The Flatline Barrel System is the first barrel to put back spin on paintballs. It not only increases accuracy and distance, but it also has a flat trajectory.
Product Availability
The Tippmann A-5 Flatline Barrel is newer, so it should be commonly available, both new and used.
Places to Buy
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Tippmann A-5 with E-Grip system
Offset scope mount
Red Dot Scope
Laser Site
MP5 Foldable shoulder stock
Fake MP5 9mm clip
20 ounce air capacity
Flatline Barrel
other:
12 inch werks barrel
3 inch barrel
Silencer
400 paintball hooper
Recommended Paintballs:
Marbilizer
Strengths:
Accurate
Long Range with all paintballs
Looks like a silencer
Weaknesses:
Needs high quailty paintballs such as marbilzer to shoot accuratley
$100
Loud
Review:
Well when I first got this barrel I thought all I had to do was put the barrel on and shoot paintballs out of it and be amazed of the distance and incredible accuracy.
I was in for a surprise.
I was using one of the cheapest paintball brands out there - wildstreak orange paintballs. And I also had my velocity set at 300 fps. Well I attactched the barrel and air supply, loaded the hopper with a cupple hundred paintballs and started shooting at a stop sign buy my house, whitch was about 175 feet away and i started fireing full auto. I was like WTF because all the paintballs actuay seemed to almost repel off the stop sign, none of them hit. Untill i read some info. online that you have to have special paintballs inorder to handle the pressure the flatlines system puts on the paintballs. I then realized i had to get some sort of small bore sized paintball, so later on i went to my friends house and eventualy he offered me some of his spare paintballs, (he gave me liek 30 or so..) and i looked at them and they were smaller (most paintball guns, atleast tippmann guns like the 98 brands and the A5 use .68 cal. you can tell if its not .68 if the paintball just roll down the barrel, of it gets stuvk tight then its .68) well these paintballs rolled clean down the barrel and they were somewhat hard and were really circlular. i then loaded all the paintballs into my hopper and started fireing at the sign again, 3-4 out of every 5 paintballs hit. Later on i wanted to call tippmann and ask them about what types of paintballs they would possibly recomend for the flatline system and they said they use marbilzer. i bought some offline (becuase they didnt have them at any places like walmart or kmart) and found them, but there like twice the price - normaly paintballs go for around $10 for 500 or so but these ones are $20 for 500. i bought them saying they would work and i also changed my fps to 280 and when i got the paintballs in the mail i imediateley loaded my hopper and shot the hell out of the stop sign, 10 out of 10 paintballs hit!! YES!
Conclusion:
Set your veolicty to around 280 or so and use HIGH quality paintballs while this barrel is attachted to your gun. REMEMBER paintballs are NOT paintballs, quaity DOES matter. =D
Tippman custom pro w/ egrip and 16in smart parts prog barrel. and a A-5 w/ flatline and saw stock
Strengths:
Range
Weaknesses:
Quality control
Review:
Im not bashing tippman or the flatline, but the barrel i got should have never left the factory. the adapter that fits into the gun, not the barrel its selt, was visibly bent. i didn't notice this till i shot it, the balls would come out about 3 degrees to the left, and everything was lined up. tippman said they would send me a new one so A+ for costumer service D- quality control (in this case, all other tippmann product i own A+).
Conclusion:
I recommend that you inspect every thing you buy before you install it.
Adds great distance to your paintballs while maintaining its accuracy.
Weaknesses:
If your paint sucks, the accuracy goes down, though thats the same with all barrels.
Review:
When I used to play, I would get upset when I could see somebody but the balls fell before they reached them. Thats the reason I bought the Flatline and it hasn't failed me since. The barrel is amazing, the ball will literally glide to your opponent! And it makes you gun look sweet in the process.
Conclusion:
This is a great addition to you marker setup. Not only does it improve on everything a barrel can improve on, its consistent. I definitley reccomend you spend the $90-110 and buy this barrel.+ It looks cool too.
Distance!
Sound!
Looks like a bis supresor.
Straightness!
Weaknesses:
Cant twist off!
Review:
Well, I certainly dont like the fact that you cant simply twist it off! So it better not break a ball! But, I took it out today and tested it. Wow, was I amazed to its accuracy and distance with the crap balls I was using. So far so good! Shoots superbly, and effeciently. Will update as I go...
UPDATE: Nov 14, 2006:
After using it a bit, I've decided that OPSGEARS 16" Tactical Barrel is much better! With the Flatline, like I mentioned above, you cant simply twist it off to clean it should you break paint. The barrel itself needs to be put in to the gun itself. So, the gun has to be taken apart, which is why I decided to change it.
Also, imo, the looks of OPSGEARs 16" Tactical is way better. You can easily twist it off to clean, and simply works better with tactical upgrades, imo.
I change my review from a 9 to a 8.
Conclusion:
Worth the $! But a pain in the but to remove, clean, and so on.
Rating:
8 out of 10
Last edited on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 9:21 am PST
The barrel is great it really does give it a ton of distance and still provides enought power for the ball to break on the guy. This barrel is like no other wich means with each ball it is going to be a little different. This barrel does increase the distance your paintballs will travel but it is still a little in accurate.
Conclusion:
This is a really good barrel i like it a lot. Although it is a little pricey it is still worth it. I reccomend this to anyone with an A-5.
No Breakage as of yet... Shot over 6000 rds so far
Weaknesses:
Bulky and big
Review:
Actually I'm still a bit frustrated with this barrel. But when I can see that when the settings are set, this gun can be dangerous. When I first got it I filled it with Core Paintballs. Honestly I was about 100 ft from a cd case sized hydro meter I aimed and nailed in first shot. Maybe beginners luck though.
I've shot over 6000 rds so far with this Barrel with no breaks. I started with Core Paintballs and they worked quite well. Then I bought RPI Premium paintballs. They like to curve and am not happy with them. I don't have a chronograph so I don't have an accurate reading but I've been playing around with the velosity settings.
Manufacturer recomends 275 fps w/ marbellizer paintballs for this barrel.
I guess I can say that with more paintball research I will have a better idea on how good this barrel really is.
Conclusion:
for recreational play this is top of the line good quality sweet looking barrel. If your pondering tournament play you should probably steer clear of this barrel and an a-5 all together as it's not really a tournament gun
Rating:
8 out of 10
Last edited on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 11:45 am PST
When this first came out my freind bought it then sold it to me for 30 bucks I thought that it looked cool so I bought it.(i was a newbei at the time) As soon as i bought i went to my house and hooked CO2 and poured in paintballs. I was all ecited about it and took 5 shoots at a tree about 20ft-35ft and my smile droped in to a froun real quickly when I figuered out that not one shot hit the tree.
Conclusion:
DO NOT get it ivebin paintballing for a while now trust me I know paintball Ive bin playing tournaments for about 3 years now. Get a J&J ceramic or a smart parts progresive. Have you ever heard the phrase any thing is better than nothing and the A5 flatline is nothing.
Spyder Electra with Eye, Halo B Hopper w/rip drive and victory 35 board, comressed air
A-5 RT with Flatline, CO2
Recommended Paintballs:
Stinger
Strengths:
Distance
Weaknesses:
Really big target in speed ball
Review:
A bit more accurate than the stock barrel but not as accurate as the sniper barrel.
Adds so much more distance that you can not go wrong.
It is a kind of big target at close range but you just have to learn to play around this only bad feature of the barrel.
Conclusion:
If you want your A-5 to shoot farther than the rest, buy the flatline barrel
A-5
Response trigger
Special ops A5-A2 stock
Special ops frontgrip(stock bottom line)
ADCO Hot shot sight
PMI remote line
Tippmann A-5 flatline
Smart Parts progressive(barrel I used before I got flatline)
Recommended Paintballs:
This barrel works best with .688 cal. paintballs. if you use any thing smaller you will not be able to hit anything
.688 paintballs I have tried and had success with: PMI Premiums
Strengths:
Flys flat
flys far
as accurate as any other barrel
the ability to hook shots
Weaknesses:
Requires .688 paint
Maintenance
Thats about it
Review:
I have been playing paintball for a while now and I have gotten sick of having to lobe shots. The difference between a paintball gun and a real gun is that paintballs go way slower and they also loose speed, this causes the paintball player trouble because he has to lob his shots in order to hit his enemy from a far distance. If you get the flatline you wont have to do this.
The flatline works by putting backspin on the paintball. It does this by the curve of the inside of the barrel. Also the inside of the barrel is like a very fine sandpaper. The sandpaper surface and the curve combined causes the ball to go into a spin. and when it flys out the spin stops it from flying in a parabolic trajectory and instead it flys in a completely flat line.
Don't let someone fool you into saying that the flatline is bad, it isn't. here are some common problems that people did not do anything about and say that the flatine is bad just because the don't know anything about it or what its requirements are:(look in the low ratings and im sure those peoples flatlines would work if they didn't have these problems)
1.the barrel could be a factory defect
2.wrong size paint(remember that you NEED to use .688 NOT .685)
3.wrong velocity(should be around 270 range)
4.Flateline is not aligned(the top screw with the sight, you will know what I mean once you see one)
5. poorly maintained(see below)
Another thing that this barrel needs that most other barrels don't is that it needs to be cleaner. the sandpaper like texture on the inside of the barrel catches debris from paintballs and other things. every once in a while you should run scalding hot water through the barrel for at least 5 minutes. I have even heard of some people boiling their flatlines after every time that they play.
A cool thing that this barrel can do is that it can hook shots or do drop shots(the same thing that the Apex does but the Apex makes it easier). all you have to do is turn it sideways and you can hit people behind trees
Some people say that the flatline is inaccurate. This is NOT TRUE, I know people that would choose their flatline over their all-american! The flatline is only inaccurate if the user is doing anything wrong(see paragraph three)
Conclusion:
I recommend that you get this barrel if you are sick of lobing your shots to hit people. this barrel is accurate, long range, cool looking, durable, and can do many more things that other barrels can't do. I believe that it is worth the money for this great barrel.
Tippmann A-5 with Richochet hopper, fixed stock, JJ ceramics barrel, WAS board egrip for rec and scenario play. Also have an Ion with new trigger, feedneck, QEV, CP reg, and custom drop forward with Halo B w/ rip, JJ ceramics and CP barrel for the Ion, use it for speedball.
Recommended Paintballs:
N/A see below review
Strengths:
See review
Weaknesses:
See review
Review:
Alright, I know some of you are going to tear me up for this one, but I bought the flatline a month and a half ago, and I've had nothing but problems with it since. I have not been able to get my velocity above 210 fps with this thing. I've tried everything, new springs, new screws, clamping this thing down to make sure theres no leaks, regulators, expansion chambers, I don't know what to do with this thing. As soon as I put it on, my velocity adjuster just doesn't work any more and the barrel is useless. At the same time, when I use my ceramic barrel, back to normal, no problems at all, so it's not my gun, it's something with the barrel. I'm in contact with the dealer that I bought it from and he's giving me some good customer service (he's going to take it back and give me a full refund when I go back next week). I'm very very dissapointed, because during some of my scenario games, I'd love to be able to reach out another hundred feet, but this thing has been nothing but problems for me. If anybody has had this problem before, write a comment and let me know how you fixed it, or if it just cant be fixed, I'd appreciate it.
Conclusion:
I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but unless I can get it working, this is definately a 1 until I can get it fixed. If somebody can helpe me out with it, I'd be happy to give it a new rating after I've been able to actually use it.
Rating:
1 out of 10
Last edited on Sunday, June 11th, 2006 at 10:50 pm PST
