Tippmann M98 / Custom 98

In all the paintball world, there isn't a paintgun more bought, sold and loved than the 98 Custom by Tippmann Pneumatics. For a mere $140, you can own probably the most reliable paintball gun ever manufactured. It's an incredible price for what you get with the 98.

The 98 is an open-bolt, blow-back design. In other words, a tiny bit of air blows back the hammer each time you fire, re-cocking the paintball gun automatically (this is called semi-auto fire). Since the Tippmann team ingeniously placed all the working mechanism in one horizontal cylinder, the 98 looks as sleek as it is effective.

The Tippmann 98 can take CO2 or compressed air and you can mount your air cylinder in a variety of ways: vertical, bottomline, or off-gun. Standard with the 98 is a basic sight rail, quick-rotate feed neck (for speedy cleaning) and a vertical front grip.

The 98 is very customizable with a million and one barrels, grips, internals, sights and air options. Check them out here.

If you're looking for a smoking

tourney gun, the 98 is not what you want. It's a woodsball™ standard and you'll probably be disappointed in it if you're planning on joining a hot-shot tourney team. The 98 shoots plenty fast (around eleven balls per second) for woodsball and rec play, but don't expect to out-gun an Angel or a DM5.

Also, the 98 uses more air than a tourney-style gun and it's a little loud. Dedicated scenario and woodsball™ players may be disappointed in the front vertical grip. It's permanently affixed and that makes it tough to find cool foregrips to customize the overall look of your 98. If you're looking for the ultimate scenario gun, you should be checking out the Tippmann A-5.

Full-auto fire and the 98 don't go well together. Tippmann does offer the
E-bolt electronic system and the Response Trigger for the 98, but they are not necessarily ideal solutions. Since the 98 is a little limited in feed capacity, you will probably find yourself chopping balls if you crank up in full-auto mode. Again, the A-5 is a better solution for full-auto fire since the Cyclone feed is a more relaible system for rapid firing.

All-in-all, the 98 Custom is the best new player gun on the market today. It's all the gun most first and second year players can handle. And, you won't spend a bunch of time messing with it between games. Almost every 98 works flawlessly, rain or shine. Some day, you may want to upgrade to an A-5 or a more complicated Tac-one, but that's a story for another day.