A Serious Defect?

I'm going to try and describe this so it's easy to understand but to me it seems like an odd thing (maybe a defect?).  I bought a used 98 Custom on Ebay.  It came and was in good shape, no rust or anything and I took it out today just to see how it shot.  I noticed that the balls would hit about 6 inches to a foot or so towards the right (it increased more the further I shot) from where I aimed.  I thought that was odd and took it home to see if I could find anything wrong with it.  I was holding the marker and looking down on it and I thought it looked like the barrel slowly sloped off to the right.  I asked my dad if he thought so and he looked at it and said that it seemed that way to him too.  After studying it for a few minutes I saw a way that I could test to see if the barrel was indeed crooked.  I unhinged the hopper elbow and took a straight edge and ran it along one edge of the marker (on the top where the metal runs parallel) and then on the other side.  The barrel overlapped further on the right side then on the left, meaning that it angled towards the right.  By the way, it is the stock barrel.  Now to what is causing this, I can't say for sure.  Are the threads on the barrel crooked, the threads on the marker are crooked or is the barrel just not straight.  So if anybody has heard of this, had it happen to them or just has any input at all I would really appreciate it.  Thanks

Edited by ACross - 27 August 2006 at 5:26pm

Take the barrel off and see if it is curved. If it is, thats your problem.

If not, put it back on the gun and see if it still seems curved

If not, then that was the problem.

If it is still curved, borrow a friends barrel. If the new barrel seems curved, then the threads are screwed up on the gun.

If the new barrel looks good, then the stock barrel is screwed up.

I think that just about does it.

Actually this is a design flaw. A lot of 98c's do this. It is lousy engineering to have a threaded receiver cut in half, because it requires tighter tolerances than the 98 has. The a5 fixed this with the one-piece barrel receiver. One thing you could do is this:
loosen the front screws a little bit
tighten the barrel in HARD so the bottom of it seats against the ledge in the receiver
tighten the front receiver screws

I did loosen the front reciever screws, screwed the barrel in tight then tightened the screws and it helped.  I still think its slightly off but not as bad.  I probably wont use the sights that much but it seemed to me that a slanted barrel would add more friction on the ball, thus reducing distance of the shot.  Maybe not but that seemed possible to me.  Is it likely that another barrel would seat itself straight?  I wanted to get a longer barrel, especially if I know that it will correct what little crookedness there is.  I sent Tippmann an email so I will see what they say.  Thanks again for the help.

pattison wrote: Actually this is a design flaw. A lot of 98c's do this. It is lousy engineering to have a threaded receiver cut in half, because it requires tighter tolerances than the 98 has. The a5 fixed this with the one-piece barrel receiver. One thing you could do is this: loosen the front screws a little bit tighten the barrel in HARD so the bottom of it seats against the ledge in the receiver tighten the front receiver screws

damn. i got a new barrel a while back and thought it was messed up, then i checked the stock barrel and others and realized they all seemed a little tilted. i honestly didnt factor in tippmann making a possible error