Tippmann Mods that Make Sense
(and a few Mods that Don’t)

Tippmann Custom Grips

Every paintballer wants to take his paintgun to the next level.

Better, stronger, faster. . .

Tippmann owners are as vulnerable to this impulse as anyone. Luckily for us, there are literally dozens of cool mods for the most popular Tippmann paintball guns – the 98 Custom and the A-5. Unfortunately, the Pro/Carbine and Pro-lite were not made with mods in mind, so there are fewer mods for these trusty Tippmann designs.

But not all mods were created equal. Many Tippmann mods do nothing to improve performance of your paintball gun – and frankly, many other mods are expensive pieces of junk. Beware, when selecting mods for your custom Tippmann. Customized guns are very cool, but you’ll want to make sure you get what you pay for.

Grips 101

While the Tippmann A-5. was clearly modeled after the Heckler and Koch MP5K PDW machine pistol, and the 98 Custom has no similarity to any firearm, both are very good platforms from which you can build a "military simulation" or "milsim" paintball gun.

For starters, the A-5 readily converts into a good simulation of various forms of the well-known MP5 machine gun. By swapping the foregrip and adding a stock conversion, such as the SpecialOps Paintball A-5 A2 Kit, you quickly convert the A-5 into a standard MP5.

A multitude of cosmetic magazines, foregrips, barrel shrouds and receiver shrouds are available for the Tippmann A-5 and Custom 98, but many of them are useless and often poorly made mods. Many of these mods detract from the functionality of the original paintball gun, are very expensive and add useless weight to your Tippmann. But others can be great additions to your beloved Tippmann and they actually lend themselves to improving your play.

A good case-in-point would be the Pro-team Ranger/Elite Foregrip. If you’d like to make your Tippmann A-5 or Custom 98 look like a Colt M16 or AR-15, SpecialOps Paintball offers the full Pro-team line of conversion mods. The Ranger foregrip attaches to your barrel and stays with it when you remove it for cleaning. Also, you may consider adding a collapsible stock and a raised sight rail. In any case, these are probably mods that make more sense than not. By adding the sight rail and forward grip, you improve the ergonomics of your Tippmann and make it easier to sight down the rail or to use a scope or pointsight.

Other foregrip mods make far less sense. Some "manufacturers" sell foregrip kits cut from airsoft toys. These foregrips are often marketed as "light," "medium" or "military" grade parts. In reality, they are flimsy mods that you could make yourself in your own garage for less than twenty dollars.

These "upgrades" begin life as a Chinese-made, low-end airsoft toy, many of which can be purchased for under ten dollars. Then, the paintball company will chop off parts of the toy that are cosmetically useful. These parts are then glued to chunks of PVC sprinkler pipe and sold as a product "manufactured" by the paintball retailer. As you would imagine, the end product is extremely flimsy, loose and unsuited to the rigors of paintball.

Worst of all, the parts add no functionality whatsoever to the host Tippmann paintball gun. They only add weight and make the Tippmann more difficult to operate. Unfortunately, these rip-off mods can look very interesting from a distance. As you shop the internet, beware of mods that look too cool to be true. They probably are.

Strangely, these chop jobs are very expensive, especially considering their origin. This has led to many unhappy Tippmann owners who bought a foregrip that looked like a million bucks on the website, but turned out to be another costly lesson in buyer beware. If you notice that your new stock was glued together from toy parts, send it back and get your money refunded.

While it is very tempting to join the "hacksaw" industry of chopped-up airsoft mods, SpecialOps Paintball has chosen to stick with quality product that has been built from the ground up to function outstandingly well in the paintball environment. You can count on all mods found on this website to maintain a superior level of quality.

Currently, quality foregrip mods for Tippmann paintball guns are limited M16/AR-15 and MP5 styles. SpecialOps Paintball is currently in design and production of several other mods which will not only continue our tradition of fine quality, but will add useful functionality to your Tippmann. Please feel free to let us know of foregrip mods that you would like to see produced by adding your opinion to our forum.

Everyone wants their Tippmann to look cool and to be unique. We’re all willing to sacrifice a little functionality in the name of style. However, make sure that your Tippmann add-on is quality-made and that it will actually help your marker perform better. There are so many quality, sensible mods on the market that you should accept nothing less.

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