my first marker

[jona]

i am looking for my first marker , i have about £500 to spend to the whole kit including mask and ect. i was thinking about a tippman 98 with a flatline barrel and the cheeper of the electro hoppers. what do you think of this choice? (im very much open to your thorts) many thanks sam jones

[Bloody Whisper]

If you are looking at tippmans then go for the A5 and on top of that you wont need to get a cheap hopper as it comes with one and it wont chop because it feeds with each trigger pull

[jona]

what do you mean about the hopper and what is choping i dont understand

[VagabondStarJXF]

On the A-5 the hopper is effectively built in. It's called the "Cyclone Feed" and it's fantastic. It reduces the rate of chopping down to near zero. I've had an A-5 and I can testify of its reliability.

Chopping is what it says on the tin. It's the breaking of a paintball, usually by your firing bolt. This isn't a good thing as a broken paintball is bad for your marker's internal workings and your barrel.

The Cyclone Feed reduces this chopping by cycling around every time you pull the trigger so the faster you fire the faster it feeds. It's quite cool really. The hopper that has closest resemblance to these workings is the eVLution2 (egg) hopper that's about £60-£70 depending on where you go, if that helps.

You could get an A-5 with Response Trigger, 1.1l Air Tank, goggles, pods and pod pack for about £500 I think. If you wanna go cheap though I recommend a Spyder or one of the many Spyder Clones. They're the simplest and cheapest things to fix and/or upgrade. Fat Bobs sells the Icon LED which I've heard is good.

[Bloody Whisper]

the A5 witht he cyclone courtesy of fat bob

[jona]

as i play more woodsball would a stock be a good investment?

[VagabondStarJXF]

On the A-5? Possibly. I had one and it kept my Flatline completely straight and stabilised my shots really well. However, it stopped me from a) doing fast turns in the heat of close quarters battle and b) it hindered the use of the sight rail for long shots. These two faults can be overcome by a) not getting up close and personal with the A-5 and b) getting a Lapco Offset Sight Rail or similar.

If you're a 'sniper' style player a stock might be more advantageous to you than if you are a 'hunter' style player. If you're more of a 'hunter' I recommend getting a Maddmann Springs kit and a Rear Velocity Adjuster (RVA). I recommend the Lapco RVA over the Dead On one. I've seen both in action and the Lapco one is simply better made.