Tippmann A-5 Elaboration

Hey it's Eli. For this post I'm going to explain the Tippmann A-5's cyclone feed system, the flatline barrel and how to maintain you're Tippmann A-5. All of these things might sound familiar because I mentioned them on one of my earlier posts and I said I was going to elaborate on these things.

Tippmann's A-5 marker like I said in my earlier post is a really good marker for beginners. One of the main reasons is because of the cyclone feed system. The cyclone feed system feeds the paintballs into the marker without any batteries. You might be asking “But Eli, how can a hopper feed paintballs without any electric stuff?” The answer is pretty simple. As you shoot the Tippmann the gas used to shoot the paintball out of the marker goes into a little tube on the side of the the Tippmann. This gas then goes to the hopper were it rotates a plastic blade that forces the balls into the chamber where it gets shot out. Its a very ingenious and very well thought out solution of how to make the Tippmann A-5 an electronic less marker which makes it cheaper to manufacture which in turn makes it sell at a cheaper price.

Ok we got the most complicated part out of the way and now we can talk about the flatline barrel and what makes it so accurate. First of all I would like to say that the flatline barrel works only with Tippmann markers because those are the only markers it is built for. Ok so as you can see in the lovely picture I provided for you, the holes in the barrel that guide the paintball from the marker to the opponents head are not aligned. This is because the actual barrel is inside a capsule, and the barrel inside it is bent. The barrel is bent so that when you shoot a paintball, the ball will role in the bent barrel so that when it exits the barrel it will have a spin. Using basic physics, a round object that spins will have increased accuracy. The capsule that surrounds the barrel is there to protect the barrel from unnecessary damage. There are a couple of drawbacks to having a flatline barrel. One is that it is hard to attach and detach the barrel to a Tippmann marker because its not your regular screw on barrel, you have to take the marker apart and put it back together with the barrel attached to it. Another drawback is cleaning the barrel. You will have a hard time doing field maintenance because you have to take the marker apart to clean the barrel so if you clog the barrel during a game you might as well surrender yourself. Another drawback is that the flatline barrel is more likely to get jammed than a regular barrel because some paintballs may pop before leaving the barrel.

Ok so I know many people that own a Tippmann A-5 are usually beginners and luckily I will explain to you how to maintain your marker, but first let me just say that you rarely need to maintain a Tippmann

A-5 even though you should at least once a year.

1. 
   
   Take all attachments off your Tippmann including the barrel and the tank.
2. 
   
   There should be a couple of push pins on the Tippmann, remove all of them.
3. 
   
   Once you have done that, carefully split the marker, make sure none of the springs inside fly out.
4. 
   
   Clean any paint and debris off the marker.
5. 
   
   Place 2 drops of lube on the bolt and spread it like you all know how to do so well ;).
6. 
   
   Put the marker back together by putting back all the pins.

Swedish Paintballs!!!

These are what Reballs look like.
Paintballs mostly used for team practices.

Hey guys, sorry we haven't posted anything recently, both of us are in Sweden on vacation from our USA lives. In other news, we did actually go out paintballing here in Stockholm (capitol of Sweden for all of you people failing geography).  We decided to play at an outdoor field for 2 reasons. One, pretty much every indoor/speedball field has the same layout/look so we wanted to see what a legitimate Swedish paintball field could look like. And the second is that the indoor fields here use reballs. Reballs are basically paintballs without the paint. So you can't really know for sure if you hit a guy. They run the game with a honesty system. Didn't sound that appealing to us.

So the game itself was pretty much shit. We ended up going on a bad day with bad weather, and we used rental Tippmann 98, you know you never really understand how bad the rentals are until you have to reuse them because you don't have your equipment on you. The worst part of the entire trip was their stupid surrender rule. Although we don't like using the surrender rule because its just way more fun shooting a guy, we still respect the fact that shooting a man from point blank range is actually pretty dangerous. For some stupid reason, their surrender rule was "optional"... So basically you could go up to a guy and say surrender to him. The "options" of the guy being surrendered are either surrender or attempt to either shoot you or run. If the guy doesn't surrender you are allowed to shoot him point blank range. That rule is bullshit because shooting someone from point blank range is very dangerous, it could give you a nasty welt, break the mask of the guy you shot and maybe injure someone.

Eli and I didn't fully understand that so during game, we managed to get around a corner with two enemy's around the other side of the corner. Eli turned around and surrendered them both, and they put their markers up and light him up. So, during the game, we had like a ten minute argument with these assholes about the rules and the ref comes up and agrees with them. So after that incident we just decided the next few games were bullshit and played until our paint ran out. For some fucked up reason, the refs split the teams with about six guys using rentals and 4 using their own equipment on our team against 8 people using Eteks and Egos with two other rental guys on the other team. Plus our shit team did not spread out enough and move up at all even though we told them to. So ya we got murdered. They also had a pair of guys working together one using a shield, which wasn't really fair, and the other had an Ego. We got destroyed. End of story. Moral of the story: Don't go to Sweden to play paintball... and check the rules before you go play.

This is the field we played at. It is owned by Spela Paintball. Some Swedish company

The Proto SLG 08 Rollback Problem

The black cover under the feedneck is the eye system

Ok for those of you out there with this problem, there is a very easy, free way to fix the rollback problem and it could even be done in your living room! Let me give you a brief explaniation about what the rollback problem actually is. The Proto SLG has an eye system which basically detects a paintball in the chamber before you fire. If the eyes don't detect the ball, the marker will not shoot. Now if you have the SLG 08, the only problem that interferes with the eyes is the bolt that holds the paintball in place. I believe it was a simple manufacturing or engeneering problem but for some reason the bolt is like a few millimetters short of where it should be. So when you are playing and you begin firing everything works fine until you tilt your marker up. Once you do that, the ball slides back in the chamber just a few millimeters to the point where the eyes do not detect a ball. What happens next is another ball will be jammed into your chamber and when you shoot, both balls either jam or break in the chamber and leaves you stranded alone with a non-working marker in the middle of a game.

There is a very easy way to fix it and I'll tell you how in the following steps:





1. First of all, check to see that you even have the roll back problem. Simply place a ball in the chamber and lift your marker. If the indicator changes from green to red, you have the problem. If it doesn't, don't continue these steps because you don't even have to roll back problem.

2. Once you established that you have this problem, unscrew the first part of the bolt from the back. As you know the bolt consists of two parts. Only take out the first part when you unscrew the bolt, leave the second one in there.

That is the entire bolt system but when I say unscrew the first part I mean just the part of the bolt that comes out when you unscrew the bolt.

3. Now you see the second bolt in the chamber. Stick either your thumb or an allen key to the edge of the silver bolt and push down until you feel it move down a little bit more. Don't be scared you wont break it, your just making up the extra millimeters that Proto missed out on.

4. After pushing the bolt in further, reattach the part of the bolt you have unscrewed.

5. Now to test to see if it worked right, turn the marker on, put a ball into the chamber, and tilt the gun up. The indicator should stay green and the bolt wont move. If you do have to take the bolt out, just make sure you give it a little bit of a push to move it up to the necessary place.





Now enjoy playing with no roll back problem. Also, if you feel the eyes are giving you problems, don't forget to clean them every once in a while. If you get paint in there, the eyes won't function correctly. So you might want to check that before even trying to fix the rollback problem.





If any of you have any more questions, do not be scared to ask. I'll answer you as soon as possible.

Tippmann A-5 for Beginners

Hey guys! I know there are a lot of people who are beginners at paintball and want to get a marker but are unsure of which one to get. Well since i play mostly woodsball I recommend the Tippmann A-5. It's cheap, easy to use and very reliable. Its a really good gun to start of your paintball carrier.

The Tippmann A-5 is one of the best markers I've used so far. It was my first marker I ever bought and it was great. It was around $250 and it came with a 20 oz CO2 tank, a mask, a 20” barrel and a barrel plug. You can buy a regular Tippmann A-5, without the package I bought, for about $150 maybe a little less. The A-5 is typicalley played in woodsball more than speedball because it is not built for speed, it's built for low maitnance.

Some pros and cons for the Tippmann A-5

Pros:
1. Low maintnance. I only had to clean it once a year and there was really nothing to clean or lubricate so for people who don't know a lot about markers, its a really easy gun to maintain.
2. It is very accurate with any barrel. I personally liked the 20 inch barrel but there is another barrel that makes the gun a lot more accuret and it's called the flatline. (I will explain how the flatline barrel works in mt next post)
3. It requires no electronics so you can get it as wet as you want without any drawbacks.
4. It has a built in cyclone feed system which feeds the paintballs to the marker a lot faster and requires no electronics. (I'll explain more in my next post along with the flatline)
5. You can mount red dot sights, scopes and practically anything you want, you can even get creative and mount a laser pointer on it.
6. You can put a stock on it which will make it more comfortable but it gets in the way too much so I wouldn't recommend it.
7. It's simple to take apart incase you need maintnance on it. (I'll explain that on my next post along with everything else I promissed to put)
8. It works with compressed air tanks, nitrogen tanks, and carbon dioxide tanks.

Cons:
1. Its very heavy.
2. Its not meant for speed, thats why its a woodsball marker.
3. Its a big marker.
4. Only has semi automatic mode
5. Since it comes with a cyclone feeder, you don't have much options when you want to get a new hopper.

Thats about all of the pros and cons I can think of, I mean its a really good gun for beginers and you could acquire a lot of skill using this gun. I hope you found this helpful and if you have any question about it I'll answer them for you as soon as possible.

General Team Tactics

Hey guys this post is going to be for those people out there interested in either continuing and further improving your tournament skills or for those who are just started their own team. The only way to win is to develop good communication skills within your team members and to fully comprehend each members' playing style. There are a few quick and easy tips we will tell you that could do just that!

First off, if you just started a new team, the best thing to do is to try and play a few public games with your team members to get a feel for each persons playing style. Seeing that one of your players would rather play back using his/her marker that was built for accuracy and range is a good start to building a good formation for your team. Teams generally have three positions; Front man, middle man, and back man. Pretty obvious what each position does but for those slower people out there, here is the break down.

A front man is usually a guy with a quick marker and who isn't afraid to be aggressive. The front mans job is to advance, pin and take out as many enemy's as possible. This allows the rest of the team to move up while the front man keeps pressure and constant fire on the enemy. So if your the aggressive type that just likes to be in the middle of the battle this is the position you should be playing.

Middle men are a little bit further back than the front man and their job is to cover the front man. If they see a front man go down, it is generally their job to take hold of that flank so the enemy cant move up and flank your teammates.

The back man usually stays at the closest bunker to your starting position and communicates to the rest of the team where the enemy's are. Generally they would try to direct their team on which flank could be taken and how to move about to take it. They should have the most accurate marker with the most range.

We could go into more depth with these positions and explain further on some more specific jobs/tactics they could use but that will be in another post. Thanks for reading this and if you have any questions leave a comment and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

How to Get a Team Started

Hey guys, in this blog we are going to be talking a lot about tournaments, competitions and team tactics but before my good friend Danny and I talk about those things I would like to talk about how to create your very own team with some of your friends.

First thing first, you and your friends need to be committed to the time, money, and hard work that will go into creating your own team. You and your potential team also need and I mean NEED your own gear and equipment because most if not all tournaments do not have rental equipment or markers and it just looks more professional. Also a good thing to do is to start asking around and talk to people who already have their own team. They would give you the best advice for making a team.

Once you've already decided on a team and after you get the proper equipment, its time to think of a kick ass team name. Obviously this isn't exactly the most important part but its a fun thing to do. Also before sticking to a team name you should check other paintball teams to make sure that your name isn't taken.

Ok now your ready to join a tournament. You have to go online and search for which tournament you would want to sign up to. A great site I always use to find tournaments is www.pbnation.com. They have a whole section devoted to upcoming tournaments and sooner or later we will to. We just gotta get settled with this website but anyways...look up tournaments that aren't to far away and that are meant for rookies. You really don't want to accidentally join a professional tournament and end up getting demolished. It will cost money to register so make sure everyone in your team is available that day because you don't want to waste your money registering for something your team isn't going to show up. Registering in advance is a must because there are a certain amount of slots available. The sooner you register the better.

Now you have a team and you have registered. The last thing you should make sure to do is to go over the formations and tactics you are going to use. Again later on we'll teach you more about tactics and formations but if you want to really get prepared for a tournament, set up a little scenario in your backyard and pretend you are in a game. Don't actually start shooting paint because thats illegal but make good time and practice your communication skills and your flanking movements or your positions and get comfortable with the rest of your team. It is extremely important to know how your teammates play because you generally cant win a paintball game by yourself. Also you can't have a good team without knowing how each team member plays.