Steve K's Vaping World

Sometimes two is better than one.  In this review, I want to see if that applies to cartomizers.  The Double Barrel Adapter from MadVapes is an adapter that lets you stick two cartomizers on a single e-cigarette. Because two cartomizers, TWO! It seems like a novelty, but perhaps there are some practical applications for the double barrel. Let’s take a closer look.

Design

The Double Barrel adapter is two pieces. The adapter itself that has a 510 connector to attach to your ecig and two spots for 510 cartomizers or atomizers. The second piece is a custom mouthpiece that can cover both cartomizers at the same time.

The tip of the mouthpiece is wide and flat and actually has a pretty good mouth feel. I found fitting the piece on the cartomizers was a little tricky.  I used a pair of black 3.2 ohm Smoktech cartomizers and found the mouthpiece was very snug with the wrap on the cartomizers.  Stainless cartomizers might fit better.

I didn’t have high enough resistance standard clearomizers, but I suspect the tip would have problems fitting because the plastic clearomizer tubes tend to be thicker than steel cartomizers.

Of course, you could always ditch the proprietary mouthpiece and just use two regular drip tips. I tried that method and there was no problem with it, but I thought it felt weird vaping with two cartomizers at the same time. You’ll probably have to use this approach if you want to run atomizers, I could see having to constantly removing the mouthpiece to add more e-liquid getting annoying quickly.

Similarly, this adapter will essentially only work with standard-width cartomizers/atomizers.  The connectors are too closely spaced to fit any sort of jumbo or eGo cartomizers on there. I wonder if one day there will be a version that can accommodate large clearomizers.

How it Works

In the most simple terms, it takes two independent cartomizers and turns them into a dual coil cartomizer.  The same rules of dual coils apply here.  The overall resistance is half of the individual cartomizer. Running the two 3.2 ohm Smoktechs resulted in a 1.6 ohm load.

Similarly, the power requirements are closer to that of a dual coil device. I ran the setup a little under 5v much like I would with a typical DCC.

Obviously, performance is going to vary widely depending on what hardware you pair with the Double Barrel. Since I was using Smoktech cartomizers, it was fairly easy to compare that to the dual coil version.

It seemed to me there was more vapor, but the overall intensity was subdued over that of the venerable DCC.  It was a more mellow vapor, but it had a good amount of volume to it.

Unlike the Double Barrel bottom coil tank I reviewed a little while back, the ability to control what cartomizer you are doubling down with eliminates the wicking problems that device experienced.

Reasons to use the Double Barrel

For this thing to go beyond a simple curiosity and be worthy of anyone’s vaping gear box, there has to be a use case. Ok, maybe having something that looks as weird as this is reason enough for some. However, there are some other ways this device may be compelling.

Dual coil Boge cartomizers, anyone?  Or, really any cartomizer. For people with favorite cartomizers, it’s possible to simply use two of them and get a simulated dual coil experience.

The same thing goes with atomizers.  Dual coil atomizers haven’t really caught on. The Double Barrel can be used to pair standard sized atomizers for some interesting results. Dripping might be a little challenging unless the adapter is used with regular drip tips on the atomizers.

Do remember when bringing your favorite hardware to use with this version to use the high voltage version. There aren’t many devices that could handle a .75 ohm cartomizer if you tried to use low resistance cartos with this.

It’s also possible that using two independent cartomizers could result in better resiliency. If a coil goes bad in a traditional DCC, the cartomizer is gone. However, should one cartomizer fail, it can be replaced independently. Possibly. Cartomizers tend to deteriorate over time, so all things being equal, if one carto goes out it may be time to replace both anyway.

Finally, there’s one other interesting possibility with the adapter.  Mix and match flavoring.  If you ever wanted to know how apple pie and cuban cigar would taste together, now’s your chance to experiment.

That might actually be handy for DIY projects to help get a sense for how two individual flavors go together.

While I don’t see this adapter as being part of my everyday routine (you’re still limited to the small liquid capacity of standard cartos), I can actually see why it might be handy to have one of these adapters lying around for occasional use.

Details:

Product Name: Double Barrel Cartomizer Adapter
Available From: MadVapes
Price: $7.99
Threading: 510