I have a tippmann a5 and i find the accuracy is lacking, at 50ft i have a spread of 26 inches and I have noticed some balls will randomly not go anywhere near the target, veering way off to the side. I was wondering what can i do to improve the accuracy of my marker?

I recently upgraded to HPA and that only seemed to help with vertical consistency, not helping with the random few balls that would veer off to the corner.

I polished my internals and completely cleaned out my gun, this helped greatly with velocity spikes, now only +- 6 or so on the chrono.

But still the gun shoots all over the place, the first two shots are accurate but after that the shots will curve out to a side randomly.

A few suggestions some friends have given me:
Get a better barrel, preferably the Palmers Brass Barrel - haven't tried yet
Try Better Paint, im am currently restricted to field paint but it shoots perfectly fine out of my friends invert mini with the same bore size. Diablo Heat is the name of the paint

Basically what im looking for is mods to increase the accuracy of my a5 so that my shot to shot consistency is much better, i would prefer to modify what i have so i don't have to go out and buy things (such as internal mods to existing parts), but if a certain part will increase accuracy i'll be willing to try it.

If possible post about the accuracy of your a5, i would just like to know what sort of pattern i can come to expect from the mods, or if i should just accept the fact that the a5 isn't the most accurate marker in the world.

Any help is greatly appreciated - Garrett

I have only noticed mine doing that with lower quality paint as you mentioned. I recently bought a 10" jj ceramic barrel and it is pretty accurate. I had several paint on paint shots even with my crappy practice paint. So that being said my suggestion is to get a good barrel. As per my limited experience, I would suggest a jj ceramic. They are inexpensive do the job.

Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

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Allot of people recommend the J&J ceramic barrel, how much better is it than the stock barrel? and what would you say is the maximum effective range of the a5?, i have had my a5 for about 2 years now but never really spent the time to measure range and accuracy until now, when i was using my buddies good paint ( idk what it was called ) i could hit a tree about two feet thick at ~145ft with 7 / 10 shots hitting the tree. But recently im noticing that my a5 is is less accurate ( only can hit 2/10 shots on the tree ) , could it have something to do with how tightly i put the receivers halves together, or the wear on internal components?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

the a5 isnt a very accurate gun to begin with, dont get me wrong im not trying to bash it but a simple blowback marker isnt going to be nearly as accurate as a spooly or poppet valve, bore sizing your paint to barrel and getting a better barrel overall is really as you have left to do to get the most accuracy out of your a5, palmers brass is good, but in my mind a bit overrated as all brass has over a standard barrels is a lower friction coefficient with paintballs... for a barrel i recommend Lapco bigshot or snapshot if you like 2 peice barrel systems, or my barrel of choice hammerheads - Widowmaker, sharktooth... and the others all great barrels.

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Yeah, like pretty much everyone has said, the barrel is going to make the biggest difference. You might consider looking for one that has different fins(the part that actually threads into the gun) to used based on the paint you're using. I've never had any accuracy problems with my A5 and have shot a .688 barrel with lots of different paint. Do you know if you have the old or new style valve? The new style could help as well

So it seems like all of you recommend that i get a better barrel, but the thing is I've never had accuracy problems with this gun with the stock barrel before until last time i played, maybe i never noticed because its the only gun i have. When it comes to barrels i hear the same three names over and over but i don't know which ones the best, J&J ceramic, Lapco Bigshot, Palmers brass barrel. Will all of them have a noticeable improvement over the stock barrel? What barrel do you recommend from the list?

And as for having a newer or older style of valve, im not sure which style i have, i bought the gun in 2010 at a local paintball shop (Mikes Paintball) and i have tried looking up what valve i have but couldn't find anything. I think i might have the new style because the gun has an O-ring where the cyclone and RT go

If this helps at all recently i've noticed that when i go to field strip the marker that the internals no longer just slide right out, i have to loosen the receiver halves to remove the internals, which is why earlier i asked if the tightness between the two halves matter.
Thanks for all your help so far

The stock barrel is really not very good. Spend the $30 and get a better barrel. Despite what others are saying, bore sizing your paint doesn't really improve accuracy. The best thing you can do to improve accuracy, is buy better paint. The more consistant the paint is, the more accurate the gun feels. The quality of paint can very box to box depending on how old it is. That is why your gun may shoot a certain paint good one week and shoot it all over the place 3 or 4 weeks later.

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Living my life for whatever (Phil. 4:8).

I think it really comes down to personal preference. I have never heard a complaint about the jj or any of the lapcos. I have heard a few negatives regarding brass, one was mentioned here earlier and I do not recall the others.

You will probably hear as many suggestions as there are brands out there

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A better barrel is the way to go if you aren't able to improve your paint.
Of the three mentioned here, the best for someone on a budget is the J&J. They max out in price at $40, and they're quite consistent. They're also fairly durable.

I have:

A5
J&J Edge Elite Barrel sizer KIT (Typically use the 12" front)
HPA
RVA (rear valocity adjuster)
Typically only shoot high quality paint (Lately it's been Valken Redemtion)
Chono @ 270FPS

For the most part this set up is way more accurate than you describe yours is.
Paint quality play a HUGE(!!!) role in accuracy.
Keeping you barrel CLEAN/DRY is ultra important.

That's all I have for now...

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