What ever happened to the F/A?

[The Paintballer]

A fully-auto tippmann what happened to it?

[specter542]

u mean the factory F/A, well sadly, it was decommisioned, but the new Tippmann A-5 has the same feeding system as the F/A. i have a pic of one, but the size is to big :(

[Meph]

Actually no, there are quite different.

The Factory F/A star feed system runs off a coil/spring. An average of 150 shots for 30 turns/revolutions of the spring. Meaning every time you spin that star once, it can feed 5 paintballs. And every hopper, you must re-wind the spring. But be careful, 30 is the suggested maximum. Any more could over-wind it and snap the spring.
Also, with the F/A it has 2 shock absorbers on top that also adjust the Rate of Fire of the gun. And it's a pain in the ***. You must turn one pin, and then cock the gun and turn the next one and wait for the shocks to click into place. Must be done every.... oh, 2000 shots. And also, the spring itself must also be lubricated every 2000 shots with specially made Tippmann spring lubricant. (Lucky me, I have a whole bottle).

Now for the A-5. It's totally pneumatic. The star feed on the A-5 has no more winding or spring, instead there's a piston that pushes the lever to turn the star feed 1/5 a turn. Meaning with every single shot, it feeds one paintball from RT-styled bursts. A lot better than the Factory F/A. And with this method, a cycle (supposidly) rate of 16bps with no chops or misfeeds.
Added plus with the A-5 version is an anti-jam rod. Just push it up, it'll lift up the star feed, and make the paintballs unjam. Unlike the F/A where you had to take off the top part of the loader and then manually unjam it.

Now why did the F/A production stop? Well, for that very reason. F/A. Fully automatic. It's around that time places were outlawing fullauto. Plus people were just getting tired of winding every hopper.