mainbody which gives it autococker barrel threads...check out their store below...the bottom link takes you to the x-valve page

Answer 3

I would go with an EGO i have an 07 ego and nothing i have seen can out shoot it, it is light and easy to maintain, and very durable.

Answer 4

get a xsv ego. but if you are just gonna do rec play, if you are playing woodsball i would suggest a tippmann, speedball.... a spyder pilot acs, very good guns for rec play.

Answer 5

EGO all the way