X-7 and A-5

Here is a post I saw in another board I frequent. It was made by Acara.

"I fondled it today .....yummy Tippmann goodness

- The cyclone internals are different,

- Ported Cyclone ram
- The paddles are softer. It looks like they are made from the softer transparent material that the old ratchets used to be made from. I'm guessing that the softer paddles will help with the higher advertised ROF & reduce the "kick-up" that used to happen above 18-bps.

- The airline routing is more internal (still using the steel braid for the internal routing). I'm not completely enamored with the idea, until I can figure out how to incorporate a Palmer reg into the airline without having to install it at the bottle (palmer reg doesn't appear to be able to fit in the magwell when I took it off & looked inside).

- The weight differnce is noticeable. The X7 is a whole lot lighter than the A5 is.

- The hopper is a godsend. It's completely out of the sight picture now.

- The dovetail rail is gome & it's a complete weaver rail

- The X7 incorporates the new bolt/insert, so you'll have to get your JCS RVA's sent in for retrofit, or buy one of the newer versions.

- The end cap is redesigned and appears to be solid metal (can't blow it out the back of the marker anymore)

- The new fire selector switch is pretty cool. ...no more silly pushbutton safety.

I didn't get a chance to split the receiver and look inside, but I'm assuming the new production method has reduced some of the overspray & will eliminate the need to polish the internals when you first get the marker.

IMHO, a lot of the air efficiency issues were due to imperfections in the cast receiver, and the old cyclones....so it will be interesting to air one of these up and see if they are less of an air hog.

Again, more details once I get my own and can get one taken apart.

It's got more plastic than I expected, and the plastic looks like plastic .... but I haven't messed with it enough to know if it's a like/dislike yet.

If I had to pick the one thing I dislike the most, it's the magwell/clip ..... it's completely cosmetic, except maybe to put some small stuff in.

At this point, I'm looking at buying the AK-47, XP5 or XP5SD.

Another anticipated improvement (hopefully) will be the ergonomics. The marker had a totally different "feel" to it, but I'm itching to see if that holds true with a hopper full of paint.

The way the new hopper is designed, and the plastic front/magnesium back, may do a whole lot for the balance of the marker (the A5's were notoriously unbalanced).

Tippmann has never been the beauty queen, and there wasn't any attempt to do so on this X7 release (IMHO) ... but if they retained the Tippmann durability (no reason to believe they didn't) and paid as much attention to the functionality and ergonomics is it appears that they did ... this is going to be a big hit for Tippmann/Spec Ops."

Edited by Evil Elvis - 13 November 2006 at 10:02pm