EQUIPMENT

KIT

Or “things like what I have found to be of use.” The forums at UKScenario provide a wealth of info – if you’re looking for assistance, drop them a post.

Below is a brief summary of goodies with a very subjective breakdown of pro’s and con’s. It may be of help, it may be wrong – it’s based on personal experience.

GOGGLES

a5JT Spectra: My first mask and my favourite. Comfortable and durable but keep an eye on the bolts for the ear protectors – they tend to wiggle loose. The thermal lens and optional fan means clear visibility in most conditions. The main drawback is when it is time to change the lens. The VForce lens can be changed in seconds – For the JT, allow a good 5 minutes to extract the fiddly little lugs and coax them back in.

fuegoVForce Profiler: The extra few degrees of peripheral vision and the distance of the lens from your face make this mask a worthy investment. The lens is held by two quick release tabs that make cleaning a joy. There are two reasons I went back to the Spectra. First off, it didn’t have any ‘bits’ to hang my camera on. Fair-dos, it wasn’t designed for ornaments. Secondly, although the Profiler stayed clear without the aid of a fan, it does require a breeze. In sheltered woods, I found it did fog up.

PAINT

a5Fuego Freeze: What happened to this fantastic ball. It was bright, bouncy, consistent and rarely broke in the barrel. If it did break it tended to be after it left the barrel – no problem, fire another one. Okay, it’s a winter ball but it worked just fine in the summer too. And then something went wrong last year. The colour changed and the quality dropped (different manufacturer or process perhaps?). Boo.

Draxxus Blaze: I found it to be a good partner with the Flatine barrel. After the Fuego disappointment I moved back to this reliable ball for both the A5 and Ion. Unfortunately I still need to carry a pull-through for those barrel breaks.

Specops: Ouch. Good for felling bison at 50m. The thick shell allows it to cut through soft cover and keep going. There’s not much doubt if you have hit someone – the yelp/scream or crumpled body gives it away. I haven’t used it much as the A5 didn’t particularly like it and it’s very difficult to see in flight (another advantage). Most of the team use it and swear by it.

TIPPMANN A5

a5Ahh, the Tippmann A5 – what a fine piece if kit. It’s compact, sleek low profile and the ability to sight straight down the barrel is an immediate plus. It’s extremely robust – if it does fail on you, many of the problems boil down to ‘o’ ring seals which are pennies to replace. It will use CO2 with or without an antisiphon. You can cross over to using air with no mods. Oh and it’s nice to hold. The Cyclone feed mechanism in the side mounted hopper is revolutionary (pun intended). With it you can fire at pretty much any angle except upside down. Batteries not required.

As you may have guessed I like the Tippie. But it does have some minor downsides. The paint finish tends to bubble and blister – the newer models have a different finish which seems to reduce this. Having to split the gun in half to get at the internals can be a bit fiddly at first – it is extremely easy to strip and clean but putting the two halves back together is made far easier if you have a flat work surface. Another minor niggle on the maintenance side is that the older models preferred imperial Allen keys for the front two bolts but used metric ones on the rest. The Cyclone system relies on using gas to feed it which does guzzle a bit more from your tank. If you get a paint break in the Cyclone it’s not as easy to clean. The Pro’s certainly outweigh the Cons. Go on, get one – you’re worth it.

FLATLINE BARREL

a5One of the more expensive barrels on the market but the Flatline certainly does what it says on the tin. This bad boy will certainly give you that extra range on a low trajectory – at extreme range it may not break on the target but it makes them move. Avoid the human fleshy parts – aim for the skull, gun or podpack. The relatively short barrel length is a nice plus too. To avoid barrel breaks it’s worth keeping the velocity 280fps or less.

A few points to bear in mind. I believe the rough internal barrel finish is there for it to function correctly – avoid oiling it. Although the range is dramatically increased, the consistency or grouping of shots is impaired. The noise of the Flatline is very distinctive – more like a canon in the paintball world. Finding the right paint for the Flattie is very important – it is not forgiving. Especially in winter. With most barrels you can get away with a break after firing a few shots through it. I tended to find that the Flattie needed cleaned or it would just turn into a blender (or at best throw weird short range curve balls). Cleaning has it’s own problems. First you need a bendy pull through. Next is the cuff wear. Removing the barrel tends to loosen the fit – even if the front two bolts are slackened. An easy fix is to use car touch-up paint. It’s very portable, comes with its own brush, dries before you’ve potted up and if you do over ‘paint’ you can rub the cuff into a snug fit.

A5 RESPONSE TRIGGER

Basically this mod resets the trigger back to the firing position, so with a bit of practice (and fiddling) you can reduce the lag between shots and increase the BPS. As it can upgrade the cycling rate to an automatic, it has been a bone of contention. Personally I like it for quick 3 -4 shot bursts. Of course you don’t get this for free. It does guzzle a bit more gas and if you are running on CO2 in winter, I’d recommend wearing a glove for the trigger finger (not for the Michael Jackson look, just there is a bit of venting which can burn the skin).

AIR vs CO2

No contest – if you have the opportunity and the resources, go for Air. It’s far quieter with no great Cumulus cloud emission, the refill speed is seconds and you don’t get the icing effect in the winter. If you are fortunate enough to get access to an HPAC filling station, a 4500 fill will probably mean you run out of paint before air. Unfortunately not many sites in Scotland cater for air but an old dive tank, filling rig and a trip to the local SCUBA club should keep you going. The major downside is the overall price for the extra equipment – but it is worth it, especially for the big scenario game events where they supply air on tap. Another niggle is that the bottles are chubbier than CO2 which makes shouldering them less natural.

SMART PARTS ION

a5Ooh my new toy. It just works out of the box. It’s black. It’s very quiet with a low recoil. It’s under £200 and the price keeps dropping. And it’s fast – up to 17 bps without mods assuming your hopper can keep up. Haven’t used it as much as the Tippie but I like it. A few minor drawbacks. First off, it’s electronic. This was my first tentative step into electromadness. It seems reasonable. I do have to fight the urge to walk sideways and shoot indiscriminantly but it’s a small price to pay. Maybe it was the novelty of a new toy but I went through paint at Caspian Pipeline like a big phatt paint-eater that was hungry. I’d normally be pushed to use 1500 at a big game. Oops, 3500 at Caspian. Did I care? Not a jot! It’s fun to use. And that was capped at 10 BPS without ramping. I’m frightened to flick that switch and enable debounce. Going to need bigger pods (currently use 70-80 ball pods). Secondly the box contents. There was no Phillips head screw driver in mine. Not sure if you are meant to get one but if not – why not. Wasn’t an issue, more a point of principle. Also, no hopper – again not really an issue, more something to be aware of. Final gripe about the box contents is the feedneck. Eugh! Not so good, Al. I’d be genuinely surprised if it would last a month let alone a season without cross-threading or chewing up the breech access. Save some grief and go for a QLock feedneck. I went for the short neck which reduces the profile but I suppose the longer one allows you to sight underneath the hopper. And finally, no safety catch. I’m new to this switch on hopper, switch on gun routine. The safety catch on the A5 was not a something I’d rely on solely in the playing area (on my first A5 it sheared in the cold when it was off and I was chrono’ing). But it’s good to have when you’re hanging about waiting for the shout to start. The Ion power on button can be a bit difficult to check in direct sunlight and takes a few seconds to engage. With the A5, barrel bung and safety are off in no time and there’s no need to check.

HALO-B HOPPER

a5I chose this hopper as it has a heavy duty casing and a sensible battery cover. I’ve seen a few Viewloader Evolutions with gaffer tape, cellotape and rubber band modifications to try and keep the battery lid together. It does provide entertainment as the crowd gathers to hold various ‘bits’ while the owner grunts and groans to get the battery in but I thought I’d give that a miss. It can certainly squirt the balls out claiming 20+ per second and that’s without the mod. On the downside it takes 6 x AA batteries which can make the already chunky hopper quite hefty when full. I’m not sure if it was the hopper, the batteries or the Ion but it seemed to go to ‘sleep’ on me. Probably the batteries.

Q-LOCK FEEDNECK

a5As I mentioned earlier the stock feedneck is not so good. If you do use a HaloB with the stock feedneck, sand the feeder pipe before connecting (or remove a ring). The ‘O’ rings in the feedneck will glue the Halo tight into place. With the Qlock you can adjust the grip on the feeder and release it via a side catch. Simple.

TIPPMANN WERKS BARREL

a5Replacing the Sniper series of barrels, the Werks is my favourite choice for the Tippmann. A good size, nice price, quiet and with the ‘old’ Fuego Freeze was a pleasure to play with i.e no breaks and fantastic accuracy. Oh and it’s black. I tried the original SpecOps paint through it but it didn’t particularly like it – switched back to Fuego and only needed to clean the barrel at the end of the day. And that was through habit, not necessity

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