Originally Posted by shartley

The quick answer is that an A5 is not too clumbsy for speedball. How the marker is set up may make it more or less compact than other markers on the speedball field, but that is all about marker setup not the base marker. But I will say that if you are making a “speedball” A5, a Flatline barrel is not really a requirement. Flatlines are for folks who want to float their paint at farther distances than the average marker. But in speedball I just don’t see that as an issue. Any relatively good quality barrel will work just fine for you.

As for being too big or clumsy, that depends more on you than the marker IMHO. For me, it takes an awfully large and cumbersome marker to be “big and clumsy” for me. But I am a relatively big guy and like my marker to have a little weight. However, if you are of smaller stature your standards will probably be different. I will say however that I don’t consider ANY A5 in pretty standard “dress” to be heavy nor clumsy.

You can set up your A5 (or ANY marker) for any style of play. The standard A5 with tank as a stock will give the marker a longer setup than if you used a drop forward and pulled it in tight. Or you can use a short stock (either off the back of the marker or bottom of the grip frame) and make a relatively compact setup. And a lot of speedball players like longer barrels when playing so they can press them into the side of inflatables. So you can still keep a short setup with long barrel. And so on and so on….

But all of this is purely subjective. And often times speedball players try to compare markers to others on the field or they are used to using. This IMHO can give an unfair representation of any given marker. The best way to see if it will work for you is to get your hands on an A5 and play with it, either in a game or just pretending to shoot it and see how it feels when you snapshoot or switch targets quickly.

I hope this helps.