A-5... WTH?!?

[The Jayster]

I have an acquaintance that was selling his mint 2nd gen A-5 for a decent price so I snatched it up. The first gun I ever owned 30 years ago was a Tippmann Pro-Am, so I figured that I might as well keep a Tippmann in my collection.

Last Saturday I got to try it out for the first time (as well as my brand new CCI Phantom). I wanted to change the barrel even before I played with it but I figured I would try the stock one before doing so.

For the last 10+ years I've had all manners of high-end guns, but right now the 'flagship' of my collection is a fully-upgraded FLE Emek. So naturally I expected the A-5 to be inconsistent and therefore less accurate than what I'm used to. I had a few X-7s and Phenoms a while back and those were harsh on paint, so I expected the odd break or chop here and there.

Just to reiterate, the gun was bone-stock with a 48 cu/in Tippmann tank. I was using decent but otherwise not that great GI field paint.

Well, lo and behold, I was taken aback by the fact that it seemed to me to be as accurate as any of my current or previous markers. It was also fairly consistent over the chrono, where I set it at around 275 fps. Also, it did not kick like a mule which is not what I expected or remembered from using blowback guns in the past. Of course, my Emek is much smoother but that didn't bother me at all.

To top it off, I didn't get a single break or chop, and at times I was firing really fast. I must have fired a few hoppers worth of paint. Also, I could pull off decent strings of paint without that much effort, enough to keep the opposition down. There was another player sporting an A-5 wth a 10", 0.687 Lapco barrel and he let me try that barrel on my A-5. I got the exact same accuracy and I even thought that the sound signature was a tad stronger. The stock barrel is perfectly fine - I would only get an aftermarket barrel with an ID of 0.685 or lower as a back-up for really small paint.

Well colour me impressed!

[Brokeass_baller]

I think half the reason Tippmanns (and others) get a reputation for kicking is because basically all of us were 12 years old and wimpy the first time we used one. I use my blowbacks fairly often, and I don't think they're any worse than an Autococker or Ego.

[Lt. head-shot]

I recently went back to having some Tippmanns in my collection for the exact same reasons. Cheap, consistent, effective and they always work! I honestly enjoy the "kick" even though it isn't much, I feel like it gives it a bit more soul than the super smooth space guns.

[Morgenstern]

My group back if the day played with all low end guns and we’d swear Tippmanns were the most accurate of them. Looking back I’m sure the extra weight and the fact that they had a fore grip way out front where it should be just made them a lot easier to get and keep on target.

[Trbo323]

I'm betting the paint was decent then. If you didn't notice a difference between those two barrels because stock tippmann barrels are just extremely large bore straws at this point. They make them huge so you can put any paint at all through it and then assume you already have caked the inside with breaks so it's even larger. I've always said you can probably make something better with a large enough drill press in your garage

I probably work with more tippmann stuff than anything else at this point. I hate them for the most part. The designs are way over complicated from what they really need to be, they change little insignificant things from one design to the other I believe so the parts will not be compatible. The cyclone has a host of issues if you ask me etc etc

All that aside, yes I will agree, when working properly there's nothing really wrong with them on the field. They are not my cup of tea if I'm able to choose what's in my hands.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[The Jayster]

While I agree that standard low-end barrels like the ones provided by Tippmann are usually pretty lacking, it seems to me that one that comes with the 2nd gen A-5 is actually decent. That's the barrel that first came with the Phenom and then IIRC they made it stock for the 2nd gen A-5 as well. I find that the finish is ok, the porting at the end is more refined and IIRC (again), I think that the internal ID is 0.690.

The paint we were using was decent but nowhere near like the 'lasers' we used to shoot back in the day. I played back to back games with the A-5 and then my 'main' set-up which is an Emek with an Inception Design PWR barrel kit and Ninja tank, and the accuracy was very similar.

I would venture a guess though that if I were using better paint, like say tournament-grade paint, then I might have seen a difference in accuracy. My theory is that the field paint being used is not consistent enough to enable the benefits afforded by the Emek's regulator, as opposed to the A-5's unregulated system. But more to the point, I would never dream of putting any remotely brittle paint in the A-5, lest I want to turn it into a blender.

[Chappy]

Blowbacks jump a little more because of the hammer. If you can hold ‘em as still as you can your emek, then it will shoot just as accurately given all other factors being equal. That’s it. They really are just as accurate as anything else out there. Blowback hate is simply 30 years of hype train following.

[glaman5266]

"If you can hold ‘em as still as you can your emek"
Exactly. And I'll add that I think Tippmann foregrip placement plays a good role in that, being right under the hopper. I think it really helps with weight control & stability. Polish the guts & use good paint and you've got a good shooter.

Most of the current blowbacks aren't made to the highest quality IMO, but imagine if we got blowbacks like that again...

[Natural Newbie]

If always liked the 98 because of the further forward grip (longer distance between your two hands), better leverage, more control. I could snap and aim quicker with a 98 , versus all the short guns in the early 2000s. It was also nice that on the 98, the hopper was further away from your face (better vision, even on center feed 98s) than the short guns.