Urban Ops Tactical

Well, to end the debates and theorizing once and for all, here it is:



An A5 with a mounted, and fully functioning BT RipClip electronic loader. I apologize for the quality of the pics, but since I'm working with a borrowed camera, its the best I can do.

What you need to do this mod:

-An A5 (duh)
-A BT RipClip (duh again)
-Material for an adapter plate (whatever you're comfortable working with, be it plastic, wood, metal, etc. Obviously, wood or plastic would be easiest for those with a limited selection of tools)
-Screws to mount the RC to the plate(unfortunately I'm not sure of the exact size/thread... I believe they're 10-24)
-A longer bolt in the same thread as the Cyclone mounting bolt to hold the plate to the receiver.
-Various tools; hacksaw, files, dremel, drill and bits, sandpaper, etc.

Now, this is going to be a very basic how-to, because I did not have the opportunity to take pics as I built my adapter, and because mine was salvaged from an adapter I originally made to mount the RC to my TM7. What I found was that even with the more sensitive microphone installed, I couldn't get the RC to reliably activate on my TM7... So, knowing full well my A5 would be plenty loud enough to activate it, I decided to modify it to work. As such, building one thats intended for an A5 from scratch will end up looking a lot cleaner and probably involve less work.

The first thing you need to do is procure a RipClip... Once thats out of the way, you need to get yourself some material (plastic, wood, metal, whatever you have the tooling to successfully shape it with) that is at least 3x3x1.5" Bigger would probably be better so you have some margin for error. Remove the clamp section from the Ripclip, and mark the material you're using with the shape of the inside of the RC. Once thats done, you can file/carve/mill/shape your material gradually, checking often for fitment, to make it fit the inside of the RC. For anyone attempting this with limited tools, I HIGHLY recommend using either Shape-Loc plastic (which you can mold by hand while warm and cools into a solid) or just plain old WOOD, because it's cheap, and extremely easy to work with. I'm blessed to have access to a pretty good machine shop at work, so I had a Bridgeport vertical mill to do my dirty work.

This is the shape you're trying to achieve:



Once you've gotten your plate to fit the "in" side of your RC, you can start shaping it to fit the right receiver of the A5... This can be tricky to do if you haven't yet cut off the Cyclone arm... I know a lot of people will look at this part of the mod as a deal-breaker, but new receiver halves are fairly inexpensive and available from tippmannparts.com. I believe UMS also has pre-dehooked right receivers in stock for Qloaded apps. Just make sure that the hook is ground down until it is COMPLETELY flush with the rest of the receiver. This will aid in fitment. DO NOT grind down the two pegs that flank the Cyclone mounting bolt hole, these will help to hold the RC's feedport in perfect alignment with the A5's breech.

Hook removed:





A5 side of the adapter:


Now, since my adapter started out intended for a TM7, I had to ADD material back to it to get it to fit. I used PIG brand epoxy putty, which is great for adding material back, as it is easy to mold, and easy to machine/file/sand. However, it is somewhat brittle so I wouldn't use it to build the WHOLE adapter. On mine, the putty isn't in any risk of breaking as it is clamped securely between the adapter and the receiver half.


As you can see, you need to leave the part around the feedport shaped to fit the inverted cylindrical part of the receiver where the cyclone normally goes. Once you have the shape down, you can mark and drill where you need to put your mounting hole. In my case, I didn't have a thick enough section of plastic to tap the adapter, so I shaved down a nut and then heated it up, and pushed it into the plastic so that the plastic melted around it and locked it in place, as shown in the pic below:



Here's how the RC gets mounted to the adapter:

Simple enough, two shortened screws and slots for them milled into the top of the adapter so that they don't interfere with the receiver.

Here's how it looks from the top when mounted to the gun:



The last thing you need to do is find a way to plug the hole where the cyclone banjo used to bolt to the receiver. Tippmannparts.com has plastic plugs like the X7 uses to plug the RT port, or you can improvise some other solution. I simply took an old banjo that had a broken nipple, and used the acetylene torch at work to braze the hole shut where the nipple had been.

So far I've tested the RC on my A5 up to 18bps by putting a full hopper of paint through it. Absolutely no breaks, which is great, but the real shining glory of the RC is that unlike the Cyclone, it doesn't bounce the balls around when the hopper starts getting empty... I went through a hole hopper without ANY skipped shots until completely empty of paint. The true test of this mod will be once cold weather hits again to see how it handles cold and/or brittle shelled paint. Since I was using scrap material from work, the total cost of this mod was the $80 I paid to buy the RC and have it shipped to my door, for a savings of about $20 compared to buying the full Cyclone mod kit from TechT. The gun also seems to be a bit quieter with no QEPH on the side of the marker venting air on every shot.

Now I'm totally expecting to get the "why a RipClip?" or "I'll stick with my Cyclone" comments... I'm going to categorically state right now that if your cyclone works fine for you, by all means, keep it, enjoy it, love it. But there are plenty of people out there like me who have had nothing but nightmares with their cyclone loaders and are looking for something better. From the limited testing I got the chance to do, the RC seems to fit that bill. Stay tuned for vids of further testing sometime in the future.

Also, if anyone's interested in more pics of the marker, I have a thread on it in the Assault section of the Galleries. The link is here: http://www.a5og.net/assault-m4s-g-36s-etc/25175-rogues-aka5-sopmod-w-ripclip-not-your-grandpas-ak.html

Nice job Jay! Now you'll have a Tippmann that actually works ALL day

Very cool Rogue.

Hahaha the tricky part is now that I've gotten used to my "hybrid" markers (spaceguns modded for woods use lol), I don't want to lug this heavy piece of kit onto the field anymore lol... Need to get back to the weight room...