Ok, so I hate the way my flatline looks and the extra weight of its shroud, so I threw it in my gear box and bought a Special Ops MP5 SD shroud (the short one).

It really looks great and balences well with the stock A5 Barrel, but I would also like to hit the broad side of a barn. I have a 12in all american but it looks horable, it just doesn't flow with the lines of the gun.

I was thinking about having palmers make me a 10" unpoarted, is this worth my money? I'm open to sugestions and don't have my hart set on any one brand. I'm hoping someone has a 8-10" barrel that will out shoot the stock and not mess with the look of my gun.

thanks

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I have the Lapco bigshot 8". Its shoots most paint well. Hopefully you know its the paint to barrel match that matters most. I dont have a Palmers (yet) but have heard they are as good. I would do some searching with regards to the paint you want to shoot or the one that you will most likely shoot and pick the barrel on that basis. As far as looks go isnt the barrel covered by the SD kit?

yeah there are a lot of threads here with discussion on barrel.
Like Barron said, the paint to bore match is very important.
As to know if the same barrel at 8 inch is as accurate as a 8 inch.. yes. A paintball kinda only needs 8 inch to set his line

Bigshots are popular and Palmers also.
Alot of palmer brass owners swear to there barrels..
I have never tried any of the 2, but you can't go wrong with Lapco or Palmer
Or if you change ball sizes often, then get a barrel kit to match the bore size.

and if you want to know if an after market barrel is better than the A5 stock barrel.. yes

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The only barrels I have actualy played with on th A5 are the stock (one game) and the flatline, so I'm honestly not sure what kind of acuracy to expect. In the past I have had guns that shot excedingly well with the stock barrel and poorly with aftermarekt. And I know that some barels tend to do resonably well with all paint wile otheres tend to be picky.

My shroud is the short version, it ony covers about 5-6" of the barrel.

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Well, pretty much any after market barrel is better than the stock A5 barrel. Other markers have great stock barrels.. but not the A5

Alot of people say that the plamers barrel is excellent for alot of paintball sizes because of its shape. I did not read or tried this, but alot of people love the palmer because of this.
You should maybe read into it.

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Python compression kit maybe your answer. It you don't want to spend alot I just picked up a kit for $27 shipped. Still waiting for it to arrive but the reviews are good. You can use the stock barrel or any other barrels except the flatline you may have. But if you want to go for a higher priced kit look into the hammer head sharktooth.

Edit: I have the same shroud and was in the same boat as you. Even a 12" barrel looked odd with the shroud to me. So I purchased a 8" apex ready bigshot. Wasn't happy with the accuracy so I purchased the python to help with accuracy.

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I'm your Huckleberry......

I'm tempted to cut dow my all american tip to 10", but cutting the crown perfictly square would be a trick. And after all that work it would still look silly.

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I got myself a Opsgear 6'' Fluted barrel and was stunned with the accuracy! It wasn't as good as my 12'' Freak but I never expexted to be as good as it is. Most likely the longer ones are even better. And since the barrel is not ported it's loud as hell (just how I like it ).

I have an 8-inch Lapco ...doesn't feel as good as my 12-incher

I definitely recommend an aftermarket barrel. The 10" Unported .685 bore PPS Brass I have worked very well the last day I played until the heavy rains came and made the paint a little funny. After that I went back to my Freak kit so that I had a larger bore to play with.
Barrel kits are great. You can change bore sizes as and when you need. The only down point is that they're generally expensive but you can sometimes find them cheap on forums or on eBay. If you can afford a barrel kit then it's totally worth the investment, if not then just get a single barrel that uses a good sized bore (i.e. a bore similar to the paint you generally use). As far a single barrels go the PPS Brass, J&J Ceramic and the Lapco Bigshot are probably the most recommended for the A5, generally speaking. I've owned the J&J and still own the Brass. They're both excellent. There are many others out there that are excellent too, as I'm sure others can testify to, so get as much info you can and go for the barrel that will suit your needs.

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