Apex Barrel System NEEDED

[twitch515]

Does anyone have an Apex for an A5 that they are selling? I'm having second thoughts about 3" barrels

[jimy]

All you really need is the tip. The barrel for the apex sucks.

[Delta Echo]

A lot of my team runs Apex barrels and have little to no problem w/ their range, accuracy, or reliablity. They are just long enough to stabilize the paintball and bring them up to the FPS limit (speed) without having to increase air consumption / decreasing dwell.

3" barrels work great for CQB work, but not much else IMO, even w/ the addition of an Apex tip. The barrel is just not long enough to stabilize the direction of the ball.

Every wonder why you don't see pros in the NPPL using 3" barrels?
Think about this:
To get a paintball out of a 3" barrel up to 280psi, you have to hit it with a lot more air and a lot harder in a quarter of the amount of time (short dwell) as you would need for a 12" barrel. When you hit a paintball w/ an air burst, it momentarily deforms the paintball. The harder the air hits it, the more it deforms. Not a big deal for a 12"+ barrel where the ball has enough time traveling down the barrel to stabilze its flight path, but w/ too short of barrel, you won't have that luxury. Also the shorter and harder blast of air increases the likelyhood of the paintball breaking in the chamber or barrel.

I believe WARPIG did some studies and determinded the ideal barrel length for accuracy and air effeciency to be between 12" and 16" long with porting on the last 2" to 4" of the barrel tip.

Don't get me wrong, 3" barrels have their uses, I just don't think they are suitable as a general purpose barrel, even w/ a Apex tip.

Keep looking Twitch515, once you find your A5 Apex barrel, you won't be disappointed.

[krar]

how accurate and whats the range with the apex?

[MMPTgoblin]

it works basicly like the Flatline. It puts backspin, frontspin, and side spin to make it do what it does. so i think it should be pretty accurate, like the flateline.

[Delta Echo]

Depending on your marker/air setup, Apex settings, and paint...
You should consistantly see at least a 5 to 15 yard increase in range. Some say it gets even better range than the Tippmann Flatline, but I have never seen a side-by-side comparison.
Accuracy compared to conventional barrels is very compairable at close to mid-ranges, but noticably better than conventional barrels at long to extended ranges.

One nice thing is how flat your shots become. You don't have to worry about compensating for range with arc. This makes it very easy to "snake" your shots through openings in the foliage or through small openings.

One not so nice thing is your point of aim is totally different. Unlike the Tippmann Flatline barrel you have to "aim" your marker slightly up to shoot level. Some people have a lot of trouble adjusting to this. But I have found once you get used to it, its not too big of a handicap. Just takes practice to aclimate to.

The BT Apex barrel does have a fairly large inner diameter to accomodate most all paint, so to help with accuracy and air efficency we us Python sizers with our Apex barrels which also act as thread converters as BT does not make Apex barrels w/ Angel A1 threading.