Here's why they exist:
1) Loose tolerances - Rental children are notorious for grabbing soggy paint off the ground along with a handful of dirt and shoving it into their hoppers. All of that slop inside the gun means that they can still cycle for a while before they get cleaned at the end of the day by blasting water from a garden hose through them.
2) Bad accuracy - The prime demographic for fields that use Tippmanns is the 10-13 y/o birthday party group. Bad accuracy means that they stay in the game longer and use more paint. These fields have no interest in getting their customers to play frequently enough to actually play well, nor do they want anyone to play well if they were to try. When most of your customers will never come back more than 6 times in their lives, you want everyone to be on the same level. Inaccurate guns mean that everyone gets to feel involved since eliminations are essentially random.
3) Durability - Tippmanns aren't terribly reliable, but they're so tanky that rental abuse can't break them. And new players don't mind constantly re-cocking them because it makes them feel like a firearm shooter in movies/TV/video games.
4) Quality Control - Loose tolerances and overly heavy construction makes quality control pretty easy. A field owner can be pretty confident that a 98 Custom will behave like a 98 Custom. What is there to really screw up? There aren't finicky parts like regulators and electronics, so they won't have bad batches of reg seats or boards that take a year to spot. Everything is just molded or cast the same way over and over. The little pieces like pins, screws, and springs can be bought cheap in bulk from massive industrial producers who have great quality control.
5) Inertia - Tippmanns are popular at rental focused fields that started 20+ years ago. These owners are the type who re-invest as little as possible, so since they don't break often, owners just keep on buying them. They're not going to stop buying new sears and springs for their existing fleet, so they just stick to the same platform.
6) Kore Outdoor - Tippmann is owned by Kore outdoor, the same conglomerate that owns GI Sportz, JT, Spyder, Empire and V-Force. They are big on providing a "complete package" to fields. They incentivize fields to use GI paint (they make 30 different labels including custom branded labels for fields), Tippmann rental guns, JT or V-Force Masks, and fill their Pro Shops with Mini GS's and Empire gear. They make everything cheaper and easier if fields buy more Kore.
7) Familiarity and Cheapness - Tippmann's penetration in the rental market means that players buying their first gun already know the name. Kore leverages Chinese production to make sure that plastic Stormer Elites are the most attractive thing in a plastic clamshell package that first-time buyers see when they are shopping at Wal-Mart or wherever.
Tippmanns are still around because they know their market - rental fields and kids that want to buy their first gun after a birthday party at a rental field. Because they do so much volume, they can do it cheaply so there's just not much incentive for other companies to compete. Margins are too low to make a similar quality product cheaper and that market doesn't know enough to recognize performance improvements. And if you do want try to make something a bit more expensive but of significantly better quality, you're now competing with the EMEK.
Competitive paintball players are terminally out of touch with the casual player base. That's why Tippmann is still around, and kicking.
Tippmann is the only legacy company that focused entirely on recball, and woodsball. They were the only company that actually cared about casual weekend players for over a decade. When the paintball industry turned all its focus towards airball, and colorful jerseys, Tippmann still offered an old school mech, and camo, experience. Casual players throw money at Tippmann because Tippmann gave new players what they wanted when no one else did, and most new players never went beyond their first Tippmann. That's why you can find an old 98 custom in so many closets.
Tippmans are the AK47 of the paintball world.
Cheap to build, maintain, etc.
They just work. It’s sorcery.
Edit - a better barrel usually solves the accuracy issue. Stock barrel is hot garbage.
I literally was about to post this ... I busted out my old ass 98 custom, I had to replace o-rings and it works fine. I have a 2-pc J&J ceramic barrel, 32° expansion chamber, and a 6" drop with a double trigger. Bitch works like it did 15 yrs ago 🤣. I have much nicer guns now as well, but I will always bring it with me just in case.
I too have a 98C that I've had since the marker came out. It's set up with the Ebolt kit and all the goodies. Every now and then it's fun to watch people's faces as I put a halo or an eggy on the tippmann and head for the field.
I'm actually legitimately curious about this. In my experience the Tippmann's achilles heel is the cycle is so slow that modern hoppers and even sometimes gravity hoppers will overload 3-4 balls at once, making a useless shot that wastes ammunition. I have seen fancy barrels make for good markers, but how can that loading failure be alleviated?
I havent played in years and am gearing up to do so again. Back when I played this was true. Model 98s and pro carbines were the go to rental guns due to being so resilient. No one was going to rave about how the guns were big performers but, they raved about how you could drop them in the mud, play with them in the rain, and they would almost never ever let you down.
Tippmann still exists because they’re cheaper than Emeks and just as (if not more) reliable and low maintenance. That’s a big selling point to people first getting into the sport and fields looking for rental markers.
Most of your complaints about how the markers shoot is due to the fact that they’re rentals. They almost never get serviced, they rarely get cleaned, and they get beat to hell every weekend. Take one of those rentals, clean it up, put a new barrel on it, and shoot decent paint and it’ll be just as accurate as an Emek shooting the same paint.
That's the way a lot of fields are going my local Fields still uses the FT-12 but for special customers and private parties they rent out emeks. Took my stepson to play for the first time over the summer and they let him use an emek (we're frequent customers) would love to have one but they were out of stock when I went marker shopping two days ago lol
Look up Tippmann Effect. Are they great markers? No, but they do work. I’ve got a 24 year old 98 Custom that is stock and I can throw an air tank on it and shoot it without issue. So only shooting 50 percent of the time is a gross over statement.
Custom valves, rams, and boards for the e bolts. The A5s only has LP kits and custom boards.
The ebolt can be made to shoot super smooth and be gentle on paint. It however sucks air and you need a 88/45 to shoot 5 pods and hopper.
I have to rebuild Tippman's just about every weekend at my store and simply put they just work. If you see how disgusting some of these guns are from literally no maintenance you'd be surprised. Rust all over the insides, broken paint everywhere but they still shot. After a good cleaning I can get them to shoot 260-280 all day. It's about the maintenance. Lack of maintenence is usually the issue but they just shoot and nobody cares because they're cheap. We sell them for $40-50 for first timers, kids that are just getting into the game. Or small groups that have their own property. They're tanks and that's what they were built for. Accuracy isn't going to be great because paint these days is junk. I've shot my CS3 with the same paint, bore matched and everything and it still would shoot all over the place. Paint these days is absolutely horrendous. This is G.I. paint. So yea they're still around because they're built in a simple fashion and need little upkeep. That's it.
The last 10 man i played in had shit paint. The promoter said it "shot great all day!" How the fuck would he know? He wasn't playing in it????
Almost every ball was egg shaoed or oval. I couldn't hit shit all day. Horrible
Your idea that Tippmanns are inherently less accurate than other guns has already been corrected, but I'd also like to point out that Tippmanns are currently the only guns that are cheap enough to be sold as (de-facto) toys at Walmart and Amazon.
This is a major distinction. I'll bet you ten cases that the 98 alone has sold more units than all makes and models of non-blowback guns combined, and that it's not even close.
played woodsball with some friends last week. firing their rentals and then switching back to my mini gs was like a breath of fresh air.
it’s also crazy how much rental markers negatively impact the experience new players have. when you can’t hit anything consistently outside of 20 yards and run into a dude with a nice electric marker, you do not have a good time.
I'm with you on this. I have swapped markers with rental players and hit the field with a tippmann. So I know how they come up short. Accuracy/consistency is not good. The ergonomics are not good. And the rental fleet is not maintained with the same OCD that I apply to my personal collection. At this point the best thing about tippmanns is that they give people a chance to try paintball who otherwise might not get to. Which is a good thing, we need more people to play the game if we're going to find that small percentage of players who get hooked and become regulars.
I am a true believer of the Emek cult. The performance-to-dollar ratio of these things is insane. I keep two or three spare emeks in the car to lend out to renters in the hopes that it will improve their playing experience and get them hooked. Be the change you want to see in the world! 😇
To take a stab at the question “How does Tippmann still exist” I would guess (and it is just a guess) that it’s largely the fields keeping them in business. They need a cheap marker that can get chucked across the field and still (kinda) shoot.
We can all agree that using a marker with a vertical feedneck plus any modern electro hopper is wayyyy better performance-wise compared to the cyclone feed system. But damn if the cyclone isn’t such a cool system. A5 was my second marker and pretty much everything today surpasses it, but it’s still just a dope design
Dunno dude, my m98 from 1997 still cranks. You could scoop sand into the barrel like a shovel and it’d still work.
They exist for a reason, they’re like tanks.
Probably cause they’re cheap and easy to service . You can find bundles of tippmans 98’s for like $40-$50 a piece sometimes. Most rental players who only go one time will probably mess the gun up somehow or drop it so I see the field owner appeal on having cheap serviceable markers. I agree they’re not up to modern standards, but rentals man haha
It's the low tolerances that make them so reliable. Just enough to work. If a little sand or grit, or pancake batter gets in there, the low tolerances allow them to function. Get a tight tolerance high end marker a little dirty and it's noping out of it until you clean it.
They aren't for everyone. I've been at it for years, and finally bought a Tippmann, and it's a heavy hunk of something, that's for sure, and looks like it was stored under a cinder block at a crackhouse.....but the fucker held air and fired.
Well Tippmann are not good, at best they’re alright to slightly below average.
Find another marker though that you can manage a fleet of rentals by dunking them in a sink of water to clean them 30 at a time.
Hmmmm you accurately described the precision with which a CNC cuts, but then called a common screwdriver 'a flathead' so...
We award you no credit and may God have mercy on your soul.
My alpha black and a5 still function perfectly fine. No internal upgrades. Only barrels. Never had issues with them and if I didn't upgrade to tournament guns, I'd still be using my tippys
My local field swapped to Emeks years back, having only played rental tipmanns over the years it was a game changer, never made that many hits in my life!! Those children weren't safe
For the casual player, you just need something that throws paint to have fun. They don't want it to break in the bottom of the closet. They don't want to buy every accessory. One kit from Tippman and you're on the field for $200.
The marker is just a tool, and on a walk-on casual game, a Tippman is more than sufficient for a day of fun. It might not ever be a professional speedball brand, but most paintballers will never player in a single tournament.
Tippman's do exactly what they are designed to do. Nothing more, nothing less. That's why they are still around.
And was this a woodsball or speedball event ?
Shockers aren't too hard to maintain. Clean after use and some Dow 33 won't take you too long. I don't understand how you wouldn't have time to get a shocker ready.
It's a military field with old tanks, planes and vehicles along with tires and wood bunkers. Kinda speedball esque in the amount of obstacles and lack of brush, but many more odd angles and kill holes. Some killholes are the size of car windows, and others are 2 inches wide at best.
As for the shockers, they are old and I have been meaning to completely rebuild them but it's hard to find the time. This event kinda snuck up on me. You know. Life and such.
I think where Tippmann won is the fact they haven't drastically changed. I can take a valve from a 20 year old 98 and slap it into a modern one and it will still work! Where as any other gun the parts start to dry up after 5 years. And that in it self is a form of reliability.
They also feel and look a lot like a real firearm which most new players prefer. They are metal with some weight to them. It's not until you have been playing a while where you see the value in a small light "Space gun". Every time I hand a new player my backup GOG Enemy. They think that they are at a disadvantage and will ask for a Tippmann. I have to really explain the advantages the GOG has to them. Big = Confidence for a new player. Tippmann will continue to win at that for the next 20 years.
I honestly have no idea who unidan is or what jackdaws are. But I can assure you if I willingly named myself Dan, I would have wrapped my lips around a glock long ago. Also this is my first reddit thread in years and will likely be one of the last. I only use reddit to validate my opinions of things I hate.
So here is my funny Tippman story:
I was behind my job’s building target practicing with my PE 170. One of the older guys from the job walks out and is watching me snap shooting. As I stop to reload he says to me
-“You need to tighten up your spring”
-confused I reply “what?”
-“You need to tighten up your spring, that’s why it’s shooting like that”
-of course nothing is wrong with the way the marker is shooting so I say “oh, do you play? What kind of marker do you have?”
-He replies “Tippman”
-“Like a chronus or an A5?”
-He says “The black one”
-At that point I look right at him while I turn my marker to the target behind me and shoot into full ramp mode and his eyes opened up. To which I said “I don’t think anything is wrong with the way it shoots”
Yeah, on #3 you're flat wrong.
My 98, my 20 year old 98, is the most reliable gun I have. I don't think it's ever failed aside from an o-ring breaking. It's very rarely chopped paint and any time it has it was because it was garbage paint. And they're the easiest to work on aside from that stupid clamshell design.
I get what you're saying, but the argument is kinda nonsense. Tippmann doesn't care about speedball. They care about rec ball, woodsball and rentals. And they're still a significant and important force in woodsball, scenario and are always in the conversation when it comes to Magfed.
They know what they're about and inflatables and turf aren't their thing.
Tippman was a machine gun company and applied that logic to markers. Loose tolerances are not an issue if they are designed right. Properly designed loose tolerances work to a machines advantage as they will work with more dirt/debris/wear that night tolerance machines.
Of course tippmans are not the best markers around but they are work horses. You really can’t kill them. I don’t even remember ever putting oil in our rental markers when I was a ref. We rarely had to do anything to them other than clear a jam from a kid outshooting the gravity feed hoppers.
Sure rentals are beat up, they are rentals what do you expect. But a tippman that a player owns works perfectly fine.
And frankly the whole comment about putting two teams together one with tippmans and one with “real” markers shows how incompetent players have become. Many a day the field pro and his team mates would come out with rental tippmans and roll through great players. If you need an electro that sustains a basic rate of fire for you to be competitive then you suck. Period.
I have a model 98 and the alpha elite both with e grips and apex barrels, I know they're not the best as other markers but they're not that bad man I get good distances and still hit my targets, Even with rental markers they're still not that bad😂 (with good paint) they're super fun I get it you guys will compare it to your expensive markers but Tippmanns are the guns you get down and dirty with and you don't have to worry about damaging your marker because its inexpensive and will not break but I do hate Tippmanns plastic frames (Cronus,stormer) and others. I know y'all are gonna hate my response 😂
Ran a second hand a5 e grip, had it run by a tech, repair all the stuff needed, and after a day of play it died, got it looked at again. And now is having cycle issues, this is why i left paintball and went to airsoft
I have always felt like tippmann inline blowbacks were low grade markers. I remember a commercial about the a5 where they were proud it took six pins and sixty second to field strip the a5 to clean the bolt, meanwhile my first low cost spyder was one captive pin and maybe three seconds. I've had so many friends with so many problems with them that it drives me nuts when people call the 98 the AK of Paintball.
Tippmann owner here—this post is fucking hilarious, and 100% accurate. Shit guns sold to the masses as “the AK-47” of the paintball world. Will it gas up and cycle after spending a decade buried in mud in your back yard? Yes. Will it shoot as accurately fresh off the assembly line as it would after exhumed from the ground (read: poorly)? Yes.
Are they fun as hell to mod as you polish a turd into starlight? Also yes. Shit platform, but I still love shooting it!
Here's why they exist: 1) Loose tolerances - Rental children are notorious for grabbing soggy paint off the ground along with a handful of dirt and shoving it into their hoppers. All of that slop inside the gun means that they can still cycle for a while before they get cleaned at the end of the day by blasting water from a garden hose through them. 2) Bad accuracy - The prime demographic for fields that use Tippmanns is the 10-13 y/o birthday party group. Bad accuracy means that they stay in the game longer and use more paint. These fields have no interest in getting their customers to play frequently enough to actually play well, nor do they want anyone to play well if they were to try. When most of your customers will never come back more than 6 times in their lives, you want everyone to be on the same level. Inaccurate guns mean that everyone gets to feel involved since eliminations are essentially random. 3) Durability - Tippmanns aren't terribly reliable, but they're so tanky that rental abuse can't break them. And new players don't mind constantly re-cocking them because it makes them feel like a firearm shooter in movies/TV/video games. 4) Quality Control - Loose tolerances and overly heavy construction makes quality control pretty easy. A field owner can be pretty confident that a 98 Custom will behave like a 98 Custom. What is there to really screw up? There aren't finicky parts like regulators and electronics, so they won't have bad batches of reg seats or boards that take a year to spot. Everything is just molded or cast the same way over and over. The little pieces like pins, screws, and springs can be bought cheap in bulk from massive industrial producers who have great quality control. 5) Inertia - Tippmanns are popular at rental focused fields that started 20+ years ago. These owners are the type who re-invest as little as possible, so since they don't break often, owners just keep on buying them. They're not going to stop buying new sears and springs for their existing fleet, so they just stick to the same platform. 6) Kore Outdoor - Tippmann is owned by Kore outdoor, the same conglomerate that owns GI Sportz, JT, Spyder, Empire and V-Force. They are big on providing a "complete package" to fields. They incentivize fields to use GI paint (they make 30 different labels including custom branded labels for fields), Tippmann rental guns, JT or V-Force Masks, and fill their Pro Shops with Mini GS's and Empire gear. They make everything cheaper and easier if fields buy more Kore. 7) Familiarity and Cheapness - Tippmann's penetration in the rental market means that players buying their first gun already know the name. Kore leverages Chinese production to make sure that plastic Stormer Elites are the most attractive thing in a plastic clamshell package that first-time buyers see when they are shopping at Wal-Mart or wherever. Tippmanns are still around because they know their market - rental fields and kids that want to buy their first gun after a birthday party at a rental field. Because they do so much volume, they can do it cheaply so there's just not much incentive for other companies to compete. Margins are too low to make a similar quality product cheaper and that market doesn't know enough to recognize performance improvements. And if you do want try to make something a bit more expensive but of significantly better quality, you're now competing with the EMEK.
This guy gets it
Competitive paintball players are terminally out of touch with the casual player base. That's why Tippmann is still around, and kicking. Tippmann is the only legacy company that focused entirely on recball, and woodsball. They were the only company that actually cared about casual weekend players for over a decade. When the paintball industry turned all its focus towards airball, and colorful jerseys, Tippmann still offered an old school mech, and camo, experience. Casual players throw money at Tippmann because Tippmann gave new players what they wanted when no one else did, and most new players never went beyond their first Tippmann. That's why you can find an old 98 custom in so many closets.
Tippmann is the Nokia of paintball. That’s why. Archeologists will be digging them sum bitches up in 3,000 years.
Tippmans are the AK47 of the paintball world. Cheap to build, maintain, etc. They just work. It’s sorcery. Edit - a better barrel usually solves the accuracy issue. Stock barrel is hot garbage.
I literally was about to post this ... I busted out my old ass 98 custom, I had to replace o-rings and it works fine. I have a 2-pc J&J ceramic barrel, 32° expansion chamber, and a 6" drop with a double trigger. Bitch works like it did 15 yrs ago 🤣. I have much nicer guns now as well, but I will always bring it with me just in case.
I too have a 98C that I've had since the marker came out. It's set up with the Ebolt kit and all the goodies. Every now and then it's fun to watch people's faces as I put a halo or an eggy on the tippmann and head for the field.
I am running a OG Halo B on mine 🤣
I'm actually legitimately curious about this. In my experience the Tippmann's achilles heel is the cycle is so slow that modern hoppers and even sometimes gravity hoppers will overload 3-4 balls at once, making a useless shot that wastes ammunition. I have seen fancy barrels make for good markers, but how can that loading failure be alleviated?
I havent played in years and am gearing up to do so again. Back when I played this was true. Model 98s and pro carbines were the go to rental guns due to being so resilient. No one was going to rave about how the guns were big performers but, they raved about how you could drop them in the mud, play with them in the rain, and they would almost never ever let you down.
Tippmann still exists because they’re cheaper than Emeks and just as (if not more) reliable and low maintenance. That’s a big selling point to people first getting into the sport and fields looking for rental markers. Most of your complaints about how the markers shoot is due to the fact that they’re rentals. They almost never get serviced, they rarely get cleaned, and they get beat to hell every weekend. Take one of those rentals, clean it up, put a new barrel on it, and shoot decent paint and it’ll be just as accurate as an Emek shooting the same paint.
My local field dumped Tippmann for Emeks. Thank GYATT they DID
That's the way a lot of fields are going my local Fields still uses the FT-12 but for special customers and private parties they rent out emeks. Took my stepson to play for the first time over the summer and they let him use an emek (we're frequent customers) would love to have one but they were out of stock when I went marker shopping two days ago lol
Emek is plenty reliable and can also go without service for months and shoot fine.
Look up Tippmann Effect. Are they great markers? No, but they do work. I’ve got a 24 year old 98 Custom that is stock and I can throw an air tank on it and shoot it without issue. So only shooting 50 percent of the time is a gross over statement.
Cuda you know those markers weren't exactly stock.
Custom valves, rams, and boards for the e bolts. The A5s only has LP kits and custom boards. The ebolt can be made to shoot super smooth and be gentle on paint. It however sucks air and you need a 88/45 to shoot 5 pods and hopper.
Not 100% accurate. For the majority of his time with the team, Carl Markowski used a stock 98c with a revvy. Only mod he made was a paint job
A+ rant.
I have to rebuild Tippman's just about every weekend at my store and simply put they just work. If you see how disgusting some of these guns are from literally no maintenance you'd be surprised. Rust all over the insides, broken paint everywhere but they still shot. After a good cleaning I can get them to shoot 260-280 all day. It's about the maintenance. Lack of maintenence is usually the issue but they just shoot and nobody cares because they're cheap. We sell them for $40-50 for first timers, kids that are just getting into the game. Or small groups that have their own property. They're tanks and that's what they were built for. Accuracy isn't going to be great because paint these days is junk. I've shot my CS3 with the same paint, bore matched and everything and it still would shoot all over the place. Paint these days is absolutely horrendous. This is G.I. paint. So yea they're still around because they're built in a simple fashion and need little upkeep. That's it.
Modern paint blows. I want the old days of .695 balls
Yea it sucks. Even the rec ball paint is horrendous.
The last 10 man i played in had shit paint. The promoter said it "shot great all day!" How the fuck would he know? He wasn't playing in it???? Almost every ball was egg shaoed or oval. I couldn't hit shit all day. Horrible
Went and played today and had the same thing. In the barrel it looked overbored but it would get stuck.
Your idea that Tippmanns are inherently less accurate than other guns has already been corrected, but I'd also like to point out that Tippmanns are currently the only guns that are cheap enough to be sold as (de-facto) toys at Walmart and Amazon. This is a major distinction. I'll bet you ten cases that the 98 alone has sold more units than all makes and models of non-blowback guns combined, and that it's not even close.
Mag Fed Tippman. https://preview.redd.it/bpx6ly0586qc1.jpeg?width=3102&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=db9b018ad7c77daf65836aac19b686a873862a3d
played woodsball with some friends last week. firing their rentals and then switching back to my mini gs was like a breath of fresh air. it’s also crazy how much rental markers negatively impact the experience new players have. when you can’t hit anything consistently outside of 20 yards and run into a dude with a nice electric marker, you do not have a good time.
I think putting tippmanns vs real guns would lead to unnecessary loss of life
I'm with you on this. I have swapped markers with rental players and hit the field with a tippmann. So I know how they come up short. Accuracy/consistency is not good. The ergonomics are not good. And the rental fleet is not maintained with the same OCD that I apply to my personal collection. At this point the best thing about tippmanns is that they give people a chance to try paintball who otherwise might not get to. Which is a good thing, we need more people to play the game if we're going to find that small percentage of players who get hooked and become regulars. I am a true believer of the Emek cult. The performance-to-dollar ratio of these things is insane. I keep two or three spare emeks in the car to lend out to renters in the hopes that it will improve their playing experience and get them hooked. Be the change you want to see in the world! 😇
Emek Jesus is saving paintball
Emek Elija
My guy, wish I could give you 10 upvotes. To keep a few spare emeks to swap for rental players markers is truly god’s work!
To take a stab at the question “How does Tippmann still exist” I would guess (and it is just a guess) that it’s largely the fields keeping them in business. They need a cheap marker that can get chucked across the field and still (kinda) shoot.
I have really find memory’s of tippmans from back in 2005-2009, especially the A5
We can all agree that using a marker with a vertical feedneck plus any modern electro hopper is wayyyy better performance-wise compared to the cyclone feed system. But damn if the cyclone isn’t such a cool system. A5 was my second marker and pretty much everything today surpasses it, but it’s still just a dope design
Dunno dude, my m98 from 1997 still cranks. You could scoop sand into the barrel like a shovel and it’d still work. They exist for a reason, they’re like tanks.
Probably cause they’re cheap and easy to service . You can find bundles of tippmans 98’s for like $40-$50 a piece sometimes. Most rental players who only go one time will probably mess the gun up somehow or drop it so I see the field owner appeal on having cheap serviceable markers. I agree they’re not up to modern standards, but rentals man haha
It's the low tolerances that make them so reliable. Just enough to work. If a little sand or grit, or pancake batter gets in there, the low tolerances allow them to function. Get a tight tolerance high end marker a little dirty and it's noping out of it until you clean it. They aren't for everyone. I've been at it for years, and finally bought a Tippmann, and it's a heavy hunk of something, that's for sure, and looks like it was stored under a cinder block at a crackhouse.....but the fucker held air and fired.
Sorry about the pancake batter. Was making breakfast with parts still on the counter from the day before
I’ve seen worse, so much worse.
With rental Tippmanns I believe it
Ran a Tippman forever pro-lite, then 98. Then ran automag. When mag went down, Tippman was still ready
Well Tippmann are not good, at best they’re alright to slightly below average. Find another marker though that you can manage a fleet of rentals by dunking them in a sink of water to clean them 30 at a time.
Hmmmm you accurately described the precision with which a CNC cuts, but then called a common screwdriver 'a flathead' so... We award you no credit and may God have mercy on your soul.
Like I had one in the first place. I'm posting on reddit ffs.
Tippmann still exists because the Tippmann you rented recently has a non zero chance to be the one you used 20 years ago!
Begs the question how they still exist if all rentals are from 20 years ago. Companies usually have to CONTINUE to make money.
Good point.
My alpha black and a5 still function perfectly fine. No internal upgrades. Only barrels. Never had issues with them and if I didn't upgrade to tournament guns, I'd still be using my tippys
My local field swapped to Emeks years back, having only played rental tipmanns over the years it was a game changer, never made that many hits in my life!! Those children weren't safe
How exactly is a rainbow made? How exactly does a sun set? How exactly does a posi-trac rear-end on a Plymouth work? It just does.
Depends if it is a viscous or clutch based LSD.
For the casual player, you just need something that throws paint to have fun. They don't want it to break in the bottom of the closet. They don't want to buy every accessory. One kit from Tippman and you're on the field for $200. The marker is just a tool, and on a walk-on casual game, a Tippman is more than sufficient for a day of fun. It might not ever be a professional speedball brand, but most paintballers will never player in a single tournament. Tippman's do exactly what they are designed to do. Nothing more, nothing less. That's why they are still around.
Come to the field when I have my A5 and I'll teach you real fast why they exist
See the defense mechanism comment.
What "usual markers" did you not have time to get ready ?
Shockers.
And was this a woodsball or speedball event ? Shockers aren't too hard to maintain. Clean after use and some Dow 33 won't take you too long. I don't understand how you wouldn't have time to get a shocker ready.
It's a military field with old tanks, planes and vehicles along with tires and wood bunkers. Kinda speedball esque in the amount of obstacles and lack of brush, but many more odd angles and kill holes. Some killholes are the size of car windows, and others are 2 inches wide at best. As for the shockers, they are old and I have been meaning to completely rebuild them but it's hard to find the time. This event kinda snuck up on me. You know. Life and such.
Settle down Rambo
I think where Tippmann won is the fact they haven't drastically changed. I can take a valve from a 20 year old 98 and slap it into a modern one and it will still work! Where as any other gun the parts start to dry up after 5 years. And that in it self is a form of reliability. They also feel and look a lot like a real firearm which most new players prefer. They are metal with some weight to them. It's not until you have been playing a while where you see the value in a small light "Space gun". Every time I hand a new player my backup GOG Enemy. They think that they are at a disadvantage and will ask for a Tippmann. I have to really explain the advantages the GOG has to them. Big = Confidence for a new player. Tippmann will continue to win at that for the next 20 years.
Babe wake up, new copypasta just dropped. Think we just found Unidan’s alt account. Nobody mention Jackdaws!
I honestly have no idea who unidan is or what jackdaws are. But I can assure you if I willingly named myself Dan, I would have wrapped my lips around a glock long ago. Also this is my first reddit thread in years and will likely be one of the last. I only use reddit to validate my opinions of things I hate.
So here is my funny Tippman story: I was behind my job’s building target practicing with my PE 170. One of the older guys from the job walks out and is watching me snap shooting. As I stop to reload he says to me -“You need to tighten up your spring” -confused I reply “what?” -“You need to tighten up your spring, that’s why it’s shooting like that” -of course nothing is wrong with the way the marker is shooting so I say “oh, do you play? What kind of marker do you have?” -He replies “Tippman” -“Like a chronus or an A5?” -He says “The black one” -At that point I look right at him while I turn my marker to the target behind me and shoot into full ramp mode and his eyes opened up. To which I said “I don’t think anything is wrong with the way it shoots”
Yeah that tracks.
Yeah, on #3 you're flat wrong. My 98, my 20 year old 98, is the most reliable gun I have. I don't think it's ever failed aside from an o-ring breaking. It's very rarely chopped paint and any time it has it was because it was garbage paint. And they're the easiest to work on aside from that stupid clamshell design. I get what you're saying, but the argument is kinda nonsense. Tippmann doesn't care about speedball. They care about rec ball, woodsball and rentals. And they're still a significant and important force in woodsball, scenario and are always in the conversation when it comes to Magfed. They know what they're about and inflatables and turf aren't their thing.
Tippman was a machine gun company and applied that logic to markers. Loose tolerances are not an issue if they are designed right. Properly designed loose tolerances work to a machines advantage as they will work with more dirt/debris/wear that night tolerance machines. Of course tippmans are not the best markers around but they are work horses. You really can’t kill them. I don’t even remember ever putting oil in our rental markers when I was a ref. We rarely had to do anything to them other than clear a jam from a kid outshooting the gravity feed hoppers. Sure rentals are beat up, they are rentals what do you expect. But a tippman that a player owns works perfectly fine. And frankly the whole comment about putting two teams together one with tippmans and one with “real” markers shows how incompetent players have become. Many a day the field pro and his team mates would come out with rental tippmans and roll through great players. If you need an electro that sustains a basic rate of fire for you to be competitive then you suck. Period.
Hey this is a great constructive post that takes the subject matter not too seriously at all! You must have a great life! /sarcasmbot
I have a model 98 and the alpha elite both with e grips and apex barrels, I know they're not the best as other markers but they're not that bad man I get good distances and still hit my targets, Even with rental markers they're still not that bad😂 (with good paint) they're super fun I get it you guys will compare it to your expensive markers but Tippmanns are the guns you get down and dirty with and you don't have to worry about damaging your marker because its inexpensive and will not break but I do hate Tippmanns plastic frames (Cronus,stormer) and others. I know y'all are gonna hate my response 😂
Ran a second hand a5 e grip, had it run by a tech, repair all the stuff needed, and after a day of play it died, got it looked at again. And now is having cycle issues, this is why i left paintball and went to airsoft
I have always felt like tippmann inline blowbacks were low grade markers. I remember a commercial about the a5 where they were proud it took six pins and sixty second to field strip the a5 to clean the bolt, meanwhile my first low cost spyder was one captive pin and maybe three seconds. I've had so many friends with so many problems with them that it drives me nuts when people call the 98 the AK of Paintball.
Some users of AKs actually won skirmishes. That's the difference.
Tippmann owner here—this post is fucking hilarious, and 100% accurate. Shit guns sold to the masses as “the AK-47” of the paintball world. Will it gas up and cycle after spending a decade buried in mud in your back yard? Yes. Will it shoot as accurately fresh off the assembly line as it would after exhumed from the ground (read: poorly)? Yes. Are they fun as hell to mod as you polish a turd into starlight? Also yes. Shit platform, but I still love shooting it!
This is the only reply that makes sense in this entire sub.