Marker/equipment advice needed for Noob

[L J]

well, my JT 5.0 performs excellently with a smart parts progressive barrel, stays perfectly around the 280 fps mark, has always impressed me with high rate of fire and reliability, and its easy to fix. But im selling cos i need money to fix my cocker

 

[superbully]

Spyder over Tippy

Hi DJ matt - that's a rather bold statement if going on what people say about how reliable Tippman's are.

I rather liked the Spyder shutter, but am now a bit wary after the things people have said about them here. Seems you get alot of marker + good add ons already added for you with a shutter. They are mass produced though so i guess the quality may be down than on some other markers, but are they really so terrible?
What i don't want though is some paint munching cheapo marker, so i may just have to stretch my budget a bit more and go for the reliabilty of the tippman.
Or... like others said a second hand something - then i can look at a bit better class of marker than i could if buying new.
Thanks for all the advice everyone - interesting thread for me

 

[shamu]

You really can't go wrong with either the Tippy or the Spyder, and you've already got lots of arguements for both. So what I'll say is pretty simple - whatever you get, make sure someone in your area fixes the darn thing. My local shops fixes everything they sell, which makes life easier when you're taking your marker apart for the first time and put it back together wrong (which I did with my cocker) or when you want some new bling-bling upgrade installed.

 

[SCRUB]

i have a sypder compact 2-in-1 java and i dont have any serios problems with it, but my freind has a sypder shutter and it works like a dream. nothing has realy ever gone wrong with it except for one time when he got is tank over filled or something like that and it messed up his regulater. but other then that it works realy well for him.

 

[Jones the Paint Magnet]

You'll find that you can get significantly more marker for your money if you buy second-hand from a reputable source. This may suit you if you feel like playing more on the tourney side, as you can get something that is either more upgraded, or upgradeable as a starter: this saves spending lots of cash on upgrading an entry-level marker to the same sort of perfromance as one you'd buy second-hand.

Check out the classifieds here - or go to a site hosting a tournament - lots of players have reserve or back-up markers to sell in order to upgrade to the latest Shiny Kit(TM), and they have all generally been well-looked after, not used much and tweaked to be competitive.

Bring some paint and a hopper alomg and you can test it out to make sure it's running fine. Got myself a very nice marker this way which has never let me down! At the very least you get to try out different markers, which is no bad thing either.

Good luck

 

[evil sharks matt]

mate shutters work fine

 

[Bunka Monky]

As with all things mainenance can be learned and to not buy a decent marker just because of the fear that u have to maintain it would be a poor decision. An autococker is a fair marker by anyones standards and u chuck a electronice frame on it and u have a daddy. but to be honest im not a great autockocker fan,

If i was u mate id head down my local site or to a tourney and jsut ask any player to try out his or her marker. Were quite an accomidating group and im sure there let u have a few shots.

hmmmm decisions decisions

 

[superbully]

Belgium

Well, Belgium doesn't seem to be into the paintball scene, so it's very painfull for this Brit to be over here at the moment!

I haven't found any shops in Belgium for paintball gear, so my shopping sprees are limited to German online shops and Uk ones. UK being cheaper than the german ones I have found.

I think the best option for me though is a great little place I have found here in Belgium. I went to play my first ever indoor game on Saturday 15th Feb - it was the doggies danglers !!! hehe. had a real good evening. got 3 "kills" in my first "elimination" game - not bad for someone that ain't played for 8 years !! haha. got the flag back to our base once too!!

This place has a tiny little shop in it. The site guns there are Tippman M98's and i was very impressed by them. Not one ball burst all night - I fired 250 balls. they are obviously pro Tippman, but seeing as someone has said the best thing I can do is to get something someone local can repair, I think I'm gonna have to stick to Tippman (Well i quiet like their markers too)

They have given me a great price on a new M98 custom (silver) and I haven't been able to find any UK shop that beats that price yet either, so it ain't a bad little place either. they can also get A-5's if I really want, but seeing as the M98 is so cheap, and I liked what I saw of the site one, then I may go M98 and upgrade it, like a barrel and such.

 

[chunk.Clan]

I ..................

use a cocker and I think they are fantastic. Accurate, fast (due to e-blade) and easy to upgrade.
However, I use to have an impulse. I bought a bottom of the range one and put all the bells and whistles on it and ran brilliantly. The only reason I sold it was for the e-blade. it is accurate, fast, easy to maintain and you can change from air to co2 easily.
Just my thoughts,
Chunk.

 

[joe bob]

my $100 spyder sonix works great for me