Turn a Tippmann 98 Custom Into a Speedball Marker

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While stock Tippmann 98s aren't well suited to the world of speedball, if you follow these steps, your 98 will shoot as fast, but not better than most new electronic speedball guns on the market.

Steps

  1. Get a Tippmann 98 Custom, they cost about $50 used on ebay. You can't build a speedball gun from a 98 Custom if you don't have one, unless of course you want to use the A5. The best Tippmanns are the newest ones that have a system called A.C.T.(Anti Chop Technology). With A.C.T., the marker virtually cannot chop paintballs which is a fairly significant problem when upgrading 98s for high rates of fire, this upgrade kit will cost you an additional $35.
  2. People believe the single most important factor determining the accuracy of a paintball marker is the barrel. If your paintballs fit the barrel well, it will be accurate. Paintballs come in slightly different sizes even though they all say .68 caliber. To compensate for these fluctuations in size, you may want to think about slightly under boring, or using a barrel that is every so slightly smaller than the paintball itself. A barrel kit is a good way to do this ($100+ used) and include different sized barrels or barrel inserts so that you can always have an exact paint-to-bore match, your other option is a single decent barrel ($40 used) or just leaving things be. Ages ago barrels used to be an upgrade to paintball guns, in today's market the barrels that come stock are usually stock performers.
  3. Increase rate of fire.Speedball is a paintball variation that demands a high rate of fire, especially for back players. When deciding on the best way to increase your rate of fire, you can either choose to go with a mechanical system or to convert to electronics. The mechanical response trigger will be cheaper than the electronic E-Trigger system, but is usually not tournament legal because it cannot control R.O.F with precision. The E-Trigger allows for more control over the rate of fire and gives a more typical "speedball marker" setup for a paltry price of $80 off ebay.
    • To continue, the response trigger system by Tippmann is a kit made for the 98 Custom that uses a pneumatic system to reset the trigger much faster than one can pull the trigger, thus allowing for rates of fire. The highest estimates for the response trigger are around 17 paintballs per second.
    • The Tippmann E-Trigger system replaces the mechanical tripping of the sear with electronic parts that can move as fast as 30 paintballs per second, though most say that the upper 20s is as fast a rate of fire as the 98 can handle, but the rate of fire will be better if the amount of friction in the gun is lower.
  4. Polish the receivers When a Tippmann 98 Custom is painted at the factory, paint gets on the inside of the gun where the internal parts move. This causes unnecessary friction within the marker. Consistency can be greatly improved by sanding and polishing the inside of the receivers. You're going to want to polish these to a near mirror finish, so having a dremel handy and some very fine sandpaper or jeweler's polish is a must ($40 in polish from Lowes or Home Depot)
  5. Install a regulator A regulator is a necessity if you want a consistent marker. Regulators do just what the name implies; they regulate the air going to the valve of the marker to a set pressure so that all of the gas the reaches the valve is a consistent pressure. Inconsistency is a major problem, especially if using CO2 instead of compressed air or nitrogen. The regulator alleviates this problem. Every shot will have roughly the same amount of air or CO2 behind it, thereby making the marker more consistent, accurate, and efficient. Regulators are one of the best upgrades for any paintball marker. Regulators can be installed via either vertical adapter or to the bottom of the grip where the air source adapter is located, a good regulator can go for anywhere between $50 and $150. I'd recommend staying away from the CP regulators for something made by Dye, AKA, Eclipse, WGP, or Bob Long.
  6. Get a fast loader If using either the response trigger system or an electronic system, a gravity fed hopper will not be adequate, as gravity hoppers can feed only a few paintballs per second and some extensively modified Tippmann 98s can fire nearly 20 paintballs per second. Without an electronic eye sensor to the Tippmann a fast loader will be the only way to be relatively sure that the gun will not fire with a ball half in the chamber. A good electric hopper will be roughly $150 up to $300 depending on your style. Luckily, this hopper can go with you to any other paintball gun.
    • The cyclone feed system by Tippmann uses air or CO2 when the gun is fired to spin a wheel at the bottom of the hopper and load as many as 20 paintballs per second into the marker.
    • Many electronic hoppers are available that range in price from $20 to $150 and can load from ten to 35 balls per second. The better ones will have higher feed rates and will not run continuously, but will be activated by sound or will have infrared "eyes" that see when paintballs need to be loaded so that they only turn on when they are needed. This allows for longer battery life and for less noise coming from each individual player.

Tips

  • If you don't know a lot about paintball markers, get someone to explain the mechanics of the 98 to you. It isn't a complex marker and they are very fun to work on once you know a little about them.

Warnings

  • If you modify your marker to be electronic, it is tempting to replace the trigger spring and get an extremely light trigger pull, but make sure if you do this that you know what you're doing since having too light a pull could mean that a bump could set it off. If you're going to modify your gun, understand the additional responsibility that you have for understanding it and the additional safety issues involved.
  • Make sure you always follow all safety guidelines for the sport of paintball
  • If you don't follow the safety rules of paintball, people will get hurt. Not only will you cause an individual harm, but you could cause the sport to be banned and ruin the game for many players.

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