It seems that many companies in paintball are now focusing on mid priced high performance guns. PMI has its new Piranha arriving, along with its Titan.  Propower has its Scorpion out and ready.  A whole slew of guns are being made to try and compete with the king of mid priced high performance paintball guns, the Kingman Spyder.
        Until now, no other mid priced gun as been able to match the Spyder for its performance features, simplicity of use, and the ability to upgrade, or its ability to let its user have fun. Until now.  Tippmann a company known to almost anyone who has even rented a paintball gun has invented a new gun, the Tippmann Model 98, which in my opinion, not only matches the Spyder in terms of performance, but might even have some qualities that its Arachnid counterpart does not.

Overview :

         In the past Tippmann has been known for making extremely durable well made paintball guns.  All have been backed by the excellent Tippmann warranty. While they have been well performing, such guns as the Pro-am, Pro-lite, and Carbine have been known to have heavy and stiff trigger pulls.  They have been very popular rental guns for fields due to their durability and ease of use.  On top of all this, one did not have to be a rocket scientist to maintain a Tippmann, just clean the barrel, oil it, and go! While quality has remained consistent in excellence, Tippmann as addressed man many performance issues in making their new model 98, which will be addressed in the following.

Trigger:

        The trigger on the model 98 is an awesome achievement in blow back semi auto performance.  Tippmann has installed what they call a hotshot trigger system.  This includes an extremely light 3-pound pull, which is very very short.  In fact a friend of mine first thought the safety was on when he felt the trigger length.  I am able to pull this trigger very fast, and Tippmann has reported some pulling it as fast as 10 balls a second.

On field performance:

        In short this is top notch.  I was keeping up with everything whether it be a cocker, mag or shocker, easy.  I am one who believed that you could make a spyder as accurate as any gun.  I was right.  This gun is no different.  Patterns were very tight with the stock barrel.  I used two types of paints, Diablo and Marbilizer.  The Marbilizer faired much better, most likely because the Diablo was a little bigger, thus, fit the barrel not as well.  I got a few more breaks in the barrel with diablo and a little less accuracy.  The feel of the gun is excellent with its APP Hogue imitation grips and its light trigger.  An angled bottom made it very easy to use the adjustable sights.
        I would like to address the subject of ball breaking for a moment.  I had a few ball breaks in my barrel in my days of play with the Model 98.  I believe this is because the stock barrel, while very accurate, has an unanodized interior.  This is a very rough material, which scratches easily.  I believe that this results in excessive ball breaks, which are an inconvenience.

        However, the Model 98 has a swinging loader adapter that swings down where you can access the barrel.  All you have to do is run a squeegee through.  That is it.

Bottom line:

        I have owned them all.  I have owened a Mag, a Sniper 2, a Phantom, and two Spyders.  They were all great.  Let me tell you, this gun is great too.  It's performance can touch anything out there with excellent accuracy and a great trigger pull.  I feel that the Spyder has finally met its match for the mid price gun.  I just happen to like the Model 98 more.  And with companies like Lapco making tons of aftermarket parts for it, and soon, should be great for the upgrade freak.  It is durable, is made a by a great company and performs excellently.

Brian Spesier
MPN Columnist