By Dave Goodin

If you’re a scenario or woodsball^™ player, and you’re using CO2 as a propellant, are you getting velocity spikes and dips when you play? Are you tired of the plus and minus 20 to 25 fps variations? If you are, you might want to think about adding a stabilizer to your rig.

I use a Tippmann A-5 with a rear velocity adjuster (RVA) from Jet City Specialties^™, the red spring from the Maddmann Spring Kit (more about this later in the review), a 32 Degrees coiled remote, and a tac vest when I play to get some weight off my gun and achieve better gun balance. And while this helps with expansion of gas and keeping liquid out of my paintball gun due in part to the remote line, it doesn’t do much for shot to shot consistency. For that, I turned to the pros at Palmer’s Pursuit Shop (PPS), and their lines of stabilizers.

Ask serious players who use a stabilizer what their product of choice is, and most likely, almost all of them will say Palmer. The support staff at PPS is helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. They know their products well, and are a great source of information for all of your questions and concerns.

Since I run with a remote and keep my tank off my gun, I use the Palmer inline stabilizer. Installation is a snap. All I had to do was remove the tank adapter from my remote line and screw one end of the stabilizer into the adapter, and then screw the end of the remote line that joined to the adapter into the other end of the stabilizer. The directions that came with the product were straight forward and easy to follow.

Setup for this system is pretty easy. I’d suggest adding an output gauge to the PPS inline stabilizer, so you can determine the output pressure going to you gun. Turn the valve control on the end of the stabilizer clockwise to increase pressure, or counterclockwise to decrease pressure. I set the output pressure on mine to 750 psi, which is within the operating limits suggested by Tippmann for the A-5. Now it’s time to chrono the paintball gun.

Tippmann paintball guns come from the factory with a standard forward velocity adjuster (FVA). The FVA is used to make large changes in the velocity of the gun quickly. The RVA, in conjunction with the Maddmann spring kit is used to make very fine adjustments to the velocity settings. The Maddmann spring is a bit longer and stiffer than the stock Tippmann main drive spring, and helps to keep the velocity on the higher end of safety limits. If you are not using a RVA, the spring upgrade is not needed.

Keep in mind that PPS claims there is a break-in period for this product, and that usually after two to three cases of paint have been fired with the stabilizer in place, the springs and valves inside the stabilizer are seated where they need to be for the settings you have dialed in. Until the Stabilizer is ‘broken in’, you will still experience some velocity fluctuations; however, once it is broken in, your consistency should stay within plus or minus 5 fps.

This product provides a vast improvement in the performance and velocity consistency of guns using CO2 as a source of propulsion.