nOOb from Birmingham/Coventry

[bhp addict]

Hi Guys, hope all is well.

As above i am a newbie so please be gentle lol

I am 24, live in Meriden (between B'ham and Cov) and have recently become seriously interested in making Paintballing my main weekend 'Stress Releiver'

Now, when I say newbie i mean it. I am still in the market for buying my kit but think I have settled on what I am going to be getting. I have a contact that has the following for sale:

Tippmann 98 Custom (Standard) with box (used once)
20oz CO2 Tank (Full)
200 Ball Hopper
Mask with Visor

What you think?

Obviously I then need:

Battle Pack
3-4 Ball Pods
Suit (Top and Trousers or Boilersuit???)
Boots

I am now a sponge and aim to suck up as much info as possible as quick as possible.

 

[Durajim]

I think the first thing you'd need to change or upgrade to would be to swap the CO2 tank for a HPA tank, it'll cost a bit more but serve you well in the future if and when you upgrade your marker

And grab an after market barrel, the stock 98 barrel is pretty awful

Edit - Also, out of interest how much is he charging you for it?

 

[bhp addict]

I have been looking at the Flatline barrell but I need to find out what can be upgraded, what goes where and what fits what lol

Whats a HPA Tank? I have only just started to read the forum so be patient with me

The marker, mask, hopper and tank for £90 all in....any good?

 

[Durajim]

I have been looking at the Flatline barrell but I need to find out what can be upgraded, what goes where and what fits what lol

Whats a HPA Tank? I have only just started to read the forum so be patient with me

The marker, mask, hopper and tank for £90 all in....any good?

The Flatline is a great barrel (The newer one for the 98 is much easier to fit than the older one, so it's worth checking which one you're getting with whoever you purchase it from), the only problem I've found with the one I used to use is that it seems to be pretty picky on paint and i'm pretty sure that's down to the rough surface inside the barrel that it uses to create backspin on the ball

High Pressure Air tank
Much more effecient over CO2 simply because it isn't effected so much by the humidty and general weather conditions. It's much more friendly to the insides of your marker, CO2 has a habbit of leaving liquid CO2 laying about the marker and freezing o-rings, slowly breaking them down over time, it's just not a healthy thing to use, especially so if you have electronics in your marker! HPA is also a cleaner substance to use.

The basic 98 sells for around 130 quid these days I think, so assuming it's in good nic, it seems like a good deal, Tippmanns really are built like tanks so it probably is after a good service, It probably depends on what type/brand of mask it is too.... which leads me to my next point, if it's just a cheap one, don't underestimate the change in your game from getting a decent mask, cheap ones do and will fog up

Edit - Worth looking in the sale forum or asking in the wanted forum to see what you can get for your money here too, I'm sure some bright spark will drop in and tell you what you can expect for your money here, I'm clueless on that front

 

[Devrij]

Whether that's good really depends on what mask it is. Any time a new baller comes on here, the advice I (and many others) will give is "get a GOOD mask", not an okay one, a GOOD one. You'll be able to see (they won't fog up), and they are much more comfortable, not to mention sexier. I recommend any of these masks depending on your budget and face shape: JT Proflex, Empire e-vents or avatars (best for smaller faces), VForce profilers (cheap, but good all rounders), VForce Grillz, Dye I3s, Dye I4s (definately for smaller faces or those who don't mind neck shots). Any of those is fine, I would ask before getting anything else, as it's not worth scrimping on a mask.

CO2 is being phased out as a propellant in favour of High Pressure Air (HPA). Because of the temprature of CO2 and the fact that it's a liquid when compressed, it will make the velocity of your marker fluctuate badly (you want consistent velocity as close to the limit as possible, so that's a bad thing) and it will also put greater stresses on the orings in your marker which will make it far less reliable. HPA fixes these problems and more, as it's just normal air compressed into a bottle. Steel bottles hold up to 3000psi, are a bit heavy (no heavier than a CO2 bottle though), and are the cheapest. Fibre wrapped bottles typically hold 4500 psi (more air = more shots) and are lighter. They should both last you 5 years before they need to be retested so it's worth investing if you can.

Tippman 98 Custom: not a bad starter setup, but certainly not a high performance or versatile marker outside of the woods and will require significant upgrades to get it shooting decent rates of fire (rof). If you can push your budget a bit more, perhaps get a cheap electro (proto slg, pmr, ion) second hand off here. The loader will need upgrading. gravity fed hoppers don't feed reliably or consistently, so you will get barrel breaks (which will make your paint horribly inaccurate). Even a reloader 2 will fix that right up for quite cheap (again, 2nd hand), even if you get the 98, get a reloader 2 or better.

I hope this has helped you make an informed decision, sorry if I freaked you out a bit with all the info lol. Happy balling man

 

[Devrij]

Oh yeah, flatlines and Apex barrels may increase range a bit, but are known to cause paint breaks in some cases so you might just want to get a standard 14" barrel (I recommend unitec or dye ultralight)

 

[Durajim]

Lots of words

Devrij said it better than me

 

[bhp addict]

Wow LOL

Research research research!!!!

I know what you mean about a good mask

So on the co2/hpa front, can I just swap out the co2 for hpa? Or do I need a new tank and fittings etc...

I think I'll stick to the 98 for now cus it's about improving my game and having fun at the moment. The better I get the more I'll plough into it.

Can't thank you enough for the info. Really helpful and appreciated.

 

[Devrij]

HPA and CO2 have the same threads, and HP bottles (HPA bottles have regulators that regulate the output, either LP or HP regs, but nearly all bottles are HP with an output pressure of 850 psi) have the same output as CO2 so will work just fine with no changes at all Just make sure your local site fills air or you'll be stuck!

EDIT: Just to clarify, you cannot fill a CO2 bottle with HPA, they are very different and you must get a HPA bottle to run air. It's worth it as long as your local site fills air.

The 98 will get you on the field so you can start having fun, but I do recommend getting a cheap electric loader to increase your feed rate so you don't chop any balls that haven't landed in your breech fully (the bolt will slice them in half and spray paint down your barrel, as mechanical markers don't have "eyes" to detect whether there's a ball in the breech or not when it fires). Any more questions, please feel free to ask and we'll do our best to help

 

[bhp addict]

Ok so hpa tank on shopping list

Do all electric loaders fit tippmann markets?