Chris Schneck

A high end revolutionary pistol that ended the spyder clone side arm era. By now there’s no reason you shouldn’t have heard of, or seen in person, the wonder that is a Tiberius Arms Tac 8 paintball pistol. They are as accurate as they are beautiful and using one as your primary marker is very much an option.

The Tiberius Arms T8 and its newer relative the T9 rifle are unique in that your paintballs and air source are both in the well constructed magazine. A 12gr c02 cartridge and 8 paintballs are held in the magazine and fed into the grip frame, replicating the functionality of a real firearm. With the push of a button the magazine in the grip frame falls out and a fresh magazine can be slapped in, making the reloading process near instantaneous. The Tiberius Arms T8 runs at, or less than, 300psi and I’ve found that I can get around 22 shots from a 12gr c02 cartridge before I notice a drop in velocity.

General cleaning and maintenance is pretty easy, but care should be taken when disassembling the marker as there are things that shouldnt be taken apart ( refer to your manual ). Since the nature of the magazine system is to be constantly inserting and removing a clip very near to the internal essentials of the marker, it has happened to me once that a piece of bark got inside and prevented my marker from re-cocking. So the lesson there is always check your magazine before cramming it back in

Chopping paint is a nightmare, paintball shell fragments and fill will really mess up the overall performance of your pistol. Worst case scenario is that your T8 will stop working completely and have to be taken apart and cleaned, yes that happened to me. Barrel breaks are bad, but not so bad that your day will be ruined. The barrel on both the T8 and T9 are easily removed with a push-twist-pull action, because of the larger bore of the T8 and T9 barrel breaks aren’t too common. The magazines seem gentle on paint and I’ve yet to have an issue, that I can prove, that was the fault of the magazine crushing paint.

The Tiberius Arms T8 gets an enthusiastic endorsement from me. If you’re in the marker for a sidearm or want a challenging new primary marker, you shouldn’t overlook this marker. If you want the best of both worlds, go for a T9 rifle, you wont be disappointed either way.

An improved design to the already capable Tac 8 pistol. There are no markers that come close to the T9 in the looks department, in any of the T9 variations.

Basic, Pro, Covert and Elite were the original line up for the T9, which now includes the CQB and M16 variations. All 6 are stunning visually and vary little in performance, ranging from $300+ for the Basic to $500+ for the Elite model, no matter which you choose you will not be disappointed.

With a full body length picatinny rail on the top, a 3/4 body length picatinny rail on the bottom and two optional short picatinny rails on the side you can add all the optional scopes, bi pods, fore-grips and lasers you’d want.

All T9 variations come with a remote line adapter and hopper adapter, so when you want to switch from being strictly clip fed with 12 gram c02 cartridges you can convert to hopper fed and run off a remote line in a matter of minutes.

I personally chose the T9 Covert, it looks menacing enough and I didn’t really need a scope for magnification or a flashlight. Afterwards I purchased a 42mm NCStar red dot sight, and mounted it on the included picatinny sight riser. I have no regrets about getting this marker, its bang on accurate and a fun challenge when using only 8 shots in a clip. Converting a T9 from its rifle form down to a pistol can be done, no exaggeration, in under a minute, with no tools.

I never feel at a disadvantage using the T9 Covert, even with only 8 shots I never feel outgunned. With a good red dot to help with targeting, good paint to help with accuracy and lots of practice, I think this is as close to a “sniper” in paintball I’ve ever felt. Please don’t email me because I used the “S” word, its not up for debate

So what can you upgrade on the T9 series of paintball markers? Nothing. There’s nothing to upgrade. That I know of, there’s only one “upgraded” barrel available from Lapco, but starting at $100 its not something I’m willing to just buy for the hell of it. The stock barrel works fantastically, although its a tad on the large bore size. The beauty of that T9 is its near perfection out of the box.

You can however shop around for any number of picatinny attachments: fore-grips, bi-pods, tripods, green lasers, red lasers, scopes, red dot sights and grenade launchers. There’s an unlimited number of configurations that are all entirely up to you.