The Facts/Specifications:
The Triumph XT is a semi-auto .69 caliber open blowback bolt gun that runs on CO2, compressed air or nitrogen. It is rated at eight balls per second and has an effective range of 150 plus feet. Its basic design is clean and requires very little maintenance. The XT gun comes packaged with a 200 round gravity feed hopper, a barrel sock, Allen wrenches, an o-ring, oil and an instruction booklet. The body is made of a high impact composite material and rubberized type sport grips. It has a double trigger, an 11 inch ported barrel with a center mounted feed neck and an in-line bolt system. Tippmann introduced the Triumph series of markers in Fall of 2006. The XT is an affordable gun for an entry level or less than serious tournament player. This gun has the standard Tippmann one year warranty.
Our Review:
The gun is definitely a lower end marker. It's a little heavier than I'd expect from a composite body. The barrel, firing bolt and expansion chamber are made from metal. The built in drop forward makes the gun feel very balanced and the fore grip is a nice touch compared to the XL model. It adds a lot of stability when aiming, especially shooting on the run.
The trigger:
All of the Triumph models come with a double trigger. It's trigger guard allows plenty of room for the player to wear gloves. The XL and XT models(non-electric triggers) have a long trigger pull with no adjustments I can find. It moves side to side a little more than I'd like to see. It cycles smoothly though for a manual trigger. For a hundred dollar gun I think it's OK.
The Barrel:
The barrel has some porting half way down. I don't think it's in the right spot nor is there enough porting to be effective. It gives off a loud pop every shot, not going to be sneaky with this barrel. It shot fairly accurate, better than I expected at over 100 feet. The good news is Tippmann gave the Triumph series the same barrel threads as the Model 98. That will give you almost an endless choice of barrels to upgrade too.
The Air System:
Like I said earlier, the built in drop forward is wonderful. It really helps the gun feel very balanced. The stock expansion chamber handles the CO2 great, even in colder weather the gun never froze up on me. It ran very efficiently on compressed air, which is what I normally use. Although, the expansion chamber doesn't help for comp air, I'd recommend using a tank with a lower regulated pressure(400psi).
The Feed Neck:
The Tippmann Model 98 had a nightmare of a feed neck. The thing would break all the time when trying to get to snap back in place. The Triumph has a center mount neck with two Allen screws to clamp onto your hopper. It fit's a normal sized hopper. It appears the feed neck is a standard threaded screw in style neck. I didn't take it out but looks like it can be replaced with a common aftermarket neck. It worked well for our tests with the stock 200 round hopper and later a Halo(lol) attached. Tippmann designed the XT to be used with the new Triumph AL-200 and SSL-200 electronic loaders. See below for recommendations on these hoppers.
The Guns Internals:
This is definitely not a field strippable gun. Tippmann says you should put a drop of oil in through the open breach to maintenance it but if it needs more than that to take it to an authorized Tippmann dealer. I wouldn't expect this gun to have an easy strip feature but if it locks up on you at the field I wouldn't recommend pulling it apart unless you have a good clean area. There are a lot of small parts and it's a little complicated to reassemble. Although, I wouldn't expect to have too many problems, it seems to be a reliable gun built fairly strong for its price range(typical of Tippmann). The internal air line is metal and there are a lot of metal Allen screws. The bolt is metal and not too easy to clean if you break a ball. With out an eye to keep clean it's easy to open the bolt with the hopper off and run a flexible squeegee through from the feed neck and out the barrel. I had to do this a few times, not too bad to do.
Firing the Gun:
A person would definitely benefit from spending the 30 dollars more to buy the eXT electronic trigger version of this gun. Maybe it's because I'm a tournament player who likes to throw a lot of paint. I'm just not accustom to long trigger pulls any more. The gun kicked a little more than other guns in its 100 dollar price range but over all shot good. The lower end markers sometimes have a problem with different types of air. This gun's built in expansion chamber really makes it nice. And the efficiency on comp air is impressive too. Although I did take the time to take a shot count per fill, I can tell you it seem efficient to me. I seemed to have no problems hitting targets with the stock barrel but would consider upgrading it first to something more quite, unless I could find some type of trigger upgrade. Even a trigger with some adjustments would be a plus. Its rate of fire seemed to be rated fair by Tippmann. They recommend the new Triumph series of electronic loaders as an upgrade but I will tell you if you don't get the electronic version(eXT) the gravity feed hopper is more than enough.
Recommendations:
If you're a woodsballer on a budget or buying your first marker, this gun is a good choice. I think it will take a lot of abuse and not require much for maintenance. If you have the 30 bucks extra, I'd say get the eXT version. Get your self two 20oz CO2 tanks and you could spend an entire day playing with this marker. Maybe consider getting a more quiet barrel too, something with more porting at the end. Overall, not a bad gun for under $100!
Redwood(02/23/07)
also see:
Equipment Index
Tippmann Guns
Cheap Paintball Guns
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