Anyone know anything about Paintball?

[Anonymous]

Paintball, eh? I think it's the thing where there are balls...and they have paint in them...

[Manic Velocity]

Haha, I knew Grifter would jump on this thread.  He pwns at paintball.  Military experience certainly helps.

[Anonymous]

man... i've been downloadin video clips and lookin at websites and whatnot... its gettin me wicked siked to try this out... now i cant wait lol...

[Fuse]

[Continuation from my last post]

OK, onto to the mother of paintball markers. If your a DJ, these are the Tech 1200s. If your a farmer, this is the tracktor. If your a redpill, this is hyperjump. It's the autococker. An autococker does what the name says. Each time a ball is shot, it recocks the gun using a different method than a blow-back semi like the tippmans and spyder-like markers that use the same air source blast that pushes the ball to push back a bolt to a locking position. A cocker does this by a few peices mounted on the frontblock of the gun. WHen you pull the trigger you change the airflow inside a 3 'nossel' valve called a 3 way. This directs compressed air from a regulator into the front end of the ram. This ram is connected to the backblock of the gun. The pressure in the front pushed a rod and therefore the backblock back, recocking the marker. When the trigger is release the 3-way redirects the air at the back of the ram, pushing the rod-and therefore backblock-forward resetting the block and bolt. This is very efficient and tweaks to the design has created the most popular paintball marker type created. One issue with cockers, and the rest of the marker I'll talk about is that they do not do well with CO2. While cockers can use it, they will go through it more quickly, and therefore freeze up much faster.

OK, now for my favorite. The electronic markers. My baby-mi amore-the Angel. One of the first, and arguably the best electronic paintball marker. WHile I have not worked on these, or owned one, I have played with many. The last tournement I played in I used Billy "B" Ceranskis (Of Aftershock-named 'michael Jordan of paintball in 1999 or 2000 edition of some paintball mag I can't remember) Angel and had a hard time giving it back. Electronic markers use a trigger asembly that involves an extremely small pull to activate the fireing sequence. Basically it's just completing, and breaking an electric circuit and a computer inside the marker, usually in the grip, does all the timing work. The angel is nice because it has a digital display on the grip that displays such information as shots per second, shot count-with reset, a timer for games, and other nice things that they've probably expanded on sinse I've held one. Another great feature for electronic markers is the electric eye. explanation-when a ball is sitting in the chamber awaiting the sequence of events that will hopefully lead to nice end on your enemy's face, it's pretty cramped. It has little room to move. When an air source pounds against it at 300 feet per second (204.54 miles per hour) It gets all jacked up. If the bolt knicks it in the wrong way, or there is a small scratch inside the barrel, or - What I'll focus on in a second - the ball has not fully entered the chamber, the ball will break inside the marker leaving you with one hell of a mess to clean up. SOme markers like the Matrix (haha) has an amazing ability to almost always self clean after about 10 shots. But your accuracy will be off regaurdless. Anyways, back to the eye... There is an electronic eye that sits on the side of the marker looking inside right where the ball enters the chamber. WHen the trigger is pulled, a check is made to be sure that there is a ball completely in there before it sets off the fireing process. If a ball is only halfway down due to it being either clogged, or just firing too fast, it will not fire. Also something to note: There are many forms of electronic autocockers. These are dreams. Amazing accuracy, much smoother trigger, availability to use a double trigger, and thanks to shocktech (first ones to design it) a swing trigger on a cocker. It basically uses the best parts of the typical electronic markers - the eye, electronic/automatic timing - with the working of a traditional cocker.

By the way, while markers could theoretically fire as fast as 18-24 balls per second, due to feed rates and mere physics, 14-15 is the fastest that has actually been shot I beleive. Now this could be different using a loader by AirAmerica I think it was that would use a certain motor and power feed tube to force balls into the gun at higher speeds. I used this once with a Matrix when the Matrix was still being developed and OMG it was nice.

CO2=liquid+gas combo. Very unstable pressure and can cause issues with some markers.
"Nitrogen"=Compressed air. Nothing more. It is not actually pure nitrogen. One of things I loved was when a person would come up and ask "Yeah, I need my nitrous filled" My usual answer was "If this was nitrous we'd close this place down, throw a party, and you'd be paying me a lot more for filling that bottle". Generators are used to fill a large resevior tank and when you goto a fill station, you mooch off that tank a little bit. Nitrogen tanks come in 3 basic modles. the 1500 psi tank which is the smallest, looks like a 20oz CO2 tank, and pretty much useless one. The 3000psi tank which is good if your short on cash (still pricey)-but you'll still be filling up every 400-600 shots or so. And then there is the 4500psi tank which is standard. Each tank has a regulator on it, and a gauge. You will usually have a consistant pressure from max down to about 200psi. Nitrogen is not a liquid/gas mix so is much cleaner and safer. These are pricey, but worth it. The psi ammount is a safe rating. For instance, the 4500psi tanks could actually push upwards of 5000-5300 psi, but it gets very risky at that point. I do know of some of the professional players and industry gurus having 5k, and I think 5.3k tanks, but those were rare. I'm not sure if they've uped them for retail today or not.

ok, I'm done for now. That was all just a very general overview. If you wanna go into anything more or have questions, ask me here, in PM, or on teamspeak. I love reliving this stuff-it was my life for so long. *sniff*

[Anonymous]

Oh yea and make sure if you get an autohopper you get a good one with a firm clamp alot of the electronic hoppers suxor unless you pick the right one.  Dye has a good one but you can get better bang for your buck here 888paintball.com my place to shop paintball wise.

[Anonymous]

orien, dont feel bad about it, I have a similar setup, I currently use a 98 custom, with quite a few add-ons. Current Setup:
98 Custom
RVA
Custom sight rail
Drop forward
8stage expansion chamber
14" J&J barrel
double trigger

(there's a pic of me playing with it in the pic grifter posted above, not one of
my best pics of me, but you get the idea.. )
needless to say, it's a fun gun to play with.
still trying to decide if I wanna swap out the barrel for a flatline and install the response trigger, or get a new setup. either is tempting, one just costs more.

[Fuse]

get the flatline... amazing barrel.

[Anonymous]

Alright... from what i've researched so far... i'm not gonna be one to spray the field with paint like rambo... whenever i do anything like this I've always been fond of a stealth sniper like roll... do you have any tips regarding that or... do you have any recomendations on a marker and upgrades I could get thats best for that kind of play... at a decent price of course lol...

[Fuse]

Trying to sneak up and one shot kill is difficult, though much much cheaper than the alternative of firing many shots at a single target to account for them moving, or bounces.

A starter marker for decently low prices include the spyder line guns. They are not as great as the cockers, but will get you by for recreation play. They are usually a couple hundred bucks, unless you go with the Electronic spyders. Just stay away from brass eagle markers or anything else you may find at KMart.

Where do you live? I haven't touched my spyder in years and would consider selling it.
Original Spyder.
Diamond Labs Dual Trigger 3 peice frame with .45 grips
Shocktech 2001 twist off super fly bolt.
Shocktech low pressure chamber.
Perfect Expansion chamber
Teardrop 12' barrel
I moved the sight rail from the back-due to the twist off bolt-to where the ball detent was(side of gun). This is a personal touch by me that required a bit of drilling.
45 drop forward
Ricochet Loader
I have 2 packs, a 4+1, and also I think I have a 5+3 as well. The 5+3 one has a pad on it, very nice.
Tons of pods.

If I pull it all out and everything still works and is in good considtion I'd get a price for you if interested. I do have 2 masks, but that your really better off buying your own. Get a nice JT mask.

[Anonymous]

I live in Weymouth, Ma... like 20 mins south of boston...

If you can come up with a price for it... i'll tell ya if i'm interested... just gotta see how much i enjoy the sport first =p and save up some money

Oh ya... one more thing... my first time goin to play paintball.. how badly should i expect to get my butt kicked lol..

[Anonymous]

The first time I went I got shot twice in 4-5 hours of play.  It just depends on how you play.  I'm a a one shot, one kill kind of guy when I'm playing woods ball, if you fire off a shot you give away your position, so make the first one count.  Or lob three in really fast just to be safe.

[Anonymous]

man... i'm gettin way too hyped about paintball now... i fear it's going to lead to a new.. and very expensive... addiction...

[Anonymous]

my first time (about 4 years ago) was similar, shot maybe 2 or 3 times in a matter of 4-5 hours or so. I like the sneaky sniper-ish kind of play, conserves paint, and it's kind of fun, though sometimes I'll play the "im insane, and I'll kill anything that moves" kind of thing, where I'll typically not be very sneak and just walk right up on people out in the open, half the time it catches them off guard, guys tend to try to start taking poke-and-hide kinda shots and give themselves away and i run up on them, girls tend to either try the same, or just give up and say 'dont shoot' heh. grifter could probably describe one such experience where he saw me using that method of play, it was kinda funny.

[Anonymous]

lol... man... i seriously can't wait... i've been spending the last hour or so tryin to find good clips of paintball... i've found a couple but thats about it... you wouldnt happen to know where i could find some good ones do ya?

[Anonymous]

dont know of any off the top of my head, but im sure they could be googled if you looked around enough, but yeah, it's fun, there's nothing quite like going out on a weekend with a gun and shooting at your friends for a few hours.