[Shipwreck!]

I've been wishing I could convert my Tippmann A5 to a magazine fed marker ever since the first time I found my field of view dramatically impared by a ginormous hopper, spilled paintballs out of a hopper, spilled paintballs out of a pod and ran across a field with my hopper rattling away like a gigantic maraca! But I've never been able to think of a way to do it without drilling holes in my marker and knowing a whole lot more about pneumatics and machining than I do!

Then just today I opened my e-mail and found a notification from RAP 4 of their new mag feed conversion kits! Hallelujah the day has finally come! I'm so stoked!

Appearently the kit replaces the entire A5 clamshell so you don't even need to make any irreversible mods to your original! I just hope the mags come with a built in refillable air resevoir so the thing can be self contained, otherwise my air situations going to get akward fast (I've always run vert air on my a5). Might just have to go with a remote kit, it just so happens that this mag feed conversion kit is the only thing that could convince me to run one of those. As far as I'm concerned for a mag fed marker it's worth it to physically connect myself to my gun, and add some extraneous components to the air system.

But hopefully for the sake of simplicity the projectiles and propellent are both contained in the mag, and you don't have to keep buying 12gram cartridges. That would keep the whole system lighter, more compact, self contained, more simple and more convenient.

Anyway, I never would have thought of just replacing the whole clamshell and transfering the internals to the new one! Mostly because I would have assumed that for all that you might as well be buying a whole new gun! But for the earliest pre-orders they're selling this for 60 bucks! I think it's a little over a hundred if you wait till after it comes out.

But think about that for a second, if they can charge as little as $60 for the biggest, although probably the most simple, component of a paintball gun... how much are they making off us when they're charging us upwards of 2 or $300 for the same thing with a few extra parts that make it a whole paintball gun? Sounds to me like they could easily charge us $150 and still turn a healthy profit on an A5 style paintgun. That's a little disturbing, sounds like we're getting riped off if you ask me. But that's not the point of this topic...

If I have enough money this month I'll pre-order that kit for $60 know I'm at least getting a fairer than usuall deal and have a mag fed marker!

There's only one problem I've been able to identify so far (and hopefully it stays that way for years to come) which is that the top of their mag feed kit doesn't feature a flat-top rail... AND doesn't seem to match the top of the originall clamshell. Now everybody and their mother these days knows that a flat-top rial is the best way to go, and they also know that alot of people have spent alot of money buying aftermarket flat-top rails for their older markers A-5's 98C's etc. RAP4 knows these things too, so what this little snafu tells me about RAP4 is that they did this on purpose (so we don't have a flat-top rail to mount our optics AND can't use our old aftermarket rails) in order to force us to have to buy an all new flat-top rail for their new clamshell so they can make even more money off of us. And that sucks and dissapoints me alittle. But I shouldn't be suprised, after all RAP4 is a company and a company's ultimate goal is to make as much money as possible for the company. I do still find it a little disheartening though that such a cool company is still just like any other company

In any case I won't be getting suckered into this deal. Lucky for me I happen to have a few old weaver rails laying around from other deals I got suckered into (I hate you HotShot's Paintball), so I'm just going to weld those directly to the mag feed kit clamshell and make my own built in Rail Interface System... for free! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! That's why I call myself the Mad Scientist.

Sorry RAP4, as far as I'm concerned the profits you get from me pre-ordering your kit are all the profits you need! You guys could have made your kit with a flat-top rail or at least matched the original A5 rail for the cost of pennies in automated machining.

[cdrinkh20]

http://forum.moatipa...1

Sorry bud, someone posted it days ago!

[Shipwreck!]

Awwww I've been looking at the pics and found one more problem. The mag well is too far forward of the pistol grip. So even though it's got the m16 style mag release you won't be able to reach up and eject the magazine with your trigger finger. That'll make reloading a little bit slower, it's only a tiny little flaw and considering the build of the a5 (with the air fitting directly infront of the trigger) it's an unavoidable one.

[Shipwreck!]

cdrinkh20, on 28 September 2010 - 09:50 PM, said:

http://forum.moatipa...1

Sorry bud, someone posted it days ago!

Thanks for the headsup! I don't care who posted it first just wanted to put my two cents in... and now... copy paste!

[Krazy8]

Too many things about that conversion to worry about.

They do not show where the air input is for the A5. The conversion looks to cover the tombstone....so where does the air go?
It is obvious for the Phenom with its air through grip...but the BT, Salvo, Alpha, SW, Carver, M98, A5 and X7 are all shown with no air sorce adapter of any kind in the photos......kinda worrysome there. Perhaps it is a side tapped input on the other side of the body not in the picture.

Also...what is the drive system for the mags? Could there be issues with ball stack pressure crushing or deforming the paint while stored in the mags during play? Heat and humidity would be a real problem for these operating systems...we should not even mention the effects of sub freezing temps on pressure drive feed systems and paintballs.

As for the rails...lookks like they went with a standard picatinny system that should solve you problems on your A5. No more dremel work to mount your optics. Seems to be a good thing.
The A5 pic is hard to see at the funny angle the took the photo, hopefully if they did not include the picatinny rails they at least supplied the proper mounting points to place aftermaket rails.

The other thing that grabs my attention...the pricing. They are using the customer to flush out design flaws by offering the kits cheap up front and doubling the price in six months. Might be well worththe wait and the added cost to not get crappy quality

[Benaiah]

Krazy8, on 29 September 2010 - 11:50 AM, said:

The other thing that grabs my attention...the pricing. They are using the customer to flush out design flaws by offering the kits cheap up front and doubling the price in six months. Might be well worththe wait and the added cost to not get crappy quality

The kit wont be released until april, so even if you order now or order the last day of march youre getting the same kit. The pre-order price is an incentive to get consumers to commit to a buy so that they can more accurately estimate how many to produce.

[Krazy8]

Yep, I totally missed that line under the pricing. I am still very leary of 1st generation releases. I would still tend to wait a bit and hope others find and help fix design flaws.

[dextonik]

Looks intriguing. Although, Krazy has some points though. Personally, I really don't feel like buying something that would end up being more time consuming, high maintenance and possibly more problematic in the long run. I wish they would do some kind of try before you buy thing, so you know what you are getting instead of just reading reviews, and taking a risk on the product.

[LoD]

I am intrigued.. Thinking about pre-ordering.. I figure if I don't like it I can eBay it at a slight discount of the full price and still make a profit off of it.

[Shipwreck!]

Yeah I'm already worried, I was trying to figure out the air thing too hoping someone else had more info on it. But it's not in the mags like I hoped appearently so off the bat there's one thing I don't like. I was looking at the a-5 kit for a while and it didn't look like there's a rail on there, AND it doesn't look like they matched the A5 rail. If that's the case old aftermarket parts won't work, they're probably going to come out with their own aftermarket parts that do the same thing as the stuff I already bought and in one case made with my dremel tool hahhahaha! I take it Krazy8 saw my post on that!

Which SUCKS!

Also I'm not sure if the MP5 style forend is another add on like the stock in the rear, or if it's integral to the kit! If the later is the case then My flatline barrel, my stubnose barrel AND my original barrel won't work on this kit! And that would suck even more!!!

If I were the type to bite my fingernails when I worry I wouldn't have fingers anymore!

They said the mags are spring operated by the way. Seems like that's got you really worried but it doesn't bother me. I've never played in subfreezing temps and although I'd love too I seriously doubt I could drag my friend up to the mountains this winter for some outlaw ball, so all I have to worry about it high temps (SoCal) but if the pressure is a problem at normal or high temps all you would have to do is not load it all the way to keep the pressure down. 15 balls instead of 20 should do and wouldn't be too bad IMO. So that's not what has me worried just the barrel issues and the top rail or lack there of.


The thing that really bugs me though is that ALL OF THIS COULD BE AVOIDED! If manufacturers would just post better descriptions of their product online! I've bought so much crap online based on faulty or incomplete descriptions! Like a Lapco 45* offset rail. Special Ops described it as a 45* offset Weaver rail and only posted one tiny picture of it that was too low res to get a good look. When I got the thing it was actually 45* offset dovetail rail with a weaver side rail! Not at all the part I wanted or needed!

If TACAMO has an operational prototype AND THEY SHOULD IF THEY'RE TAKING PRE-ORDERS(!!!) why don't they have a specific description of how it works! And a freakin myriad of pictures of it from all angles in high resolution, with everything it needs to work!!! Including air! AND a video that shows the thing actually working!!! and a video that shows how it installs! That would be all the description we would need to really asses if we want the thing or not! It should be required by law so we can avoid getting ripped off! And they should be doing it even though it's not required by law!

Now I'm angry. I'm torn LoD has a good point if I pre-order now it'll only be 60 bucks, that's less than my flatline and a lot of other way less cool mods (UMS has a flat-top rail for $75!), and even if it sucks so bad I want to get rid of it after the pre-order dates I can sell it for $80, someone out there will be getting a better deal the TACAMO's offering with a way better product description (therefore less risk) and I'll actually be making money off the whole deal.

But Krazy8 is right too! Why go through all the trouble and risk when there will almost definently be a better version coming out later?

[LoneWolf99]

Given their history of quality control issues and the like, I'd say anything from them is at least suspect.

[Krazy8]

LoneWolf99, on 01 October 2010 - 07:45 AM, said:

Given their history of quality control issues and the like, I'd say anything from them is at least suspect.

I would have to agree 100% here. Tacamo and RAP4 both have had pretty bad first run release issues in the past.

So after watching the vid I am suspect of that actually being a working prototype. Now it simply maybe that the conversion kit just sounds thin and cheap when he released and inserted the mags, or it could be that the kit looks to be stamped metal and that contributes to the tinny sound. But couple that cheap sounding mag latch and the complete lack of detailing the actual operation of the kit on the X7 and I just tend to think they showed a nice looking mockup.
Which is understandable, they are looking at an April release. That gives them 5 months to finish product development and testing.

The A5 kit looks to be a simple reciever swap based on the shaded product picture.
It would look like your barrels will all still work and the picture they show of the MP is just fluff to look good in the picture and not a full bodied change over.

My thoughts wander to the weight. The kit looking like stamped metal might actually lower the weight of the A5...which is bonus for sure. Duribility comes to mind though...not sure you could do the truck test with the new mag fed recievers.

Without having accurate info on air adapter and a view of the other side of the A5 I would wait to buy...is the $ savings worth the headache?

Maybe you could get your answers with an email campaign. RAP4 needs pre sales to help finance development of the product, so they might be receptive to answering your questions...might even lead to a better product discription in the future. Give tham a nice friendly email asking about the air adapter and see what happens. The worst you could get is totally ignored!

I am not a milsim player...and will not be buying this kit ever. But it is nice to see progress made in the industry to feed the desires of those friends I have who really dig this type of thing.


*edit - after reading the individule product descriptions, they are all copy and paste descriptions with the marker names changed. In fact the pictures for the 98, Alpha, Carver Salvo and SW-1 are all the same...So I would think they are the same kit no matter the model sice those are all based on the same operational platform. Although they use the same pictures for the BT, the platform internals wise is the same, but the recivers are diferent for the trigger frame on the BT so I would think they do not have this one ready for pictures yet.

This post has been edited by Krazy8: 01 October 2010 - 10:30 AM

[scphantom9195]

If you look closely at the A5 pic, you can see what appears to be the tombstone between the magwell and the body, it looks like they just left off the airline.

I am curious about getting this kit for my A5. But I have the same concerns about quality. But for the pre-order price of $60, I might just risk it anyway.

This post has been edited by scphantom9195: 01 October 2010 - 10:18 AM

[Shipwreck!]

That's crap, I don't think they should start accepting pre-orders till they have a fully functional prototype. Is that so much to ask? How can they expect us to buy something if they can't even show us that it works, because it actually doesn't work???

I hope you're right about that kit, that'd be nice to be able to keep using my barrels...

Good point! Nothing would piss me off more than this thing breaking on me over something minor! Do they have a waranty of any kind?

This sucks, I knew this was gonna happen as soon as I saw it! "Hmmm... I'm gonna have alot of questions about this... wait pre-order? No one is going to have definite answers to any of my questions." Hahaha!

Good call Krazy, I'll hit em up and hope for the best.

I am not a milsim player either.

@Phantom: Yeah in the video they said you could run the stock airline through it... Not the air through stock line, although they said that too, I meant the original airline... you know I mean! Haha!
Yeah I'm probably going to be stupid and get it too...

[Krazy8]

There are two distinctly different pictures of the A5 kit.

The one they have the most pictures of shows the Tombstome pretty clearly...yet there is the first picture in the product discription...the Tombstone section is compleatly changed out. Looks much like the X7 design.

I seriously think they are still working on the final product and have not finished a final version at all yet. Probably still in the prototype design phase and not down to production model.
With the late April date, they have a full 5 months before they must comit to a production run. Hope to see more from them in that time.