The MOST Upgrades!????

[Arthur]

The picture became murky for me after Inflicted suggested all the spyder clones out there. Spyder is like the Oort Cloud of pb parts.

[iamthelazerviking]

Cockers and Spyders, wow who would have guessed. Throw Tippmann up there. But I am surprised no one has mentioned Angels yet.

[bellicose]

To parrot what others have said, yes cookers have had the most upgrades, for sure, with spyders having a ton as well. Though, I would say mags are way up there, but the variety of body styles that mags had is just amazingly beautiful. So much shape and style from a single tube.

To play devil's advocate, while number of upgrades is one thing, I would say that phantoms have a difference of setup. Sure, there are a hundred different lprs, but they just about all do the same thing. With phantoms, they setup changes so wildly with different asa positions and air solutions. Sure, you can run a cocker off from a 12gram, but phantoms are built for it.

[Cunha]

Phantoms are high on the list, just not as high as cocker, spyder, tippmann.

[Tinybear]

Tippmann 98c, Autocockers, cci Phantom, AGD 68 Automags.

Not sure on the order but those all gotta make a top 5 list.

[Magmoormaster]

IDK why people are mentioning mags, they didn't actually have that many upgrades. Ions had substantially more. I would also argue that phantoms don't have may upgrades either; I wouldn't consider a factory option an upgrade.

[Millar156]

Eh, Mags had quite a few. Not many that actually improved performance but a ton of snake oil. Off the top of my head...
Barrels, bolts, frames, body kits, splash kits, power tube spacers, valve halves, 8 hole mods, expansion chambers, stocks, triggers, foregrips, and the infamous magic box.

[bellicose]

Don't forget rails. Those added a variety of customizations themselves.

[ChuckLove]

Autocockers and anything Smart Parts made before the NXT Shocker.

[lew]

The Shocker Sport/4x4/Turbo wasn't very upgrade-able- an aftermarket board and grip frame, vertical foregrip, and a bolt, and that was just about it (I don't consider tanks and regs an upgrade, but the option was there for those)- but the Impulse and Shocker SFT sure had options.

[Meleager7]

Eh, Mags had quite a few. Not many that actually improved performance but a ton of snake oil. Off the top of my head...
Barrels, bolts, frames, body kits, splash kits, power tube spacers, valve halves, 8 hole mods, expansion chambers, stocks, triggers, foregrips, and the infamous magic box.

....and tourney locks, auto response guts, locking feednecks, warp feednecks, etc

.... and i'd argue at least some Mags had a piece of Tom Kaye's soul added to it as an upgrade, kind of a like a Horcrux!

[DocsMachine]

[cracks knuckles]

Okay, first we gotta define the 'most upgrades'. And the 'Cocker wins this one, because you can build an entire marker out of nothing but aftermarket parts. Body, grip frame, barrel, reg, LPR, ram, 3-way, valve, etc. etc. It's easy- you can have a full sized, regular Autococker, without a single factory WGP part anywhere on it.

You can't do that with a 'Mag. At the very least, you're going to have a factory valve body (at least the power tube end) with several factory parts (on-off rod, reg piston, etc.)and a factory sear. You can replace everything else, but no one has ever made those parts as aftermarket accessories.

The Spyder is one up on the 'Mag- they're long obsolete, but you could, for a while there, replace even the body on a Spyder (using a Bob Long Millennium body) and I think maybe one other manufacturer? I don't think that's been the case in a long time, but I'd still put it one up on the 'Mag, simply due to the wider range of factory bodies that could be mixed-and-matched.

Coming up next is the Ion. I'm not as up to speed on Ions as I once was, but I believe they're a very close second to 'Cockers, with several options for complete replacement of the body. Meaning you could, in fact, build an Ion from nothing but aftermarket parts- though I seem to recall somebody saying the swivel elbows could only be had through SP.

Pretty much nothing else comes close. Tippmanns? Nobody makes aftermarket body shells, at least for the 98s. And things go downhill from there, requiring more and more factory parts to make a complete gun. Sure, they have lots of add-ons available, but you still have to start with a factory marker, and keep many of the parts.

So the list is pretty much 'Cocker, Ion and Spyder, with 'Mags bringing up fourth place.

Doc.

[bellicose]

True, the mag did have a few aftermarket rear valve bodies, like ANS, Carter Machine, and Diamond Labs. I'm sure Bacci would have more info on that.

[BenoitOWN]

Rap4/Mcs made aftermarket c98 body’s for magfeed

[Cunha]

Ohhhh the electro pneumatic blindspot in the MCB universe rears its ugly head with the neglect of the ION. You're right.

[Jordan]

Sheridan pump guns - they got turned into nickel plated semi-autos.

[Magmoormaster]

[cracks knuckles]
The Spyder is one up on the 'Mag- they're long obsolete, but you could, for a while there, replace even the body on a Spyder (using a Bob Long Millennium body) and I think maybe one other manufacturer? I don't think that's been the case in a long time, but I'd still put it one up on the 'Mag, simply due to the wider range of factory bodies that could be mixed-and-matched.

Pretty much nothing else comes close. Tippmanns? Nobody makes aftermarket body shells, at least for the 98s. And things go downhill from there, requiring more and more factory parts to make a complete gun. Sure, they have lots of add-ons available, but you still have to start with a factory marker, and keep many of the parts.
Doc.

There were at least 3 aftermarket spyder manufacturers; BL as you mentioned, FBM did at least one (Gothic), and Trinity did one for the VS line (VS Sick). The Trinity bodies are, ahem, pretty sick. They're reminiscent of the 06 Infamous Timmy.

I'd say 98s are at least on par with Spyders. Even before considering the staggering number of milsim parts that are/were available, the only part on a 98 that doesn't have some sort of aftermarket part is the valve. Not much of it is actually good, but neither is 90% of any aftermarket "upgrade."

[DocsMachine]

I'd say 98s are at least on par with Spyders. Even before considering the staggering number of milsim parts that are/were available, the only part on a 98 that doesn't have some sort of aftermarket part is the valve.

-That's kind of my point. 'Cockers and Spyders are pretty much the only ones in which you can have a 100% no-factory-parts marker. (Though now that I think about it, did anyone make aftermarket Spyder sears?) With a 'Mag, you have to have the one section of valve and a few other bits. With a typical Tippmann, you have to have a factory valve, and probably some of the pins and other bits. And so on.

Of course, the other way to consider this is simple numbers- how many individual parts are or were available. Probably an impossible metric, as I doubt even this bunch could name every single possible replacement part for even just the top guns. I think we can say the 'Cocker would still win (in part simply because it has more pieces than most guns to start with ) but the numbers might be impossible to quantify. I mean, do we count one-off handmade parts? Only parts that were made in quantity? What quantity? I can name half a dozen products (like those Luger grip frames that were only made in very small numbers.

Doc.

[Tinybear]

A tippmann 98 can be transformed to all kinds of paint ball. There was a (really bad) pump Kit for them, there were the ebolt electro phnumatic kits, there were RTs, there were e grip sear tripper kits, there are Mag fed kits. They also had the LP kits, vertical feed kits. You can bolt on cyclone feeds. And don’t for get the flatline barrels (love em or hate em they did change performance). These were all things that made a performance change to the 98. There were also a metric $h!7 ton of mil sim mods.

Mags have to be considered. I’d argue more mags have spawned other mags than any other. It happened to me numerous times where I upgrade a Mag until eventually I have a completely new gun. If fact my Mag I currently have was the one I bought new in 1999. It spawned at least 2 more over the Last 22years of My off and on involvement in this sport. They too can be had in many forms. Pump, mech, phumatic assist, and electro. There where also many body’s and rails for appearance. There was also the sydarm pistol variants.

Cockers is a given as like said they can be literally built entirely in the aftermarket. There’s more cocker stuff out there than I bet any one can know.

cci may not have as much aftermarket support As others but one gun can be so widely differently configured that it’s hard not to say it was not upgraded.

Spyder I’m sure fits here though I honestly have little knowledge of there many many options. As does I’m sure the Ion. But again I never got into them As was never into electros. I Have owned two electronic markers in 22 years, and the only one I kept (tippmann crossover) never really leaves mech mode.