98c pro upgrade advice

Yes, this is my first post.  I have done a good bit of reading here before posting my question.

I started playing paintball about a month ago and fell in love.  I bought 4 markers (98c platinum, 98c pro, spider, and a used marauder) with tanks and masks and got several friends interested to the point where I can have 10 people ready to play on sunday we started off with woods ball since we have plenty of woods and we are mountain men who spend a lot of time in the woods.  Recently I found out there is an indoor urban combat (room to room) arena 20 mins away.  We formed our own team for tourneys and split our time between woods ball and indoor.

I am using the 98c pro.  I got the flatline barrel which I am very happy with provided I don't use the cheapie paintballs (learned my lesson when 1 in 3 shots were zingers).  I have a tac vest and use a remote line and co2. I also put a response trigger on it which is cool for our woods ball and allowed in the indoor arena provided I keep it to 3 shot bursts which I usually do anyway.

A couple concerns I have are...

Sometimes, even when firing semi auto, balls in my hopper jam up causing misfires requiring me to do the hopper shake.  I was considering getting the cyclone hopper.  Will that help my feed jams?  I got some conflicting info in my reading, this guy saying they work great and another guy saying you will see no difference.  I would prefer to stick to tippman products since I have 2 of them I can always change it around (addressing the 'you may get a different marker sometime statement).  Also I like the cyclone is flat black whereas the other electric hoppers I see in the local paintball shop are all shiny bright colors with flashing lights and other crap to give away my position and I don't really feel like having to paint up a new hopper.  And not worrying about batteries is a plus.

My next question is more complex.  From my reading I really want to go HPA on my marker.  Believe it or not in the middle of PA I have found a couple places that fill them.  But playing woodsball until I can afford an extra spare tank (or 2) I would like to use co2 as a backup when my hpa tank goes empty.  So if I'm thinking right I want a regulator that works with hpa or co2 correct?  I say this because another thing that bothers me is how violent the marker sounds when it fires.  That bolt really slams back and everyone in the woods can hear it and knows it's me firing.  I would like to quiet it down and it just makes me uncomfortable.  I have been eyeing up the low pressure kit tippmann offers hoping it will work for me.

So I want to use a response trigger, cyclone hopper, and low pressure kit with the option to use hpa and switch to co2 in the field without a lot of fuss.  Is this feasable?

Here is a pic of some of my crew before about 7 hours of woodsball.  I'm in the middle wearing the tac vest and camo mask.

^dont listen to him. you would need to mill your marker to get it to centerfeed. the cyclone runs off of discharged air. it doesnt use any extra. the response trigger is a good choice. you may want to get rid of the flatline for indoor play. it will be cumbersome going from room to room

Edited by slackerr26 - 28 July 2009 at 9:15am

Yes, you do have to mill the gun but I would rather have to mill it and have better balance than a football sticking out the side of the gun. And the cyclone feed with the response trigger is a lot less air efficient. The cyclone feed stops working towards the end of a tank anyway. I have this set up and a 98 setup wit the ssl-200 and egrip and it's a lot more air efficient.

Where we play woodsball is not a regulated field, it's just ground we play on.  When I said change in the field I meant in the woods between combat rounds at camp.  Shouldn't I be able to just pop off my hpa tank and pop on a co2 tank, reset my regulator and check velocity and be good to go?  Where we play indoors they offer $5 hpa all day.  Pay $5 and they will refill the tank all day so I wouldn't even need co2 then, just in the woods.

Does the low perssure kit not like co2 even if it's regulated?

Gravdigr wrote: Where we play woodsball is not a regulated field, it's just ground we play on.  When I said change in the field I meant in the woods between combat rounds at camp.  Shouldn't I be able to just pop off my hpa tank and pop on a co2 tank, reset my regulator and check velocity and be good to go?  Affirmative.  I was hoping that was what you meant but, being unsure, I decided to err on the side of giving safety advice. Where we play indoors they offer $5 hpa all day.  Pay $5 and they will refill the tank all day so I wouldn't even need co2 then, just in the woods. Does the low perssure kit not like co2 even if it's regulated? I've only had the low pressure kit (LPK) on one marker.  I didn't like it so I got rid of it pretty quickly.  That said, I know people who do like them.  I will give you my take on CO2 and LPKs and hopefully someone with more experience with them will step in and correct anything I screw up too badly. The majority of people I know who run low pressure on Tippmanns switched to HPA to do so (if they didn't already have it).  At high rates of fire CO2 may not evaporate from liquid to gaseous form quick enough to meet the demands of the marker.  When this occurs, several things can happen: Most commonly, you will get "shoot down" where the shots start to have progressively less velocity. If liquid CO2 gets into the reg (because all of the gaseous has been used) it can "freeze up" the reg and leave the gun unable to fire until the reg thaws out.  Essentially the liquid CO2 will get into the small apertures inside the reg and crystallize into solid form (dry ice) blocking air flow. In extreme cases damage to the regulator (or the marker) can occur.  Tippmanns are generally less susceptible to this damage than other more complicated markers with numerous O-rings and small hoses.  A Palmer Stabilizer, which is designed for regulating CO2 should prevent this occurence as would having some type of expansion room (expansion chamber/remote line) before the regulator. If liquid CO2 (or gaseous CO2 that is not fully expanded) makes it beyond the reg it can also cause velocity fluctuations as it raises pressure in the marker when it continues to expand.  (Some regulators are designed to mitigate this problem, others aren't.) The bottom line is that LPKs are generally happier on compressed air.

zomglmao wrote: Hmm well I guess I stand corrected. It just always seemed the cyclone and response got less shots. If you saw/experienced this while using CO2, that could very well have been the case.  However, it would have been due to firing faster than the CO2 could fully expand as opposed to the accessories seriously decreasing efficiency.  I.e. firing unexpanded CO2 (due to high rates of fire, low temperatures or other reasons) is the equivalent of using several shots worth of CO2 to fire a single paintball.  The huge white clouds you get in cold weather or during rapid fire when using CO2 can be considered as wasted propellant most of the time. Either way, I still like the center feed electronic hopper for fast paced games. I see what you're saying about woodsball games though. I'm not a center feed fan because I play mostly woods and like being able to see down the top of the marker.  While I think the Cyclone is a very good hopper, I tend to prefer electronic hoppers as well.  The inexpensive Ricochets fit my playing style nicely and being able to easily remove them simplifies storage/transport of markers.  (Yeah, I know the Cyclone isn't that much extra work to remove, but I just don't want to deal with it.) Edited to further explain an earlier statement:  The reason that all stock Tippmanns use basically the same amount of propellant per shot is related to the way the stock velocity adjuster works.  On other markers (such as Spyders for instance) velocity is regulated by altering pressure on the main spring.  The knob on the back either decreases or increases the pressure on the spring depending upon which way it is turned.  Increased pressure on the spring makes it hit the valve pin harder and this in turn opens the valve farther, for a longer time, which releases more propellant.  The adjuster on Tippmanns does not alter spring pressure, it just alters the rate at which the propellant flows down the barrel.  Thus, the same amount of air is released every time, but the rate of release changes depending on how far into the path of the air the adjuster is protruding.  (While this probably does create a "back pressure" effect that alters the amount of air released, this difference is minisucle compared to systems that directly affect the valve by altering spring tension.)

Edited by Mack - 28 July 2009 at 4:42pm

I wouldn't feel comfortable running it on a marker with a low pressure kit, but that is my opinion; not something I am willing to call a fact.  (I'll leave such declarations for those with more experience with the equipment being discussed.)

I know where you can get the answer to all your problems.  A 98 with an extremely hard to find E-bolt with a low pressure kit, Cp reg and more PM me for details.

I am not selling on the forum. Just letting a fellow paintballer know where a great deal on a hard to find item through a private message.