Tippman 98 Custom

This is in my series on Paintball guns.  You can find the introduction here.

The Tippmann 98 Custom is the "standard" for recreational paintball guns.  It is rock-solid (there are several well-recorded tests where a player will immerse his gun in sand, cycle the action, then pull it out and fire it without any problems) and relatively simple and easy to maintain.  Its aesthetics are alright: a mix between real-world firearms and standard paintgun looks.

This marker really shines in its ability to be upgraded.  The number of add-ons and upgrades is nearly limitless, and this is where it derives its name from.

The "standard" upgrade is a "flatline" barrel.  It is a weird curved shape, and puts backspin on the paintball.  This makes the ball follow a straighter, longer trajectory (via the Bernoulli principle).  It looks like this:

Some people go all-out on their 98's.  They make the marker look almost exactly like a real firearm, which might have some dangerous side-effects...... but this looks seriously badass.  This next picture is a good example.  And yes, it really is a 98 Custom underneath it all.  You can see the cocking bolt on the back end of the body, just in front of the stock, and you can just see the feed port behind the front part of the carry handle.