its probaly your flatline barrel,you have to have a sertain type of paintballs or it wont fire

I bought a brand new A-5 with the flatline last week and went paintballing with it this weekend with a bunch of other people.  It was VERY cold.  EVERYONE was chopping balls *initially*, but I was so bad I couldn't play.  It was very hard to crono accurately too due to CO2 limitations, but I was getting it fairly consistent around 270 fps (error was about 20 fps +/- though).  Nobody was preheating their paint.  All of the guns were very cold (temperature was in the single digits).

Here's my are some more of the conditions:

• We were at 7,000 feet above sea level
• EVERYONE was using CO2
• NOBODY was using good paint (the highest grade was WalMart Tactical and it worked the best - I hear it's hard shelled????)
• I was using brand new RPS - Rampage balls and cheapo WalMart balls.

We played a night game (different story) and a day game where the temps were more reasonable (near 40's & 50's I'd imagine).

My A-5 flatline was working so poorly I couldn't play.  I was breaking balls in the barrel at the apex of the bend.  But I was also chopping and paintball fragments and paint were getting ingested into the cyclone feeder like crazy.  There was another kid there playing with a used A-5 with a J&J ceramic barrel and he NEVER chopped.  I tried his barrel and I chopped in the barrel with the same paint????

Obviously cold has something to do with it, but is the latest output of flatlines / A-5's from tippmann lemon?

My other friend was using a Spyder Pilot with an electric viewloader hopper and he could fire (w/ an e-grip) automatic and not break a single ball of crap WalMart paint.  He was hitting a 1x1 foot area at 30 yards with the stock barrel.  This part was all during the daytime.  I still could hit anything beyond about 15 yards.  The flatline wasn't working at all like advertised.

I'll be calling Tippmann shortly.  Anyone know if there are recalls?

The reason I'm asking is (sorry for being long winded), why would my beautiful new A-5 get absolutely destroyed by the "lesser" (not trying to start an arguement) Spyder?  Rediculous if you ask me.

I REALLY want to make my system work and love the A-5, but haven't gotten anywhere with it.  Please help.

funckhore wrote: got and A-5 it was sputtering so I replaced the sear (fixed that problem. Now I shoot about 10 shots (works great first ten then it breaks every ball after that in the barrel) stock a-5 with flatline and 300psi air tank. pulled gun apart cleaned and oiled good. called tippmann they said to check the cyclone feeder, seems to be working fine. balls are not breaking in the feeder the gun only has paint in the barrel not in the gun or feeder. tryed stock and flatline barrel and three diffrent types of paint but is still breaking in the barrel. PLEASE HELP.

It would be great if you saw fit to change you screen name to something less offensive...or explain to me how this is a combination of your initials and street address...or something inane like that.

Sorry to post one more time on this thread, but I wanted to end it (hopefully) on a good note by vindicating the A-5 and flatline system.

First, thank you to all of the veterans of this forum for putting up with yet another A-5 Flatline - help!? thread.  It really is appreciated by us serious people who are new to all of this.

Here goes.  If you don't feel like reading my entire monologue just know that everything works well when the temps were higher and by using non-malformed paint with a hard shell (doesn't have to be top of the line).  I am still having a fps problem, but no chops or breaks while using flatline at sustained full auto.

>>>

I inspected the paint I was using (RPS Rampage).  It was *horrible*.  All of the balls were oblong and only about a third of them were without dimples, burrs, or some other problem.  I'll be calling the store that sold it to me to "ask some questions." :)

I went and bought some relatively cheap paint that was hard shelled and of smaller diameter.  I believe it's Draxxus Heat or some other derivation of Draxxus (is that the correct name for the manufacturer?).  Every single ball is good and free of dimples.  They're also very round compared to the Rampage I had before.  I dropped a round into the stock barrel and it lodged inside about a fifth of the way down the barrel (with no half-moons visible).  I was scared to try it on the flatline because everyone says you don't want it to seal up tight, but when I dropped a ball into the flatline it rolled in one end and shot out the other end like a marble.  Beautiful!

I also bought a remote, as the word is they act as an expansion chamber to give more even shots with CO2.

So at noon (probably hovering around 50 degrees F) myself and two others (one A-5 w/ a short who-knows barrel, but brand new gun; and that Spyder Pilot) went out and shot some rounds.

At full auto, with the new paint, flatline installed, and remote installed I didn't break one ball.  Neither did the other A-5 using crap paint.  The Spyder was using the crap paint too and was breaking all the time.

I was SSSSSOOOOOOO relieved.  The flatline and A-5 gun worked well.  No chops or breaks even at full auto sustained.  Not even coming out the end of the flatline (where they sometimes break at the apex of the barrel).

However.... :) I have a new problem.  I didn't have a crono, but I don't think the flatline was doing it's job.  The balls were doing the normal arcing that all normal barrels experience.  I wasn't seeing any amazing range and flat trajectory.  I kept twisting the velocity adjuster out until it was practially out of the gun and it still was doing the same thing.  I think the remote is causing my PSI to dwindle.  At any rate it's certainly causing a drop in fps that I can't help.  I have read some posts that indicate other people have had the same problem, but haven't read up on this one yet.

Also my lateral accuracy was poor.  I attribute this to the low fps as well and partially to the fact that I was using fairly cheap paint (read: not marbs, evil, or bigball).

Let me finish by saying: HOORAY!!!! <laugh>

The gun works great.  Don't use crap paint that has dimples / defects (doesn't mean you have to pay top dollar).  As a total newbie though I had no idea about the importance of this nor did I understand how to recognize good paint from bad paint, or thick shell from soft shell.  I also had no comprehension of how much temperatures affect CO2 based guns and how finicky the flatline is with paint / temp.

Thank you for patiently reading my post and explaining to me the nuances of the A-5 flatline system.  It is much appreciated.

Now... how do I fix my fps problems w/out getting rid of the remote?