Sid’s Paintball

Tourney paintball is big, there is no doubt. Even so, 70 per cent of paintball is still played in the woods. So, why do so many wear tourney gear in the woods?

If you’re in the woods and everyone can see your shining neon marker and your red jersey, you better be some incredible Neo-in-the-Matrix kind of player. If you’re a non-superhero player, you may want to consider some tried-and-true camouflage to give you the edge. If winning is cool, then camo is where it’s at in the woods, forests, and fields.

In a nutshell, camouflage takes advantage of the way that the human brain and eyes work together. When you’re searching for someone, your mind and eyes scan the landscape anticipating something that’s different: a color that contrasts, a shape that’s unnatural, a movement in the brush. If the eye can’t resolve on anything that stands out, it just keeps on going. If the outline of an object looks like an anticipated shape, such as the shape of an opposing player, the eyes and mind will lock on.

Good camo breaks up your outline and imposes shadows and highlights across your silhouette, fooling the eye into seeing right through you. Good camo combines dark, irregular shapes with a few fake highlights.

In order to avoid contrasting colors, your camo should be chosen to match the place you’ll be playing. The American military has chosen the common “woodland” pattern as a good, all-around match to most forest or jungle terrain.

What most don’t realize is that the level of chunkiness of your camo pattern is also critical. Since the U.S. military generally engages enemy at distances around 200 to 300 yards, woodland camo uses larger shapes to confuse the eyes of a distant watcher. If the military went to a smaller pattern with greater detail, that pattern would visually clump into a solid shape at long distances and would be less effective than woodland. This is called the pattern’s “fade distance.”

In paintball, we generally engage at distances around 30 yards–much closer than the military. For that reason, paintballers find detailed camo patterns more effective than woodland.Recently, the U.S. and Canadian Marines developed a pattern called “digi-camo” that captures the advantages of both long and short-range camo. In tests, this pattern has proven to be the most effective camo pattern available at a variety of distances. Up close, digi-camo has great detail, and it continues to confuse the eye at intermediate distances as well. It’s fast becoming the ultimate in woods camo gear. For paintball players, one source for digi-camo is Special Ops Paintball (www.specialopspaintball.com), with its tourney-style and a light fabric style of digi-camo pants and jerseys.

Astute players will point out that no camo will make you invisible while you’re on the move (and they’d be right). But, even if you’re an aggressive player, camo serves to confuse the opponent’s eye, forcing a delay as he or she tries to aim at any particular part of your body. “Is that an arm or part of the bush?” the opponent’s brain and eyes deliberate–while you rush forward out-of-sight.

Good camo is a critical part of a woods expert’s bag of tricks. Strap some on and find out how cool it is to feel invisible.

Paintballs

The use of quality paint cannot be stressed enough. Paint quality has a huge effect on accuracy, reliability, and target effect. Good paint is the difference between spending a day with your barrel in your lap cleaning and a day of wins.

Purchasing: Most fields will only let you shoot off-field paint if you own your own gear. If you are renting, expect to purchase paint at the field. If you do own your own equipment, buy your paint at a paintball store, not Wal-Mart or some other retailer. Big retailers simply don’t treat their paint with enough care or move the product fast enough to keep it fresh.

Paint is usually sold in 2000-round cases, and often split into 2 or 4 bags. Whether you buy from a paintball retailer or at the field, have them open up the box and make sure the bags are sealed from moisture and that no balls are broken in each bag. Paint should be fresh (no more than 60 days old) and dry. Some release agents may be present in the bags, (to help keep the shells from over-drying) but there should not be any paint from inside a ball. If the balls appear visibly dented, out-of-round or there is broken paint, do not buy the case.

Retailers will usually offer several “grades” of paint. Basically, these are differences in shell thickness, bore size and the “secret blend of herbs and spices” that company happens to use to make thier fill. Ask for good, general use paint. Don’t be afraid to spend an extra $10 for a mid-grade case of paint. It’s worth far more than the money you will feel you wasted by having a bad game day because of cheap paint. Be careful with premium or “tournament” grades of paint. Many of these upper-end balls are thin-shelled and very brittle (to break on the slightest hit) and do not work well in many guns. They tend to blow up in the barrel and often aren’t worth the extra $20 in terms of performance.

Cost: Low-end paint costs around $35-40. Mid grades are from $45-55, premium grades upward of $60. Field prices will be slightly higher, and fields may not offer the same variety of brand. Remember, if you shoot field guns, expect to shoot field paint.

Usage: Paint usage will vary from player to player and from game type to game type, and usually increases with the experience of the player. A very full day is about a case. Normally, a half case (1000 rounds) per person per day is plenty.

Care: Paintballs are food-grade gelatin, and should be treated as a food product. Keep them cool and dry and handle carefully, and you will do a lot more shooting and a lot less cleaning.

Consider paint that falls on the ground wasted. Do not use paint that is wet or dirty. Do not over-pack tubes so that the paint is compressed and misshaped. All of these will contribute to breaks in the gun.

Size: Paintballs are nominally .68 caliber, but in reality vary from .677 to over .697 caliber. The match of the barrel bore to the paint size has a great effect on accuracy, consistency and barrel breakage. Too small, and the paint bobbles in the bore and either rolls out the end, breaks in the barrel or is unstable in flight. Too tight and the ball is compressed and either tears in the barrel or is deformed and unstable in flight.

A simple way to test bore-to-paint match is to take the barrel off of your gun and fetch out a few rounds at random from your case. You should be able to place a ball in the breech and gently puff the paisntball out of the barrel. It should not roll out, nor should you have to break a blood vessel trying to blow it out of the barrel.

Pistols are small pocket paintball guns. They are usually .68 caliber and powered by a single CO2 powerlet or cartridge. These power sources are not very powerful, as they can produce up to 10 shots, no more. And that is one of the main reasons why players prefer paintball pistols for back-up.

Another reason is that they are very useful, while playing in woods because they are small and can be kept in the pocket, in a harness or in a holster. This can save from your time if you have already seen your opponent and want to act quickly. Pistols are small, so you can easily shoot before being seen.

Some paintball pistols have advantages, such as the possibility for quick change of the tank, or rubber grips, assuring more comfortable holding. There are paintball pistols that can easily be disassembled and cleaned inside (such as Tippmann’s pistols), or others that are upgradeable (for example Ariakon).

But try not to expect too much from a pistol. They are handy in woods, and they are helpful as a back-up, but they have their disadvantages. They cannot hold very many paintballs, and they are not so accurate or powerful.

One tip for you if you decide to buy a pistol – look for as much information as you can find, otherwise you may buy something, which may disappoint you afterwards and you will regret for your choice.

A paintball gun barrel is where paintballs are expelled. It is necessary for the inside surface of a barrel to be smooth and well polished. Otherwise, friction will occur between the barrel and the moving paintball.

What about the material of paintball barrels? There is no answer. It’s whatever a manufactuerer decides. Having a smooth inside surface has nothing to do with it. But if a paintball barrel is made of stainless steel, then everything will be perfect.

The longer the barrel, the more friction occurs between the barrel and the paintball. And consequently more air pressure is needed to force the paintball out of paintball barrels.

So, the standard length of paintball barrels is 12-15 inches (30 cm. – 33 cm.)

Porting. This is the word that stands for the holes in the barrel. Many people think that this will make the paintball gun shoot better. But it has been scientifically proven- there is no such thing. Just the opposite- the more the air which has to leave the barrel, the less it can power the paintball out of it. And so, it will greatly decrease the power and efficiency of your paintball gun.

The really good paintball gun barrels have only a “band” of holes at the end of the barrel. These will silent the sound of your shooting and reduce the friction without reducing the power of the shot.

As there is a large variety of paintball gun barrels, there are many differences between them. They differ in size, shape, porting, material, bore, rifling (for design of the inside surface of the barrel) and many others.

So, even if you are really very pretentious, with so many and so different types of barrels, you will surely find the one, that will fit you best.

 A cradle, or as it is more formally known, a drop forward is a mount for the air
tank on your marker. The benefits of are two-fold. First, it can make the setup of your paintball gun more compact. A compact setup lets you get closer to your marker and use your sites effectively. Second, it can help you balance the weights, making your marker setup easier to handle. A drop forward can particularly make heavier tanks less tiring to hang on to.
Whether you actually need a drop forward depends on your personal preferences. As a recreational paintball player, you may not need one.However, most serious paintball players do have them. If you play a lot of paintball. It will allow you to play longer without your arms getting tired, as well as possibly improving your game. But, you do not have to have a drop forward to reign victorious.

OK, one thing I noticed today was that I have not talked about all the different types of camo that you can buy. Camo is one of the main ingredients to playing woodsball. If the other team can see you, they can shoot you.

Camoflouge clothing comes in many different styles and patterns. My favorite is the Ghili-Leaf pants and jacket. Yes, it does get kind of hot running around wearing a jacket but, it is not that heavy and everybody will have a hard time spotting you even when you are shooting. Any type of 3D clothing will give you a definite advantage while playin gin the woods. This is great stuff. Here are some other 3D clothing that work excellent. Cabela’s Leafy-wear Pro Suit, Cabela’s Leafy-Tee pants, Cabela’s Leafy-Tee shirt, Cabela’s Ghillie jacket and pants.

When I first started this blog, I had written about some of the gear used in the sport of paintball. But, now that I have more of a clue as to what I am doing, I figured I would add some links so you can see for yourself what the equipment looks like.

Face mask/goggles, Full cover face mask, gloves, chest protector, Knee and elbow pads,

Markers and also I figured I would add bunkers here too. These are what you would usually see on a Speedball field.

First off, I guess I would like to start with the basic equipment that you will need to play Paintball. Believe it or not, your priorities should not lay with what type of marker to purchase, but what type of safety equipment to purchase. There are a number of masks that you can buy that are fairly cheap and do a great job at covering most of your head. The mask must fit comfortably and correctly or you will have a very uncomfortable game.

Next, if you think you might not like getting hit with a paintball (I mean, these things do sting a little…lol), then it might be a good idea to purchase a chest protector. These almost look exactly like the vest a police officer would wear, and are really light as not to obstuct your movement. Or, if you happen to have a life vest on your boat, then this will work just as good. The only problems with the life vest is, it is bulkier than the paintball vest and when you get hit with a paintball, the paintball usually just bounces off.

Gloves are also important. I personally have a pair of fingerless paintball gloves that I wear everytime I play, no matter how hot it is. If you have ever been hit in the hand with a paintball while you are holding your marker, you know why gloves are a godsend. The paintball gloves have plastic protectors on them that cover the back of your hand and your fingers, but still allow the ball to break upon impact. Or you could use a pair of gloves that you have laying around. As long as you can grip the marker comfortably and safely, then you should have no problems.

Next is clothing. Now, this is a very broad subject because it really does not matter what you wear to play paintball as long as your head and face are covered. If you are playing against me, then I prefer you wear hot pink pants and shirt with flashing lights…lol. I like to wear loose clothing. Not only does it breathe better, but you can also move more comfortably and the paintballs do not hurt as much when they hit you.

CO2 tanks are required in order to use most of the markers that you see nowadays. You can purchase 9oz to 20oz tanks and that would be sufficiant, unless you are like me and tend to get a little trigger happy towards the end of the game, then you might want to have a few tanks on hand…lol.

Finally, we have the marker. These can be purchaces just about anywhere. Wal Mart, Cabella’s, and the local military supply store usually carry paintball gear and markers. Starting out you might just want to purchase one of the cheaper markers or borrow a friends. You never know, paintball might not be your thing.