I Have A C3!

[Logie]

I have in my posession a Tippmann C3 serial # 233. I got it yesterday. I'll have to say, it is certainly different than any other marker I've ever used. When I first hooked the bottle of propane up to it, I couldn't get it to fire right, even though I followed the manual for hooking the gas up and priming it. I was beginning to get a little disapointed in it when I found a section in the manual about the regulator built into the tank adapter. Turns out that this needs to be set at the same time. They really need to move that section to the front.
Once I got it firing, I chronoed it at 314! So it definatly has some speed available to it.
The marker is not too heavy nor too light. With a propane tank on it, it is actually nicely weighted. The pump action is a little stiff, but you have to make sure to pump it completely because there is a button that has to be depressed to expell the spent propane gas. Now as far as smell. You can smell the propane when you first hook the marker up, which is normal. If anyone has ever been camping and used a propane stove or lantern, you know what this smells like. Once the bottle is on all the way, there is no smell.
It uses an electronic ignition (uses a AA battery) to ignite the propane inside. If you put your hand in front of the barrel when you fire it, it is warm. The C3 is definatly going to take some tweaking on the owners part to make sure that you get the right amount of propane into the gun. Too much and the gun will run rich, just like an engine. You can actually tell by the sound of the shot if you have too much or to little propane.
When you pull the trigger it makes a sound, which I can only describe like a cricket, which is the electronic ignition. Compared to all other stock Tippmann's, the trigger has almost no pull to it. It is very light. But you CAN NOT do the "hold the trigger and pump to fire" method. The trigger must be pulled each time.
The only real problem I've had with it, is it not firing on a consistant basis. Like I said, I've only had it one day, so I haven't even taken it apart yet. (doing that in a bit) But from what I've seen, if you don't get the proper proportions of propane in it, it will not fire. This can be a problem because when you pump it again, you load a second paintball. I had to pump it upwards of 3 times to get it to fire, hence 3 paintballs came out at once. Another thing is that sometimes I had to pull the trigger twice to get it to fire. This is probably also due to not having the propane adjusted correctly.
One thing I am disapointed about is that there are really no upgrades you can do to this. Not even a barrel upgrade. But the distance I was getting out of it is comparable to a stock Pro-Lite/Carbine.
I think Tippmann has a great idea here and could possibly change the way some paintball is played. But I also think that there is a lot of refinement ahead. People's unfounded propane fears aside, this marker definatly has potential.

[4THDEGREE]

Nice write up. :)

[Ultran00b]

Great review, hope you post it in the products section and keep us posted man.

[smartguy41]

Cool! I might buy one of these if I ever decide to play woodsball sometimes!

[OmenPimp]

i dont liek the idea of adjusting teh propane. is it easy?

[Raleigh Allen]

Sounds pretty nice. Theyre already out?? I didnt know that.

[SEAL34]

Sounds pretty cool. I still don't know about the whole propane thing though. I don't know maybe it's just because I'm finally getting to switch to HPA. But thanks for the review Logie, you're a brave one for buying this thing.

[zeusg1pballer]

doesnt it get 50,000 shots per 16 oz tank...that would sound good if it was on a normal semi-auto but on a pump:eyes: . who would ever shoot 50,000 rounds with a pump. if u paintballed every weekend and used 500 rounds (with a pump thats a lot, and kinda defeats the purpose of a pump) it would take u 2 years to use that tank...it's a good idea i guess...but is it practical?

:rolleyes: ...u decide

[mshain81]

Where did you get the C3?? I'm pretty sure there not on the market yet...especially since they just tested it not to long ago

[Satanicsanta090]

doesnt it get 50,000 shots per 16 oz tank...that would sound good if it was on a normal semi-auto but on a pump . who would ever shoot 50,000 rounds with a pump. if u paintballed every weekend and used 500 rounds (with a pump thats a lot, and kinda defeats the purpose of a pump) it would take u 2 years to use that tank...it's a good idea i guess...but is it practical?


dude who cares....I like pump, and more shots just means more target practice and less money
shutup and enjoy the shots.....thats what I think. Having more shots for less money and smaller tank size is never impractical. Having spark plugs and batteries (and not to mention I have NO IDEA how to operate on the thing) could pose reliability issues....
pretty nice that the gun gets WARMer when it fires htough, and it comes with a regulator (its neccesary i know)

I would buy it if it was a little less moolah, and got tested much more.... not to mention it looks like crap

Hows the accuracy logie? and is the barrel really not metal?

[zeusg1pballer]

dude who cares....I like pump, and more shots just means more target practice and less money
shutup and enjoy the shots.....thats what I think. Having more shots for less money and smaller tank size is never impractical. Having spark plugs and batteries (and not to mention I have NO IDEA how to operate on the thing) could pose reliability issues....
pretty nice that the gun gets WARMer when it fires htough, and it comes with a regulator (its neccesary i know)

I would buy it if it was a little less moolah, and got tested much more.... not to mention it looks like crap

Hows the accuracy logie? and is the barrel really not metal?

I dont have anything against it...I was just making a point. Paintball is pretty much at a plateu (not sure if thats how u spell it) regarding improvements in most stuff. It's cool that Tippmann is trying new things. Someone was bound to try this out eventually. I've heard ideas of using propane as a propellant circling for awhile, I'm just glad someone finally made it work. I like pumps too, but I think tippmann should try and make it a true stock class gun. Granted, I know little about propane, but it would be cool if they could manufacture something similar to a 12 gram CO2 and a 10 round tube for it(i think the C3 uses a hopper...correct me if im wrong).

[Sore Pancake]

if they got 12 gram propane that would be like a 10 oz. Co2. that is so pimp!

[Santaclaus]

Will they use Nitroglycerin next?

[Sore Pancake]

to that all i say it..... BOOM!

[Jr.]

do u have like a pic cuz i would like to see it ive never heard of it but it sounds awesome

[smittay14]

haha i like the nitroglycerin comment:P

[~DaFlip~]

wow nice. so let me guess we can now bring our guns and camp with this new propane stuff :lol:

[j_dog0416]

To all the questions about where you can get these guns, look around. If you are still stumped, I saw them on Ebay this evening.

[elczaro]

try holding a lighter up to the end of the barrel and fire with no paint see if can function as a flame thrower

[j_dog0416]

Even cooler would be to ignite the exhaust gas as it leaves the barrel around the paintball, giving it the effect of a real gun.

I already know from the way that the C3 works that this isn't possible... But whats mind candy for, anyway?

[Santaclaus]

The ignition has already taken place before the gas leaves the gun.

It's kind've like a engine cylinder I'm guessing.

[Sore Pancake]

yeah, if you put a lighter at the exhust pipe of a car flames dont come out,

[xtremepantbaler]

Were did you get it from??:eek: ... From my understanding they're aren't out yet.. but thats awesome, i can't wait till i get one of those :love:

[j_dog0416]

I saw them on Ebay this evening.
... :dodgy:

[Soul06]

Alright everybody sounds all excited here so I guess I'm going to be the one to play devils advocate.
50,000 shots from a 16 oz. tanks, yeah thats very nice but how does that help you out in a game?
Better yet...if you took away the 50,000 shot of the propane tank thing, without that then how, honestly, would you rate this gun?

I use an HPA tank. I can get through about 5-6 games before i need a refill and when I go to get that refill its free and it takes 5 seconds to do. So this 50,000 shots thing is no big deal to me. So all it looks like is a slow pump gun; going from an A-5 shooting round 13-14 a second consistantly to shooting a shot or 2 every second? If you look at it like that then is it really a "must have" marker? Not to mention what happens if you unfortunately get a "bad" tank but dont find out till you get to the field? I'm pretty sure the field you play at isn't going to be selling propane tanks.

[j_dog0416]

I gotta admit, this gun does seem pretty useless. In games where you will need to shoot a lot, having a gun that will go lots of rounds without a refill is nice. However, when in your life are you conceivably going to shoot 50,000 paintballs without an opportunity to refill a CO2 or HPA tank?

So the other side of the coin is that this gun would be a good pump action marker, and in that case you wouldn't shoot much. Therefore, why not just use a 45 cubic inch tank of some kind?

I will admit, a propane powered paintball gun is a bit of a novelty. But until I see some marked increases in rates of fire, I don't really see any reason to own one of these except that you will get lots of oohs and aahs.

Tippmann came out with a cool idea and design. Only problem is, its about 5 years too late.

[Soul06]

I agree....the idea of 50,000 shots before a refill sounds nice but paintball is at a state when its really about performance. And performance wise this marker is about 5 steps behind the industry standard

[Sore Pancake]

Wait, Wait, Wait. You guys are taking this all wrong. YOu and i both know that this is not a speedball gun. it is for people like me, I live in montana(yes, there are people here). My closest Co2 fill it 30 miles away. thats not even mentoning HPA! so yeah, stop bashing the gun!

[Scrud]

how is 50000 shots not usefull? It opens a whole new era of woods ball! You could, for example, go camping with a bunch of buddies, and paintball one another all weekend; never having to worry about a refill! Bring a C-3, and a case of paint, and your set for a veritable paintball marithon!

[Soul06]

Wait, Wait, Wait. You guys are taking this all wrong. YOu and i both know that this is not a speedball gun. it is for people like me, I live in montana(yes, there are people here). My closest Co2 fill it 30 miles away. thats not even mentoning HPA! so yeah, stop bashing the gun!

Is this not a forum??? Are we not supposed to discuss our opinions and views. Just because you like it dont mean everyone else is going too. I can post any question I choose

[Soul06]

how is 50000 shots not usefull? It opens a whole new era of woods ball! You could, for example, go camping with a bunch of buddies, and paintball one another all weekend; never having to worry about a refill! Bring a C-3, and a case of paint, and your set for a veritable paintball marithon!

If you are talking about camping out in some woods way out somewhere then yeah it is good but how about for the hundreds of thousands that go to play woodsball at a paintball park that has refills for CO2 and HPA air there?

Its funny how yall all dance around my questions and start brigning up all this other stuff. Like I was origianlly saying, "If you go to a park that has free re-fills (CO2 and HPA), if you take away the advantage of the 50,000 shots capability then how would you then rate this marker?"
Don't talk to me about some empty desert in Montana or playign in some backwoods with no civilization around. Lets stay on topic

[Sore Pancake]

"I don't really see any reason to own one of these except that you will get lots of oohs and aahs."


Yeah, then theres the whole, $8 per 50,000 shots thing. i saw a graph and to get that many shot out of Co2 it would be like $250! thats the price of the gun it self!!

But it really comes down to where you live and how you play. So you guys stop say ing it sucks, and that its just "Old Technology." and i will say that its not as fast as your speedball oriented markers.

[TroyKrum]

Wow... very heated conversation.

First off... great idea from tippmann. Perhaps this was a stepping stone to creating a propane electric marker that shoots 50,000 rounds a tank but is also shooting 13-17 bps.

Would we all agree that would a great gun? If so... well we have to start somewhere. Your Co2 guns started as a pump and now are shooting 20 bps. What makes you think this won't happen with propane?

I am glad companies are looking into alternative means of powering these guns... at least one company is doing good for the sport and not their pocket books. This is another reason I bought a Tippmann - they are in it for the long run!

As for the C-3... it is not a speedball gun, by any means. But it would do good in a 24 hour scenario game.

[j_dog0416]

Yeah, then theres the whole, $8 per 50,000 shots thing. i saw a graph and to get that many shot out of Co2 it would be like $250! thats the price of the gun it self!!


Mostly true. You could own your own CO2 tank. A 20lb cO2 tank costs about 100, and fills for it are around $12 where I live. So you will get 20 fills for 20 oz CO2 tanks (tanks can only be filled 80%, and 80% of 20oz is 16oz, 16oz = 1lb). Figure 1100 shots per 20oz fill, if you do it right, and you will pay around $18 per 50,000 shots after the initial investment of the CO2 tank. And although the cost is more, you will have at least a 15bps gun.

Consider also the fact that many fields are offering all day fills of HPA OR CO2 for $5-$10. If you own your own Scuba tank, well, that requires calculus to figure the costs out and I really don't feel like doing that right now. Ha, I haven't had calculus yet!!!

how is 50000 shots not usefull? It opens a whole new era of woods ball! You could, for example, go camping with a bunch of buddies, and paintball one another all weekend; never having to worry about a refill! Bring a C-3, and a case of paint, and your set for a veritable paintball marithon!

I should point out that 50,000 rounds of paint is going to cost, if you buy the end run paint from ebay, which is very good paint in my opinion, around $720. If you have enough money to buy this much paint, you should have your own CO2 cylinder and fill station or SCUBA Tank.

Hey!!! Great idea for a propane powered gun! A holdout-type pistol! Find some way to adapt the cartridges for propane-powered nail guns to fit a paintball pistol, and you wouldn't be changing 12 grams anymore. I need to figure out how to do this.

I am glad companies are looking into alternative means of powering these guns... at least one company is doing good for the sport and not their pocket books. This is another reason I bought a Tippmann - they are in it for the long run!

Very true. I agree that propane is an interesting power source, and needs to be developed further. Remember the beginning days of HPA? It may be that soon we will have semi-auto LP powered markers. 5 bps is enough for me to get one!!!

[cheddarbob]

umm just to let you know i dont think it would require calculus to figure the costs lol. How are you going to say it requires calculus when you havent even had calculus yet? Unless that is youre referring to MINIMIZING your costs then thats a diff story (i like to be an *** =0)). And the thing with the 20 oz bottle and filling to 80% of it (which your saying you would actually fill up 16 oz) doesnt make sense to me (might just be me lol). The way I saw it is that the bottle actually has a larger volume than 20 oz (so the CO2 can expand of course), but whoever engineered the bottle wouldve indicated that when you fill 20 oz of CO2, that amount of CO2 has already been calculated to be 65% - 70% (as i recalled or whatever that figure is suppose to be, 80% sounds relatively high) of the bottles actual volume (which i calculated to be aprox. 28.57 oz assuming that 20oz of CO2 is 70% of the bottles actual vol.), that would make a lot more sense to me than to engineer a bottle and the airsmith would have to calculate or look at some chart that tells him how much to fill up lol. It doesnt make sense to slap 20 oz of CO2 on a bottle and then take it to an airsmith and he'd have to fill up less than what the sticker says lol. That x amount of CO2 on the sticker should already have been calculated to be a certain percentage of the bottles actual volume by the person who engineered it of course because that would be false advertisement and pretty stupid lol. The bottle says 20 oz but oh i can only fill 16 lol, right. So i think your kind of off on that lol. If i am wrong, then engineers in america are just stupid to have made something like that.....LET THE LITTLE EMPLOYEES OF THE PB SHOP DO THE MATH! LOL. That is pretty nice though to have a 12 gram cart. that would give you approx. 1323 shots BASED ON tippmanns claim that you can get approx.50,000 shots for 16oz (the conversion factor).
12g(1oz/28.35g)(50,000shots/16oz) = 1322.7 shots

[HELLS_SPAWN]

i think what would be sweet is to just find a way you can open the valve or somehtin then just have teh propane shootin out the end, then light it and whammo :eyes: . kind of a ridiculous an ddangerous but deffanatly a fun idea.

when i first saw this thing i thought it was just proppelled by the propane. then i heard it was actually exploding in the gun and i was like...so thats how they get 50,000 shots :p

[j_dog0416]

Thats what I thought too at first, that it was propelled by propane. I was like, How can they say that the consistancy is the same as HPA? But now it makes sense.

In reply to the post by cheddarbob, the label does not state the maximum fill capacity, but it does state the 100% fill capacity. There is a graph somewhere at Warpig that shows the pressure inside the tank versus the temperature and percentage of fill. They also state that the maximum that any tank should be filled is 80% of its rated volume. Now you can fill them less, but any more and pressures become hazadrous. For example, propane tanks, which are also filled with liquid, are regulated by federal law that states that they can only be filled 80% of their capacity. So a 1000 gallon propane tank may only be filled with 800 gallons of propane.

But we are off topic here. I found a cool article at the Seattle PI site that is about the C3. See it here. (http://prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SPILEI.story&STORY=/www/story/10-20-2005/0004173754&EDATE=THU+Oct+20+2005,+09:04+AM)

[TheJealous]

mmm FIRE

[NSGSplatmaster]

Personally I don't like the idea. If you want the gun, you can have it. Seems pointless for the majority of the market but does serve a specific niche. A friend of mine bought one to test it out and reported that, all joking aside, when he dry fired the marker about 10 - 15 times rapidly, blue flames DID appear at the end of the barrel. If the barrel is made of a plastic-ish material, doesn't that pose some concern?

Before someone says OMG UR TEH IGNORANT, I'm just stating a fact and a question, so any retardisms will be ignored. People on this forum really gotta grow up.

[j_dog0416]

Even after all my previous comments, I may need to pick one up just for the flames.

[Monkeyeez]

when he dry fired the marker about 10 - 15 times rapidly, blue flames DID appear at the end of the barrel. doesn't that pose some concern?
That is why this idea will only be good for slow shooting woods or pump fans. If they were to make this type of marker w/ say 10-15 bps ROF I'm pretty sure you'd get flames, fire, and general temp increase leading to either gun or paintball melt down. That is why you will never see this gun shoot much faster than it does now and certently not fast enough for the speed ball field. On the other hand congrats to the pump and woods fans you've found the perfect marker. Enjoy the seemingly endless pump action the C3 offers. :laugh:

[stray bullet]

Hey!!! Great idea for a propane powered gun! A holdout-type pistol! Find some way to adapt the cartridges for propane-powered nail guns to fit a paintball pistol, and you wouldn't be changing 12 grams anymore. I need to figure out how to do this.


Yes, finally... someone with vision. Airsoft calls it green gas and propane is ideal for a pistol. For example screw on the CH3 tank so some liquid flows into the reservoir. Remove the CH3 tank and play.

[QuicksilverJPR]

This gun sounds more like an offshoot of the old school muzzleloader more so than any paintball gun ever developed. So what that it happens to be actuated by a pump and an electric ignition trigger...the idea is sound. They "could" further develop this process into a semi-automatic, and I think this is Tippmanns way of testing the waters (all whilst introducing a different thought direction on propellent). Shoot, you could make your own automatic using parts of this gun plus designing your own (or buying off the shelf items) parts. The amount of propane required to fire the paintball is not that much at all, so that wouldn't even be the primary safety issue. Leaking cylinders/firing chambers and pre-ignition from the heat of the prior fired rounds would be, however.

Hell, I've already made a propane powered projectile launcher before (launched tennis balls). It's a lot like the old school potato cannons...

[Govinda_T]

The Tippmann website indicates that the barrel is indeed metal. How else could it be a mandrel-wrapped barrel? Although it says composite, it would be impossible to make a barrel for it out of plastic. Even if they could, it would be helluva inaccurate. They are probably referring to the pump assembly that is attached to to it, or maybe it has a polymer coating on the outside surface of the barrel.