ft-12 Exploded

My local field owner showed me two ft-12 rental markers that had failed in dramatic fashion. He was reffing a game and watched what he called an explosion. The right rear portion of the upper receiver, including the hinge and about an inch and a half of the side, shot off. The player who was shooting the gun tossed it to the ground and hit the deck. He has had another flip top fail in the same way.

He has 5 ft-12 rental markers and has had trouble with leaky valves on all of them. Two of them exploded. He has stopped using the flip tops and is using 98s while waiting for an answer from Tippmann.

Has anyone heard of this?

I have an FT-12 and have only shot about a hopper through it and am very impressed with it.

My thought is that the bumper o-ring might have Ben left off during maintenance. What do you think?

moomoogomoo wrote: yea those guns are super sketchy Really, how so? and sometimes if the maintenance isn't done properly, it could be detrimental to the gun. That would be a maintenance issue, not a problem with the gun. Its hard for the ft-12 to keep a pressure tight chamber when the entire top half of the gun simply comes right off. Have to disagree here, the flip top isn't new tech; the PMI Black Maxx used a similar design as did the old Vulcan pumps. Both of these were rather cheaply made marker (Especially the Vulcan.) and neither were prone to failure. (At least not explosive failure . . . the just doesn't work right failure was a whole different thing.) As far as it being difficult to maintain a pressure tight chamber with a flip top design, your statement makes me wonder if you have ever used or disassembled an FT-12 or any other Tippmann. The body shells don't maintain the pressure chamber; the pressure is maintained inside the valve which is a self-contained unit that sets within the pieces of the body. This is true for 98-based markers, the A5, the X7 and most other Tippmann mechanical markers. On the original 98's and 98 Customs you could remove the valve from the marker along with the ASA and air hose between the two and still air up the valve. (Not recommended, but you could do it.) The FT-12, and other newer Tippmanns, now use a pressure fit hose to the valve where the marker body holds the hose in place. For the FT-12 halves to be loose enough to be the cause of air loss at where the hose goes into the valve, the barrel nut would have to be completely off the threads at the front of the marker. A more likely culprit for a valve leak at this location is damage to the o-ring inside the gas line joint from failing to properly lube it prior to reassembly. (One of the reasons I don't like this type of connection; I've seen a lot of people have trouble with the very similar connection on the A5 R/T.) Any other valve leak is a valve problem that could happen on any Tippmann valve as the FT-12 valve is just a slightly modified to fit version of the standard Tippmann mechanical valve. The "75% less maintenance time" sometimes just isn't worth the risk of your broken gun, wasted air and compromised safety. I would stick with your typical mechanical tippmann 98 custom or a gun like that.  As I pointed out, a 98 will suffer catastrophic failure just as quickly if the buffer o-ring isn't reinstalled. yea but those guns are real sketchy to me Not saying that there might not be a problem. However, I think that it is a little premature to be stating that the design in general is flawed. One of two things causing the explosive failure described above. First, failure to reinstall the buffer o-ring has caused similar failures on 98s and A5s. Second option is that the barrel nut wasn't turned far enough to latch down during maintenance and it worked loose and came off allowing the marker halves to separate at the front and the top then flipped back as designed. Given the description of the damage at the rear of the marker, my bet is on the o-ring not being replaced as mentioned by A.T.S.

Edited by Mack - 06 December 2012 at 2:42pm