I not sure where the term came from but for me it meant there was something mysterious and unknown about it . Kinda scary, I mean, why would anybody want to put a cylinder with up to (I Think there up to this now on some) 4350psi of compressed air right up next to your head for goodness sakes? To heck with putting your eye out , if that thing goes, it'll take your head clean off. Hehe . But really these guns are just as safe as others . The tanks are proof tested to stand a lot of pressure . Can you over fill one , yep, but usually what happens is you get poor performance until the pressure gets down to where your guns sweet spot is or it locks up on you from too much pressure on the valve. You find your sweet spot by filling it up to the recommended pressure and shooting over a chrony and charting the numbers to find out at what pressure the gun shoots most consistent at and continue shooting until you see a big drop off in velocity to find your refill pressure. Then just fill to the point that your guns sweet spot starts . OK , why would you want to go to the DARKSIDE anyway . The big " A " word; accuracy . Almost no recoil . They are a joy to shoot. Fill the tank , pull back the bolt , drop in a pellet , close the bolt and squeeze the trigger . Yesl a lot of these advantages can be found in a CO2 and without the extra cost of a scuba tank and fill apparatus , but CO2 is temperature sensitive and I've found you need to wait between shots for your gun to "stabilize" to get the best accuracy from one and you have a maximum in velocity that can be achieved . Also, once you get your scuba tank ( I recommend a tank over a pump or get both and use the pump as a backup)and gauge fill set-up HPA is cheaper . My tank cost me $100 (used) and a gauge and yolk can usually be found for around $75-$100( or cheaper if you buy used ) . A top off on my scuba tank cost me $7 . A refill on a 9oz CO2 tank cost me $4 . I get at least 18-20 full fills off my scuba tank with over 50 shots with my guns on each fill . ( with my micro meter tank on one of my Talons I get close to 100 shots per fill, with my AA S400C , 60-70 shots) On Co2 my Talon gets about 200-250 good shots on a 9oz bottle of CO2 . If you have a CO2 cart gun ala Crosman 2240 you get 40-50 shots if the gun hasn't been modded per cart at fiity cents or more per cart. Wow , I really got rambling didn't I . Anyways I love the PCP's . It a takes a little equipment to keep them shooting but to me it's worth it. To me the all the dark clouds that hung over HPA have gone away , I see it as the bright side now . kirby
