Have an A5 Now and I have Questions

[Brandon]

So I've got an A5 I'm planning on letting my son use it until he figures out if he likes playing. Anyways its bone stock except for an RT trigger, I don't know much about these. I plan on adding an On/Off asa, and an cocker thread adaptor. bedsides that are these worth adding anything else to just make it work better ?

is adding a Reg or a Low pressure kit worth it ?

is this cyclone thing Cyclone Feed Metal Upgrade Kit Alu. Alloy Soft Paddle for Tippmann A5 X7 98 GOLD | eBay worth it ?

are an aftermarket bolt or internals worth the effort?

[Jonnydread]

In my experience with A5s (and blowbacks in general) there are rarely any upgrades that make a big difference. I have no experience with those particular soft paddles, but back in the day most people found that they didn't make a huge difference considering A5s don't love super fragile paint in the first place.

In your shoes I would let Sonny Boy play with it and after a day or two get his feedback and go from there. The issue is that even if you sink $500 into an A5, it's still going to be an A5.

[shooter311]

I agree with JonnyDread. I have multiple A5s I have received in package deals, some fully loaded with $500 worth of upgrades and others bone stock. I can't see much of a difference at all in how they perform. It is a good solid gun, but I wouldn't get too hung up on upgrading it.

If you do, I would imagine you could find stuff cheap, like used A5 barrels and such.

[Chappy]

I recommend against the cocker adapter. Open bolt blowbacks don't benefit from barrel kits and such nearly as much as a closed bolt. An adapter just adds more bore sizing to deal with. I tell everyone with a tippy the same thing. Polish that stock barrel with a dowel, some tshirt, and a bit of turtle wax and it will shoot as well as any other barrel on the market unless it has a pretty significant issue from the factory. Just my 2 cents.

[SignOfZeta]

In my experience with A5s (and blowbacks in general) there are rarely any upgrades that make a big difference. I have no experience with those particular soft paddles, but back in the day most people found that they didn't make a huge difference considering A5s don't love super fragile paint in the first place.

In your shoes I would let Sonny Boy play with it and after a day or two get his feedback and go from there. The issue is that even if you sink $500 into an A5, it's still going to be an A5.

I agree totally. Customizing something before the player has even used it long enough to develop a well informed opinion is almost always a fool’s errand.

[Toestr]

Make sure whatever fields you play at allow rt. Even if they do have it tuned so single shots are easily made.

The on/off is probably a nice upgrade the barrel adapter probably isn't necessary.

The cyclone upgrades might be? That kit is a Chinese knockoff of techt or LAPCO parts. I bought all the techt parts for mine back when before I even used it stock so I don't really know how it compares to stock. The stainless ratchets seem to wear kind of quickly on mine, but haven't caused an issue yet. None of the parts have caused me issues, but I imagine they may cause potential to. Any gain you might get in cyclic rate is just overkill anyway. Some say the squishy paddles are softer on paint, some say they just serve to fling paint into the breach with more force than stock. I don't know.

A low pressure kit is fun if it's a tinkering project, but will be a nightmare if you just want it to run. Basically the same as most blowbacks. Hardly any really need to be 'upgraded' for them to work well, but it can be fun to do so. You are really getting into diminishing returns if you do though.

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[William the Third]

Funny this should come up, as I just very recently we through an A5 for a player at our field. He picked it up for a good price at a flea market, and it had pretty much every "upgrade" you could think of. However, it was not working reliably for him, and a lot of that was due to the "upgrades", and a dead tombstone o-ring.

It had the very same soft paddle/aluminum internals cyclone upgrade kit you linked to. Soft paddles are a bad idea for two reasons. The first is they are actually slightly harder on paint. Seems counterintuitive I know. Because they are more flexible, they act like a spring, and end up throwing the ball in the breach a bit harder. The other is that they will spin on the shaft, getting knocked out of alignment. The paddles also act as a second detent, and keep the ball in the breach. When they are misaligned, balls will not sit in the breach correctly, leading to chops. As I understand, some soft paddle manufacturers have fixed this problem by using a harder plastic center, but it doesn't solve the spring problem. I warned him about the problem, and sure enough, the next week he came back with an A5 full of broke paint and misaligned paddles. We replaced the paddles with stock paddles.

Honestly, the A5 is pretty much good to go from the factory. The only upgrade I would think about doing would be a response trigger. If you ever go to a field that doesn't allow them, it's pretty easy to disable. I'm not a fan of putting an electric trigger on them. Nothing wrong with it, it's just that if you're spending that kind of money, might as well just get a Mini or some other entry level electric. As for other upgrades, they really don't do anything worthwhile, so just save your money.

[Fubarius]

To counter the naysayers, upgrading is fun, go hog wild. But it's important to know what each one is doing before getting them, often you have parts that counter act each other.

Stock asa has no on/off (inconvenient), and puts tank in a downward angle (potentially uncomfortable). If the tank position is not to the users liking then do get a bottom line adaptor, and whatever bottom line accessories are needed to get that tank in the right position.

I never liked the stock barrel on the A5. Bit too short, bit too loud, rather boring looking. Barrels are actually quite common in A5 threading, and the way the bolt and barrel interface are a bit different than other guns (bolt actually enters the breach of the barrel quite far, and the bolt is bigger diameter than one would think). Directly threaded A5 barrels are designed for this. I'd only go the adaptor route if you happen to have a crazy collection of cocker barrels already, otherwise a CP is available in whatever length, color, style, and bore you prefer. Though A5's are rather well suited to adaptors, since it technically has one stock. Flatlines and the like are a bit gimmicky, but honestly kind of fun to mess around with. And fun is the point after all.

You got the RT, and my advice on that is if you're going to use it keep it set at a moderate rate of fire. Most of the cyclone cycle issues are from trying to push the system too hard. You try to out run the electro boys by cranking it wide open you'll probably upset the field operator, and make the cyclone unreliable. Most fields cap their rampers at 10.5 these days, the cyclone will feed that speed for years.

Now I don't tend to do RT, so on my mechs I like a double trigger. Not for walking of course, but for more leverage. Now RT's tend to get up to speed a bit easier with a single trigger (probably some weird science behind that), so go by personal preference.

Cosmetics? If you want to mil-sim that sucker out go right ahead. Now I don't care for rear mounted stocks, they get in the way of your mask, but whatever makes you happy. The A5 is already 75% of the way to an MP5, so I find they look better when people build them up that direction. I personally go more minimalist, sometimes even removing bits from stock.

For internals definitely wait. It's fun to experiment with, but this is where parts can start to counteract each other. For example, I like to open the ports on the valve, add a rear velocity adjuster, and lighter springs to get the main spring force down as low as possible while maintaining velocity. Smoother shot, lighter trigger pull, less likely to chop, and so on. Now if I added a lightened hammer I actually end up undoing a lot of this, since a lighter hammer needs to be moving faster to open the valve the same amount (basic physics, inertia is mass times velocity), so now I would need a stronger main spring get the same velocity. Similarly, you mod for low pressure and now the cyclone will get finicky, or stop working all together since it needs a certain amount of pressure to move the ratchet. Also your RT will become way less responsive.

Of course you can get around cyclone issues by, well, not having a cyclone anymore. I'm having quite a bit of fun with my mag fed converted A5. Got to mess around with internals to my tinkerer heart's content, and not have to worry about feeding.

[Cdn_Cuda]

I’ve had a whole bunch of A5s over the years and have always kept a personal one with the RT trigger. It’s got a bunch of extras like a Zero-kick bolt and up until recently a Karni reg and on/off, simple because I had the parts. Doesn’t do a whole lot to it really. I have also outfitted a bunch of family members with A5s as their first markers.

The on/off is the best idea. But you’ll need an adaptor to run a standard ASA on it. The stock ASA goes up into the grip frame. They can be found for pretty cheap though.

One thing to watch out for in cheap overseas upgrades. I ended up with a piece on my ratchet that misaligned the cyclone paddles and paint wouldn’t feed. Switched the shaft back to stock and fixed the issue.

[Agglet]

I did up my A5 with all the bells and whistles available and the TechT upgrades and Rampage board turned that A5 into a paint throwing machine almost as good as an Ion. I did it all for fun and have some spare cash to burn so wasn't a big deal but in all honesty nothing you put into that A5 will surpass what you can get out of a cheapo electro. Stock it's a great mech marker the Cyclone system works great there's really nothing a casual or newbie player is missing out on by having one.