paintball guns
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 The
A-5 is the newest, most innovative addition to the Tippmann line of
paintball guns. Synonymous with rugged durability, Tippmann manufacturers
high quality guns that meet the demands of the recreational player. The A-5
improves on Tippmann’s earlier designs of the Model 98 and the F/A
(Full-Auto). The A-5 improves on the Tippmann F/A ball feed system by using
a pneumatic, not mechanical, power source to feed balls into the gun’s
chamber.
 The
cyclone feed allows the A-5 to achieve firing rates upwards of 12 balls per
second. The second key improvement in the A-5 is that it is much easier to
field strip than its predecessor, the Model 98. In addition to the cyclone
field and quicker striping, the A-5 features include open sight aiming, a
closed bolt system, a front cocking lever, a bottomline adapter (for quick
upgrades), a removable grip frame, an adjustable foregrip, and a carbine
threaded barrel adapter. An
owners manual, one year warranty from Tippmann, wide mouth hopper, barrel
plug, cable squeegee, a small packet of gun oil, one extra tank o-ring, and
three allen wrenches are included in the A-5‘s box. |
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First Glance:  Tippmann
seems to have modeled the outward appearance of the A-5 to resemble the
appearance of the Heckler & Koch MP5K, a submachine gun. The picture to the
right illustrates the resemblance. The A-5 paintball gun is on the top,
while the H&K firearm is pictured at the bottom. Tippmann did a great job
replicating the MP5K. The A-5 has MP-5 style grips, sights, and cocks in the
front like a real MP5K. Most players feel that the A-5 looks great, but we
need to note that there is also a group of players who think that making
paintball guns resemble real life guns is a step in the wrong direction,
that however is a totally different story. If looks could kill, the A-5
would be able to do it. The A-5 is no splash anodized piece of artwork, but
you wouldn't want to see this gun pointed at you let alone be shot at with
it. The feed system is a little bulky, but you can't complain with a 12+ bps
rate of fire. With an all black finish, worrying about the sun reflecting
off of it won't be a problem. |
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Features: The
most noticeable and desirable feature of the A-5 is the new pneumatically
driven cyclone ball feed system that allows the gun to achieve very high
rates of sustained fire. Without the addition of the Cyclone feed system,
the A-5 could be seen as a somewhat modified version of the Model 98. The
new Cyclone feed is what makes former Model 98 owners whip out their wallets
and trade in their guns on the A-5. The A-5's other features include an
adjustable fore grip, front cocking lever, removable grip frame, built in
bottomline adapter, enclosed bolt system, open sight aiming, and more. The
A-5 can be field stripped in less than 60 seconds without needing tools, a
huge improvement over the design of the Model 98. In addition to the stock
features, drop-in kits similar to those used in the Model 98, like the RT,
double trigger, eBolt, and flatline barrel will be available. |
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Feature: Cyclone Feed The
Cyclone feed system uses an air driven sprocket that is located within the
feeder housing to literally push each paintball into the guns firing
chamber. The faster you shoot the A-5, the faster it will feed. It
force-feeds a ball with each shot fired, this allows you to shoot sustained
fire at an extremely high rate. The feed sprocket on the older Tippmann F/A
used to be connected mechanically by springs but it is now connected using
the guns blowback air pressure, a modification intended to reduce ball
breakage. We tried our best to outshoot the cyclone feed and chop a
paintball, but we found that we could not stroke the trigger fast enough to
outrun the guns feeding rate. We estimate that we were able to fire around
10 balls per second and shoot sustained fire at around 8 bps. In fact,
during our 1000 paintball test, we didn’t experience a single ball chop by
the cyclone feed system. If a ball does break in the feeder, there is a
clearing rod that can be pressed in manually to clear the feed of paint. By
our best guess, if you break a ball in the feeder you will probably end up
needing to take at least 30 seconds in a game to clean it up. The
only problem we saw with the Cyclone feed was its size. It more than doubles
the area that can get hit from the front of the gun. Oh, and you won’t be
needing that electronic hopper anymore… the A-5 has a new hopper design with
a 2.5" mouth and when combined with the Cyclone feed system you won’t need
to buy an agitated hopper. The Cyclone feed system sets the A-5 apart from
any paintball gun currently on the market. We loved using the Cyclone feed,
its worked perfectly throughout our entire test. |
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Feature: Quick Field Stripping One
of the major concerns with the Model 98 was how difficult and time consuming
it was to field strip. The new A-5 can easily be field stripped and
reassembled in less than a couple of minutes and with no tools. This makes
it extremely easy to clean and maintain. The removable grip frame makes it
easy to access the trigger assembly and even easier to add on upgrades. |
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Feature: Carbine Barrel Threads The first upgrade for almost every Model 98 owner was upgrading their gun's barrel. Unfortunately, our accuracy tests show that the stock barrel on the A-5 is no different. However, the A-5 doesn't need a whole new breed of barrel threads like the Model 98 did when it was released. So, you don't have to wait for your favorite barrel manufacturer to come out with the new threads. Instead, the A-5 accepts all Procarbine/Prolite/68 Carbine/F-4 barrels with an adapter included with the gun. The gun will also be able to be fitted with a Flatline barrel in the future. Ok, first upgrade for the A-5, we would highly recommend buying a new barrel. Our personal favorites are the Smart Parts All American ($80 - $90), Dye Boomstick ($100+), and Lapco Bigshot ($40 - $50) barrels. |
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Feature: Bottomline Adapter Tippmann
made a very smart move with the built-in vertical bottomline adapter. A
vertical adapter makes upgrading to an expansion chamber or regulator much
easier. Instead of having to buy expensive kits that come with an adapter
specifically for your gun , like you needed on most every other Tippmann
gun, you can purchase most any aftermarket regulator or expansion chamber
and install it easily by yourself. |
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Accuracy Testing Oy! This must be the part you have been waiting for. This is where we strap the A-5 into the test bench and see just how much better the new "micro-honed" barrel is compared with previous Tippmann barrels. As most of you probably know, Tippmann is by no means known for their superb stock barrels, rather most every Tippmann owner knows that their first upgrade will undoubtedly be a new barrel. In total, we shot 40 rounds at the target from four different ranges. Accuracy at 45 and 65 feet was not bad, but at ranges from about 70 feet and more the A-5 showed poor performance. At 85 feet 1 of 10 shots missed the entire target and at 105 feet, 3 of 10 missed! We didn’t expect great results form the A-5 in the accuracy department, but we also didn’t expect to miss the final target 3 of 10 times! Just to make sure everything was okay, we recleaned the A-5’s barrel and ran the accuracy test at 105 feet one additional time, the second attempt showed a similar result with 3 of 10 still missing the target. If you are buying an A-5, we recommend you calculate in the added cost of a new barrel for the future. Pictures of our accuracy tests are below.
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Velocity Consistency  The
two graphs to the right show the shot-to-shot consistency using both
compressed air (top) and CO2 (bottom). The A-5 showed velocity consistency
that was surprisingly good for a gun that doesn’t make use of a regulator.
The A-5 did not show a notable difference in consistency between compressed
air and CO2 power sources at low rates of fire. For higher rates of fire, we
recommend serious players consider using compressed air to obtain improved
velocity consistency during periods of rapid fire. Overall, the A-5 showed
good velocity consistency, but when you consider that it is entering into
the $300 gun market, it doesn’t stand out as anything particularly special.
In fact, in comparison to other $300 guns, the A-5’s velocity consistency
appears in the bottom rung of the category. |
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Field Stripping & Maintenance Ask
most any Model 98 owner what they don’t like about their gun and 90% of the
time their response reflects either the poor stock barrel or how time
consuming and difficult field stripping can be. One of the major goals of
the A-5 was to reduce the time and eliminate the need for tools for field
stripping. Stripping the A-5, unlike the Model 98, does not require allen
wrenches and you can easily strip it on the field. Tippmann equips every A-5
with push pins that make access to the internals quick and easy. You simply
pull the two pins at the rear of the gun out, swing down the hinged lower
grip, and slide out the internals. No springs fly out like they occasionally
did on the older Model 98, stripping the A-5 is moderately quick and easy.
We found that it took us about a minute and a half to perform the field
stripping procedure on the A-5. Although the A-5 is much easier to field
strip than its predecessor the Model 98, it is still not as simple or fast
as field stripping a Piranha or Spyder. We can field strip a Piranha and
have it back together in around 30 seconds.The first time we tried to field strip our A-5, we found that Tippmann had tightened the rear allen screw located under the rear sight too tightly, we had to loosen this screw about one half turn in order to allow the guns internals to move out and back in freely. Also, when the gun first arrived, the push pins on the gun were all very tight and hard to remove. We had to use a pliers to get one of the push pins out. We used paintball gun oil to lubricate the pins and after a few uses, the pins loosened up so we can now take them in and out easily by hand. |
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The truth and nothing but the truth: After
testing the A-5 for a week, we were particularly impressed with the
performance of the Cyclone feed system. We were able to shoot over 1,000
paintballs without a single ball break or miss-feed. The cyclone feed
operated perfectly! As you know, there are a ton of great new features on
the A-5 that make it stand head and shoulder above its Tippmann
predecessors. But there was one major catch… the barrel. As with most every
Tippmann gun, a new barrel should be the first upgrade any player makes to
the A-5. The stock barrel’s poor accuracy was the only major downside that
appeared in our testing. The
A-5 is a rugged gun designed to meet the needs of the advanced recreational
/ scenario player. If you are a Model 98 owner or a serious rec player, we
think you will find the A-5 a natural step-up for your game. Honestly, if
you already own a Tippmann, you will love the A-5! However, if you are a
tournament player looking for a strong mid-priced tournament level gun, we
would advise against buying the A-5 for one simple reason. The A-5 was
designed with the needs of the "woods player" in mind and its wide profile
and oversized hopper become too of a target for the tournament player to
deal with on the speedball field. If you are a tournament player looking for
a good paintball gun in the same price range as the A-5, we recommend you
checkout the Piranha Pro E or the Smart Parts Impulse. Overall, we were very
impressed with the performance of the A-5 for woods / rec play. The A-5 is
an improvement to an already legendary gun that every experienced paintball
players knows of, the Model 98. Great gun! |
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