Unfortunately, Tippman recently discontinued this fine paintgun due to slow sales and problems with breaking balls. (Which probably caused the slow sales.)

I bought a used one several months ago, and sure enough, it broke some balls and didn't always feed properly. Having just spent several hundred dollars on this gun, I decided that it might be worth a few hours time to see if this could be corrected.

I took the gun apart and the first thing I noticed was the rust. Tippman uses parts that are very rust prone, and if you don't take the gun down after every use and clean and oil these parts, pretty soon, you will have mess. So I cleaned all the parts up, polished them, and then coated them with Sandstrom 9A, a bake on Moly finish. I use this stuff on all my guns and it is great. Not only does it prevent rust for years, but it lubricates as well. More about this stuff later.

I reassembled the gun and test fired it. It wouldn't even fire 2 or 3 balls without jamming up. The balls were sticking in the feed rotor. In order to supply balls fast enough for Full Auto fire, the Tippman FA uses a spring wound mechanical feeder rather than the usual gravity feed. (The so called power feeds just make the balls take a right angle turn before dropping into the chamber. Useful, but hardly a power feed.)

Disaster! What had I done to screw up the gun?

Nothing. It had been raining hard every day for about a week, and the paintballs had absorbed enough water to make them a little sticky. So I mixed a little graphite in with the balls, and they all fed perfectly. But who wants graphite on their balls? Not me.

So, I needed to reduce the friction between the the balls and the feeder parts. The mechanical feeder makes for a positive feed with no blowback problem, but if the balls don't slide easily, they jam up the works.

I polished the rotor with a Dremel tool. (I highly recommend these for home gunsmiths. Walmart sells them cheap.) I also smoothed and polished the junction between the feeder and the receiver of the gun. I found some rough spots here. You will too. I reassembled the gun and very lightly lubricated the feeder rotor and housing with graphite. The gun feeds perfectly at about 10 to 12 bps. with RP Scherer or Proball. Nelson still breaks balls. If I increase the cycle rate or use Nelson paint, I have problems. The Nelson paint isn't as accurate either, but it sure is cheap. The TS1 will feed Nelson (or anything else) reliably but it is not too accurate with it either. The outer body of the feeder has tool and molding marks everywhere. If you could eliminate them and polish everything glass smooth I'm sure this would help too. It might allow higher cycle rates. It will not be easy to do right though, so I have left it alone since the other mods got the job done at the ROF that I like..

I have corresponded with a man who is in the SFX business in Hollywood. He uses Tippman FA's in his work, and has tuned them for almost 100% reliability, as ruining a multi thousand Dollar SFX shot due to a jammed gun does not set too well with his employers.

In addition to polishing the feeder housing, he recommends replacing all the o-rings in the gun with Nitrex ones. He also hardens the parts, uses 20" non ported barrels, and runs very high pressure nitrogen. I think he is launching his special purpose ammo at about 500 fps!

So if your Tippman is breaking balls, don't curse it or sell it, fix it. It's not hard to do, and you will have a fine shooting gun. This page will be updated as new information becomes available to me.

I finally got around to coating the feeder with the Teflon. It works just as good as the Graphite with no mess. It is a lot more trouble to apply though. Both do the job. I have not shot it enough to know how well it will hold up.

emails and Posts on my Mods for the FA
James and Sarah Murray on the Teflon coating

James,

Sorry about not responding to you question earlier. The Teflon coating on my F/A and my brother's F/A has held up well. I have shot a little over 6,000 paintballs threw my F/A and the feeder has not given me any problems. In my opinion the Teflon has held up exceeding well.

Posted by JoeVA (From Warpig Techtalk)

I had one, (Tippmann FA) and it was the best full-auto for the money. I also had a pro-lote, and I say that the full auto is much more expensive, breaks balls, and needs much more work for every time you play. ALTHOUGH, after I had it for about a month and really learned about it, and did some of the stuff to fix the feeding problems on the FUN Supply homepage, it worked perfectly, down to about 20 degrees F (yes, below freezing) as well as in the rain. I loved it, but I wanted a tournament gun, so I bought the AT-85R, the shortened, updated, TS-1 and an Air America Nitro system. All told, this cost me about $1250. The tippmann f/a was only 475 new, and you can use CO2 in it. If you know what you're doing, go for the f/a. The parts are almost identical with the pro-lite, and the barrlees are to same. Joe

About the Sandstrom 9A. They do not sell it in spray cans anymore, only Quarts. You will have to mix and spray it yourself. This is not something you have to do to make the gun work right, just an optional step.

Another similar product that has gotten good reviews is John Norrell's FS Moly Resin. It can be baked on as low as 200 degrees, so is suitable for application to plastic and composite materials as well as metal. This just might be be the best stuff to coat the feeder with, tho I have not tried it.