KingPin!
In my defence, I was left unsupervised ^^
VU Donator
Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
VU Challenge Team
Reviewer
Hi Folks,
I recently reviewed the Phobia RDA from VandyVape & Alex Vapers MD and it seems he’s a busy guy because VandyVape sent me his new project piece “The Berserker MTL RDA ”. I will state for the record right up front; ordinarily I’m not a Mouth To Lung (MTL) vaper, in fact this is very much a trial run for me to see how I get on with it all. Whilst reviewing the Berserker I’m also reviewing the VapeFly Galaxies RDA in parallel and will drop its review at the same time.
I don’t like to make recommendations in my reviews, instead I’ll present you with my findings to bolster your research should you be interested in the product.
Manufacturer Specs:
Product Information: http://www.vandyvape.com/detail/atomizer/Berserker_MTL_RDA/
Impressions and Build Quality
The Berserker is marketed by VandyVape as “An Affordable, High End MTL RDA”. To me it’s either one or the other, it can’t be both!…. Overlooking the marketing oxymoron focussing instead on affordability versus quality; the Berserker MTL RDA is certainly one of Vandy Vapes best efforts from the products I’ve used. I received the gold version and despite some very minor blemishes it’s very well finished overall.
Each drip tip is 10mm wide with a 3mm bore. It can be unscrewed to swap between the Delrin or Ultem version. Whilst the drip tip is comfortable the heat sink it screws into, gets hot when chain vaping Clapton Coils (even at 15W). I would like to have seen the Berserker “RTA” drip tip included (although you can use your own 510).
Considering how small this atomiser is; it’s made up of 14 parts! (Not including the 6 O-rings dotted about). You do get plenty of spares including the additional bottom feeding pin as well as a couple of beauty rings.
I completely stripped it down just to see how well each individual piece stood up to ultrasonic cleaning in hot (not boiling) water, even the O-rings and peek insulators went in. It completed 20 minutes in the bath and I couldn’t see any issues, one thing they do well is gold plating and again the Gold Berserker is testament to that. Whilst the RDA was pretty clean out of the box they had applied a small amount of oil to make sure the O-rings hadn’t dried up ; so it’s worth a cleaning session first.
I was hoping to report VandyVape have finally ditched their two part “adjustable” positive pin (which will snap if over tightened), and also their plastic insert approach; though sadly they continue to use both.
Looking inside the top assembly there is a step system with an ever decreasing dome, rather than a true bell shape you find on other MTL products. This design does seem to condense the vapour well though.
The airflow system is in the form of plastic rectangle “tubes” (6 to be exact). This inter-changeable airflow system isn’t new; In fact I have the same system on my Aeronaut V2 RDA. Leaving that aside it does offer the user the ability to fine tune their vape experience using a combination of the airflow ring and bottom airflow tubes. It can all be swapped about without having to remove your coil build, although the position of the airflow tube does make the RDA susceptible to leaking/gurgling from clumsy over dripping/squonking.
The airflow openings are situated on a single side of the Airflow Ring (I always call this the housing). The 6 airflow holes range from 0.8mm up to 2mm in mostly 0.2mm intervals.
The plastic tubes also have a single inlet one side (I’ve turned the two circled tubes round the other way to show this). Between the tubes and airflow ring you have 36 different settings, in fact you could argue that you don’t even have to bother with the plastic tubes and go for side airflow only so that makes it 42 different airflow settings! having said that it’s fair to say the RDA wasn’t really designed for this in mind.
I expect someone will ask why the build deck has two side openings; I thought that at first but it just serves to allow you to push the airflow tube out from either side in order to swap it easily. Just make sure to align the airflow ring on the correct side compared with the tube opening.
I’ve been trying to figure out why they landed on plastic tubes in the first place; it bothers me they have……ok it could be risky running metal post to post in case it becomes part of the circuit, but then they could just isolate the tube both sides (with an additional insulator right in the middle of the negative post). Perhaps they just didn’t want to drill the opening larger, or it was just a cost saving excercise? With the size of the RDA I know it wouldn’t work orientating the position 90 degrees as it would be very restrictive for the wicking.
Whatever the reason it’s important you don’t have the plastic tube inserted when dry burning the coil or it will start to react to the heat. I won’t list this particular aspect as a con since the instructions manual says don’t do it! But I wanted to check what happens and sure enough it did react. Even under normal vaping conditions I’ve noticed a tiny bit of reaction, however this is probably because I set my coil too low in one of my builds, to be honest who cares this is going in as a con … in my opinion they should have figured out a way to use metal tubes.
Whilst the O-Rings offer spot on resistance throughout; I noticed the RDA sometimes unscrews from the base when I’m trying to move it down through the airflow holes. I end up having to twist the housing right round just to move it back to the start position.
When I remove the entire housing (airflow ring) from the base and I’m using either of the 22mm or 24mm beauty rings; it will snag when pushing it back into place. In fact the beauty rings also seem to make it harder to adjust full stop.
The Berserker RDA drinks fairly rapidly for a MTL, but it’s easy to drip if you don’t have a squonker, simply remove the top cap and refill down the sides into the usable 8mm deep juice well. Just be careful not to overdo it or it will leak.
If you do have a squonk mod; much like the Phobia RDA, the squonking pin sits under a cap which is incorporated into the deck. I really like this idea as it keeps the juice distribution even.
And finally in this section both positive pin options sits proud of the threading
I recently reviewed the Phobia RDA from VandyVape & Alex Vapers MD and it seems he’s a busy guy because VandyVape sent me his new project piece “The Berserker MTL RDA ”. I will state for the record right up front; ordinarily I’m not a Mouth To Lung (MTL) vaper, in fact this is very much a trial run for me to see how I get on with it all. Whilst reviewing the Berserker I’m also reviewing the VapeFly Galaxies RDA in parallel and will drop its review at the same time.
I don’t like to make recommendations in my reviews, instead I’ll present you with my findings to bolster your research should you be interested in the product.
Manufacturer Specs:
- Diameter: 18mm
- Diameter with Beauty Ring: 22 or 24mm
- Height: 38 mm (42mm with threads)
- Material: SS 304
- Airflow: Single: Side or Single Bottom interchangeable airflow “tubes”
- Drip Tip: Ultem or Delrin
- 1 x Berserker RDA
- 1 x 22mm Beauty Ring
- 1 x 22mm Beauty Ring
- 1 x Spare bits bag (O-Rings, Delrin drip tip, Grub screws, Bottom Feeding pin, screwdriver)
- 1 x Coil Tool
- 6 x Airflow options
Product Information: http://www.vandyvape.com/detail/atomizer/Berserker_MTL_RDA/
Impressions and Build Quality
The Berserker is marketed by VandyVape as “An Affordable, High End MTL RDA”. To me it’s either one or the other, it can’t be both!…. Overlooking the marketing oxymoron focussing instead on affordability versus quality; the Berserker MTL RDA is certainly one of Vandy Vapes best efforts from the products I’ve used. I received the gold version and despite some very minor blemishes it’s very well finished overall.
Each drip tip is 10mm wide with a 3mm bore. It can be unscrewed to swap between the Delrin or Ultem version. Whilst the drip tip is comfortable the heat sink it screws into, gets hot when chain vaping Clapton Coils (even at 15W). I would like to have seen the Berserker “RTA” drip tip included (although you can use your own 510).
Considering how small this atomiser is; it’s made up of 14 parts! (Not including the 6 O-rings dotted about). You do get plenty of spares including the additional bottom feeding pin as well as a couple of beauty rings.
I completely stripped it down just to see how well each individual piece stood up to ultrasonic cleaning in hot (not boiling) water, even the O-rings and peek insulators went in. It completed 20 minutes in the bath and I couldn’t see any issues, one thing they do well is gold plating and again the Gold Berserker is testament to that. Whilst the RDA was pretty clean out of the box they had applied a small amount of oil to make sure the O-rings hadn’t dried up ; so it’s worth a cleaning session first.
I was hoping to report VandyVape have finally ditched their two part “adjustable” positive pin (which will snap if over tightened), and also their plastic insert approach; though sadly they continue to use both.
Looking inside the top assembly there is a step system with an ever decreasing dome, rather than a true bell shape you find on other MTL products. This design does seem to condense the vapour well though.
The airflow system is in the form of plastic rectangle “tubes” (6 to be exact). This inter-changeable airflow system isn’t new; In fact I have the same system on my Aeronaut V2 RDA. Leaving that aside it does offer the user the ability to fine tune their vape experience using a combination of the airflow ring and bottom airflow tubes. It can all be swapped about without having to remove your coil build, although the position of the airflow tube does make the RDA susceptible to leaking/gurgling from clumsy over dripping/squonking.
The airflow openings are situated on a single side of the Airflow Ring (I always call this the housing). The 6 airflow holes range from 0.8mm up to 2mm in mostly 0.2mm intervals.
The plastic tubes also have a single inlet one side (I’ve turned the two circled tubes round the other way to show this). Between the tubes and airflow ring you have 36 different settings, in fact you could argue that you don’t even have to bother with the plastic tubes and go for side airflow only so that makes it 42 different airflow settings! having said that it’s fair to say the RDA wasn’t really designed for this in mind.
I expect someone will ask why the build deck has two side openings; I thought that at first but it just serves to allow you to push the airflow tube out from either side in order to swap it easily. Just make sure to align the airflow ring on the correct side compared with the tube opening.
I’ve been trying to figure out why they landed on plastic tubes in the first place; it bothers me they have……ok it could be risky running metal post to post in case it becomes part of the circuit, but then they could just isolate the tube both sides (with an additional insulator right in the middle of the negative post). Perhaps they just didn’t want to drill the opening larger, or it was just a cost saving excercise? With the size of the RDA I know it wouldn’t work orientating the position 90 degrees as it would be very restrictive for the wicking.
Whatever the reason it’s important you don’t have the plastic tube inserted when dry burning the coil or it will start to react to the heat. I won’t list this particular aspect as a con since the instructions manual says don’t do it! But I wanted to check what happens and sure enough it did react. Even under normal vaping conditions I’ve noticed a tiny bit of reaction, however this is probably because I set my coil too low in one of my builds, to be honest who cares this is going in as a con … in my opinion they should have figured out a way to use metal tubes.
Whilst the O-Rings offer spot on resistance throughout; I noticed the RDA sometimes unscrews from the base when I’m trying to move it down through the airflow holes. I end up having to twist the housing right round just to move it back to the start position.
When I remove the entire housing (airflow ring) from the base and I’m using either of the 22mm or 24mm beauty rings; it will snag when pushing it back into place. In fact the beauty rings also seem to make it harder to adjust full stop.
The Berserker RDA drinks fairly rapidly for a MTL, but it’s easy to drip if you don’t have a squonker, simply remove the top cap and refill down the sides into the usable 8mm deep juice well. Just be careful not to overdo it or it will leak.
If you do have a squonk mod; much like the Phobia RDA, the squonking pin sits under a cap which is incorporated into the deck. I really like this idea as it keeps the juice distribution even.
And finally in this section both positive pin options sits proud of the threading
Last edited: