Chris Schneck

Talk about shock and awe, if anyone wishes to see the sport of paintball move away from being associated with violence and backyard guerilla action, Tippmann and the US Army have a surprise for you.

Say hello to U.S. Army Paintball and all its cheesy glory.

Ill start off by saying that I am Canadian and I have nothing against the USA or the U.S. Army.  But as an avid paintball player I am against anything that might expedite the regulation of use and or sale of paintball equipment, or tarnish the already somewhat poor image of paintball. The only press paintball seems to receive is when a bunch of idiots do a drive-by shooting using paintball markers or when property is vandalized. I cant see slapping a military endorsement on a paintball marker helping our games chances of establishing itself as a competitive sport.

If anything, introducing military endorsed paintball markers could turn fields across north america into recruiting grounds and training centres for future candidates. For those who aren’t organized or motivated enough to join a scout troop or cadets, you can skip all the valuable training and grooming to be a responsible citizen and jump into commando mode with your army endorsed marker and be one smaller step away from picking up the real thing.

Currently there are few regulations or laws denying minors access to paintball markers, rules are somewhat relaxed about how paintball gear is transported  and where it is used. Is this new union between paintball and military a step away from our current freedom? Will the U.S. Armies endorsement confirm what our sports antagonists have been arguing?

I cant say I’m a saint in this regard, I go into the woods with my camouflage and T9, but I’m also 30 and know the difference between a game and a lifestyle. For the most part I think the minors who aren’t eligible to join the armed forces know this difference as well, but its the unknowable margin of those who cant differentiate who concern me. Those affluent north american children who’s parents don’t pay enough attention and just buy their children off on their birthdays and Christmas. It’s the people who don’t really want to play paintball, don’t respect paintball as a sport and ultimately have no respect for others who will be our downfall.

Now put a product made by the largest name in paintball and endorsed by the largest name in conquest into the hands of that minority of people who aren’t wanted by our sport and the buzzards start to circle around the corpse that was our freedom.

Platinum, sounds blingy. Lets break these *NEW* Platinum Series features down one by one as advertised on the official website :

1. Split Receiver - Why. Why should I have to take new marker apart in quarters, why cant I just remove the end cap and have everything slide out the back? Oh wait, they already did that with the A5/X7. Granted this will make maintaining the 98 much easier, its just my opinion that they should have applied all this engineering time to a truly new marker or at least have upgraded the A5/X7 which are already superior in many ways.

2. Easy to remove power tube- Easy to remove? is it going to break? are you selling me an already defective marker? here’s an idea, why not help the consumer out and put an ALUMINUM power tube in there for me so I don’t have to buy an aftermarket power tube to replace the vulnerable or cracked plastic one. Better yet, if you want easy, why not make it so that there’s some sort of tombstone adapter that I can pull out, and then remove an end cap and everything slides out the back . . . . oh wait that’s right, you did that already with the A5/X7.

3. Full depth pockets for ASA- This sort of seems unnecessary if the receiver half comes off in quarters, I shouldn’t have to undo the ASA bolts. Unless they HAD to add this feature to accommodate the receiver mod.

4. Re-Designed front vertical grip - Thank you. Thank you for updating something that ill have to remove if I want to add an expansion chamber or regulator by using a vertical adapter. Or will the traditional vertical adapter even work with this line of custom 98’s?

5. Secured front sight spring- OK, ill give you this one, I hate re installing this thing when it wont seat properly. But ill bring the same point up again, this feature wont be useful if I dont have to remove that half of the receiver. Its like you just added a feature that was made obsolete by another feature you just added.

6. New porting on the barrel to improve air efficiency, and an all new matte finish- Reflective glare has finally been eliminated? thank the gods. I cant tell you how many times I’ve been hit because the reflective glare from my barrel and ASA gave my position away. I cant comment on the *new* barrel porting because from what little ive seen it just looks like they’ve removed the porting that was mid barrel on the older 98 models.

7. Picatinny Rail - Hello, welcome to several years ago. Meet my friend the BT4, oh but hes got one up on you, hes got a rail on the bottom for grips as well as one on top for sights.

8. Re-Designed sling-mount end cap - Thank you! Finally a built in place to attach a sling. Longer games demand such a feature, as even 6lbs. feels like a ton after cradling a marker for long periods of time.

It might seem like I’m against Tippmann, but that’s far from the truth. I’m scared that recently they’ve been invaded by gremlins, gremlins who make funny decisions, take cosmetic guidance from short bus operations paintballers and love a good tailgate BBQ.

I think ideally they should try and combine the best of all the 98 and the A5 and the X7. Make something easy to disassemble, with fewer problem parts and make it affordable for the common player.

Oh look! I found it!

Both the BT Apex barrel and the Tippmann Flatline barrels work in much the same way to increase the distance your paintball will travel, but are physically much different in design. Before the paintball leaves the barrel friction is intentionally applied to the top of the paintball creating backspin, also known as underspin, such that the paintball rolls backwards as it travels towards your intended target.

This phenomenon is known as the Magnus effect, whereby a spinning object creates a whirlpool of rotating air or liquid about itself. On one side of the object, the motion of the whirlpool will be in the same direction as the windstream that the object is exposed to. On this side the velocity will be increased. On the other side, the motion of the whirlpool is in the opposite direction of the windstream and the velocity will be decreased. The pressure in the air is reduced from atmospheric pressure by an amount proportional to the square of the velocity, so the pressure will be lower on one side than the other causing an unbalanced force at right angles to the wind. The overall behaviour is similar to that around an aerofoil with a circulation which is generated by the mechanical rotation, rather than by aerofoil action.

A seemingly mystical defiance of gravity is the result, with paintballs traveling in a relatively flat line instead of a traditional arc. As explained above, this is becuase the direction of the spin placed on the paintball creates a lifting force. The solid ( paintball ), spinning backwards through the fluid ( air ).

Ive personally had a chance to use both the BT Apex barrel and the Tippmann Flatline barrel, on both Tippmann 98’s and Tippmann A5’s, and im truly torn between the two. They are both excellent choices, they both do as they claim, but in the end i think the BT Apex barrel is the better choice.

I currently own a BT Apex Barrel on my Tippmann A5. The older models like mine have a .692calibre bore size, however recently BT has changed the Apex to be a slightly smaller .689 - .69calibre. Mimicking Flatline performance is quite easy with the sliding switch on top of the barrel end ( I use setting 4 or 5 ). Drop shots work amazingly! hook shots left to right arent so hot, but it still works. It installs like a regular barrel, cleans like a regular barrel and isnt at all picky about what paint you use. However the more brittle the paint, the more you should ease the slider on the top back, as too much pressure from the rubber paddle inside will liquify paint thats too brittle.

The Tippmann Flatline barrel is no less formidable. Like my older BT Apex, the Tippmann Flatline is a .692calibre. There nothing fancy going on here and as soon as you’ve installed it correctly you’re ready for long shots. It can be a pain to install, its definitely a pain to clean and there’s definitely no adjusting the amount of spin you want to put on the ball. It looks just as bad ass as the apex, I personally think more-so on the Tippmann 98, and the distance for straight out long shots is just as good.

For optimal performance out of either of these barrels, remember to chrono your marker to around a stable 260fps.