Tippmann Reliability??

[Wes Janson]

I've heard how reliable Tippmann is for years now, and I've only heard good things about them, but recently it seems like they may be lapsing in their product quality. A bit less than a year ago my father decided to order his own gun, a new A-5 with a Flatline. For the first few months, we both used it and neither of us ever had any issues with it's operation. One day in the fall at Wayne's World, however, he took a shot that went straight through the front of his hopper, leaving a quarter-sized hole and ruining a nearly full hopper of paint. We got the hopper replaced, and things went well. Yesterday, at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, my dad and I insert up into our base and we find ourselves alone on the base. So we start down the north trail, but find a small group of three or four enemy players holding position on the outskirts of our base. I moved off to the left and took out two of them, while my dad started to move right to flank them. With two left, I found myself trying to shoot out some idiot at very long range who didn't realize their arm was exposed. In the time it took me to get lucky and lead in, I'd been recieving almost no support from my father, and had been taking shots from a concealed sniper ahead of me. I nailed the foolish player, but a moment later was hit by the sniper. Off the field, my father proceeds to tell me that the A-5's automatic feed system had completely failed him, and the only way to reload after each shot was to manually advance the lever. Thus converting a $400 high-speed marker into an overweight pump gun. After several hours of study, it seems one of the pieces within the hopper system has failed. On top of that, reading reviews for the new low pressure system, one persom commented that their rear, unhardened bolt would fail after every three cases of paint, requiring replacement. Pulling out the rear bolt, my dad found strong signs of damage to the metal, as though it had not been machined with enough precision to allow it to function without harming itself. Has anyone else seen these issues? Whatever happened to "like a rock"?

[MayAMonkeyBeYourPinata]

sniper hehe

hoppers, thats not the hopper thats someone shooting entirely too fast with likely frozen pbs.

and stuff breaks it happens to every marker.

If I were to buy another entry level gun it would be a Tippman, they are reliable.

[tony3]

No, A5 hoppers have been known to get holes blown thru them with balls at normal velocity, I would look into the APP Hopper I believe, pbgear carries them

[GMEXmachina]

The earlier A-5 hoppers had a problem with weaker plastic that shots could break them. That problem has pretty much been fixed although Ricochet is soon coming out with a new hopper that is fro the A-5. (Just an Apache with an A-5 feed neck) due to the many many requests started by Kreeper-X on the www.a5ownersgroup.com forums and the Tippmann forums for another hopper that allows the use of a red dot without obstructiuon, didn't get many hits on the front of the hopper, and could bounce balls. About the cyclone problem, Look at the bottom plate of the cyclone. If it has a little stamped "A" then the A-5 has an update for a piece that tended to break in earlier model A-5's. (Although mine has yet to fail :D) Try hitting the www.a5ownersgroup.com forums for all your Tippmann needs without whiny idiots like most on the Tippmann forums. Especially this thread for the cyclone update. http://www.a5ownersgroup.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4543
And this one for the hopper information. The other one has since been deleted fthat was telling people to send Ricochet the requests for the hopper.
http://www.a5ownersgroup.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7344

[TheTramp]

You'll notice that it's the fancy loader that failed not the gun itself. It doesn't matter who makes it or what it is, once you start making your stuff more high performance you start making it more complicated. As soon as it becomes more complicated it breaks down more often.

Just look at a Porche and a Camry. Which do you think needs more maintnence and service? Of course, which would you rather drive? :)

[Enigma4you]

Tippmann will send you the stuff to fix the feed system, one a marker that old thet will send you a bottom plate, ratchet and plunger. These parts over time have been known to fail and they have been very very good about replacing them. OR you can send them the marker. I deal with tippmann every week or so on warenty issues and have never ever had a problem. The only other company thatI have ever delt with that was as good is AGD

[*captain_cox*37]

Yeah tippmans r real reliable. Thats y paintball places use them as rental guns a lot of the time. Spyders r not to bad neither. PLus they both run great on CO2. ;)

[raehl]

Originally posted by MayAMonkeyBeYourPinata
thats someone shooting entirely too fast with likely frozen pbs.

Ok, once again, paintballs do not freeze. When they get cold, they get more brittle. Freezing a paintball is a sure-fire way to make sure it breaks when your bolt hits it.

And even if they did freeze, they wouldn't stay frozen for long (unless it was actually below zero out), and being cold moisture would condense on them, and we all know how much paintballs hate moisture.

- Chris

[mikebridge]

my first marker was a tippman 98, i've never had an issue with it, and everyone who's borrowed it from me has never had an issue. rock solid.

[robdamanii]

in the past month, I've seen two A5s with cyclone feed issues. The Tippie 98Cs that the local field uses though...a little oil and they can handle ANYTHING.

[GT]

Originally posted by Wes Janson
Thus converting a $400 high-speed marker into an overweight pump gun.

:eek: those things are 400 bucks!

[Garrum]

No, they are $225.

The Cyclone is very dependant on the strength of the materials used in it's construciton, because the internal parts get whacked around alot. Some of the early A5's had weakish cyclone and hopper plastics. That said, the new ones hold up remarkably well, considering the ROF's that some people with RT's get with them.

[Wes Janson]

$225 A5
$95 Flatline
$45 Double Trigger
$30 2nd Day Shipping
-----
$395

[Garrum]

I was talking about the base gun.