Sid’s Paintball

Thought you guys might like to see some pics of our recent game. Now I know they are not action pics, but you still get an idea of what we look like when we play (Pretty horrible huh?…lol). This game was a blast even though I was the first one hit in the first game..ha..ha!! We had some pretty intense moments. I could not ask for a better group of people to play this game with. We are minus one though, but he will return.

This Thursday we are playing again and there will be plenty of cameras there to record the fun. We will have action pics this time. I hope you guys enjoyed the pics.

Accuracy in a paintball gun is a blend of many factors. The most important thing to remember is: No single thing makes a paintball gun achieve its best accuracy. It takes many things in concert to give you the best accuracy possible. This is part of the reason that accuracy in paintball is so hard to achieve. The other part is the fact that paintballs themselves are an inconsistent projectile and are subject to an inherent degree of inaccuracy. The following are the main areas to work on to get the best accuracy from your gun.

Paint Quality

The primary factor affecting accuracy is the quality of paint. Consistency in bore size, seam size and roundness are critical to accurate flight. Unfortunately this is usually the least controllable factor in most games and the most malleable in varying weather conditions. Remember that paint quality is often not within your control. You shoot what you have on hand.

Paint-to-Barrel Matching

The next important accuracy factor is the bore-to-paint match. Once you have good paint, you need to gently guide it on target with a smooth barrel that fits the paint. The usual solution is to use a barrel that matches the paint you happen to be shooting. A barrel system with multiple sizes or inserts will ensure a good match through a variety of conditions.

Having multiple inserts or sizes of barrel helps ensure that the paint is neither too loose nor to tight in the barrel. Too loose, 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 paintball 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.

Velocity

Another huge factor in accuracy is velocity. Consistency is the watch word. The more consistent the pressure, and therefore velocity, the better grouping of shots. Most things that help even out your shot-to-shot velocity will also help your accuracy. This means controlling the pressure and stability of the gas used to operate the gun. High Pressure Air is far superior to CO2 in this arena. If you run HPA, make sure you have a good, consistent regulator on both the output from the tank, and the input into the gun.

If you run CO2, make sure you are doing your best to keep it gaseous, keep it expanding well and not condensing under rapid fire. Expansion chambers are cheap and a decent solution, but a good regulator (like a Palmer Stabilizer) will guarantee you only feed gas to your gun.

Do everything you can to get your shot-to-shot velocity variation as close to zero as possible. Keep your gun clean, well lubed and running smoothly to get the most accurate results.

“Low pressure” operation is is one of the industry’s greatest hype campaigns. Again, according to scientific tests by AGD, the acutal pressure of gas hitting the paintball is between 50-125 psi, regardless of the operating pressure of the gun. “Peak pressures above 150 psi tends to break balls down the barrel due to really high acceleration and G forces. If you don’t have any way to control the peak pressure behind the ball, the only way you can change it is to go with lower pressure in the air chamber, hence low pressure guns.” So unless you are changing the pressure input to the air chamber you are not doing anything to lower the pressure of the gun. Cheap “volumizers” are designed to give greater volume to the chamber once you have that low pressure. They do not lower the pressure in any way by themselves. For that, you need gas pressure regulation, either at the tank level or via an add-on regulator.

Barrel Quality

Your barrel should be smooth and scratch free. This promotes consistent contact between ball and barrel. Another factor is the barrel’s trueness from thread to bore, or how straight the barrel screws into the gun. Even a tiny bit of variation will express itself as a consistent strike point that is “off” the aim point. This is largely a manufacturing issue, so buying reliable brand names (J&J, Smart Parts, Dye) is the best solution to this issue.

Materials for barrels vary from brass, to aluminum, to stainless steel to carbon fiber. You may also hear of ceramic barrels. These are actually aluminum barrels with a ceramic coating, and are very effective at remaining “slick” and low-friction. Each material has its advantages and disadvantages. Brass can be very smooth, but scratches easily and is heavy. Aluminum is light, inexpensive and durable, but not especially smooth unless treated. Stainless is smooth and very tough, but heavy and expensive. Carbon Fiber is very smooth, very light, very quiet, and very expensive.

Barrel Porting

Porting is anther often-touted factor in barrel design. Ports are supposed to gradually release that high-pressure gas, allowing the ball to fly smoothly downrange. According to scientific tests by Airgun Designs, about 8-10″ of the barrel should be port-free to get the best efficiency out of the gas used to propel the ball. This length gives the best time for the expanding gas from the gun to accelerate the ball without inducing too much friction to slow it back down. Anything more or less, and you will use more gas to get the same acceleration, equating to less shots per tank. Most barrels today have an effective length of about 5-6″, so you can deduce the efficiency effects.

Barrel Length

Overall length is largely personal preference. Some like longer barrels with lots of ports, some shorter ones. Be wary of 18″+ monstrosities and their claims of improving accuracy. A longer barrel has nothing to do with accuracy! Remember that these are paintballs, not bullets, and the same rules do not apply.

Barrel Rifling

An ongoing Holy War rages over the concept of “rifling” a paintball barrel. In my experience, rifled barrels perform roughly the same as smooth ones. The rifling choice boils down to what you like best and what your budget will allow, but it won’t make you shoot any more accurately. Click here to read the AGD article on spinnig paintballs and rifled barrels. I think it makes a pretty substantial case for why spinning a ball is pretty much a farce.

The Hammerhead series of barrles has combined “straight rifling” with controlled bore size, which should work as well as any other. Variations in the seam placement when the ball reaches the bore make this no more effective than smooth bores, in my opinion. The seam may be perpendicular in one shot, but parallel to the rifling the next time.

One effect that rifling may have is that of bore-to-paint tolerance. Some claim that internally rifled barrels are more tolerant of variations in paint size or seam placement. This may be true, but may be such a minute difference that it is difficult to measure.

Maintenance

Is your gun running at peak performance every time you step onto the field? You should make sure it is if you are chasing consistency and accuracy. Make sure you aren’t leaving old lubricants on the internals, and make sure the seals are fresh and tight. You are trying to make sure that every time the gun fires, it fires the same way.

There is a fine line between cleaning too much and not enough. You don’t have to replace every seal and o-ring every time you play. In fact, that is actually counterproductive, since your gun will not get “broken in.” You should learn what parts fail and what to watch for and do a visual inspection of all the moving parts after each day of play. This is a critical “control point” for your accuracy. You are responsible for the smooth operation of your gun, and it will show up on the field if you do the proper PMCS. (Preventative Maintenance, Cleaning and Service for you non-military-acronym types.)

Summary

Good paint, good barrel, good velocity, good maintenance. These are the components of the complicated and elusive accurate paintball gun. Don’t fall victim to the hype. There is no one-shot answer to better paintball gun accuracy. Plan the upgrades to your gun accordingly, know how it functions and you’ll find that your ability to hit what you aim at increases incrementally.

Tippman A-5/X-7: The Jeep of Guns

This gun is for the player who wants awesome reliability, nearly infinite upgrades (especially in the mil-sim arena) but is willing to sacrifice some high-end performance. The A-5 is tough, simple to work on, and reliable. Its Cyclone feed system obviates the need for a motorized loader, saving some investment in that area. The gun will perform well in all conditions.

The A-5 and X-7 are like a Jeep in that they have TONS of customization options and they can take abuse and keep going.

However, it is a blowback-operated gun and suffers from the associated problems with that: some recoil, temperature intolerance with C02, and louder operation. The ROF can be pretty high, but the shot-to-shot velocity consistency at upper BPS ratings is in the middle-of-the-road, putting accuracy at the same middle level.

Tournament-level tweaks for the A-5 in the some performance features are limited, in things like electronic modes of fire. Electric triggers with full adjustment ranges are slowly creeping into the market, however. Making the gun low-pressure or adding regulators or expansion chambers to the gun tend to be awkward, as the air inlet is in the bottom-middle of the gun. This tends to ruin the mil-sim aesthetic and player ergonomics, but does offer some performance advantages. Without regulation, getting nice consistent shots can be a challenge. The usual answer to this is in the regulator at the tank, vs. on the gun itself.

Buy this gun if you want to add gadgets and never worry about the details of HOW your gun fires. Buy this gun if your PMCS (Preventative Maintenance, Cleaning and Service for you non-military jargon types) is less than stellar. This is the AK-47 of paintball guns, and is popular for roughly the same reasons as that assault rifle.

A-5s can be had for $150-200 (used or new) and entire “player kits” can be had on eBay for $230-275. The newer X-7 runs in the $300+ range. The upgrade paths can be as simple or complex as you’d like and you can get almost any visual modifcation you can think of.

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.

This might be a long video, but definitely worth the watch. This is scenario paintball at its best.

Snap Shoot

Shoot your opponents in a snap.  Since you will be bunkering often,
the best way to shoot would be to quickly come out of a bunker,
shoot, and return to the bunker.  This allows you to make a good,
quick shot, while returning to a protected area. 

Finding Flank

Just like you watch your own flank to make sure it is covered,
watch your opponents for opportunity.  If you are able to work your
way into an opening in the flank of opposing players, perhaps you
just may be able to eliminate a few. 

Practice

What more can I say?  Practice makes perfect.  Play often as you
can using these tips and find your game getting better.  In
addition, challenge teams better than you to a game.  This will
help your own game grow, as well as perhaps teach some new skills. 

Not the best quality video, but still great to watch:)

The Autococker paintball marker is one of the most popular markers ever produced. These markers are smooth firing and also very complex in terms of design and internal mechanics.

How it works…First of all, the body of the auto-cocker is usually made of aluminum. In the body is placed an adjustable valve, which, after shooting, automatically pushes the compressed air to the front part of the autococker. In other words, the air rushes through something called bolt and this bolt forces the paintball out of the marker right towards your target. Then, the air rushes back and pushes the bolt back, and the autocker recocks.

Recocking is putting another paintball in place of the already shot one, in the firing chamber. The chamber, or also known as breech, is the place where the paintball waits for the compressed air to throw it out. So, this way, the player does not have to recock the gun with every shot.

As a whole, the basic idea behind the working mechanism of the cocker is to make a pump paintball gun and replace the pump with a piston which will pump the marker automatically.

There are a large variety of Autococker paintball markers.They differ in brands, size, colors, features and many others. Almost every famous paintball gun manufacturer produces autocockers, as they are really preferred guns among paintball players. They are highly upgradeable. The auto-cocker may be the most upgradeable kind of paintball gun on the market…Everything from valves, springs, grips, rods, bolts, barrels, regulators, rams, blocks (front and back), trigger, trigger shoe, and body color of the auto-cocker can be changed. The large variety, good performance, reliability, and upgrades available make it one of the most popular choices.

You can get a decent and a good working auto-cocker at a very reasonable price.

If you are looking for a good brand name autockocker paintball gun, expect to pay at least $479.

A high end auto-cocker runs as high as $1,400. You can get a stock one for as little as $289. But at this price you can get a killer Tippmann A-5.

Paintball sponsors are the most willing to fund a team that has some kind of record of winning a tournament or even a championship. This trend often leaves smaller less successful teams in the dust because big sponsors like to attach their name to winners. This is because they know more people will turn out for the game and their product will get more exposure when they sponsor paintball teams that are successful.

Business owners and large companies are smart people. They aren’t easy targets that walk around thinking, “we must sponsor paintball team”. You have to sell them on it…

So what do you do if you have a rookie team with no track record and you love to play paintball but can’t afford to pay for your tournament? First of all you have to earn the sponsor’ s trust by explaining why they should fund your game. Some companies will sponsor a paintball team simply because they appreciate the hunger and enthusiasm that newbies have for this relatively new sport.

The best time to approach a paintball team sponsor is around October of every year when the popular “World Cup” Tournament has come and gone. This is when paintball sponsors start determining who they will sponsor the following year. If you are a rookie team it is usually the local paintball store or the paintball field owner who will make the decision about whether or not they will sponsor your game.

If you want to shoot higher than just the local folks than you can always submit a proposal to the marketing departments of a big paintball company such as National Paintball Supply Dynasty or Kingman. However keep in mind that these bigger companies usually have their marketing budgets already assigned to teams that are winning championships all over the world. However, it is still worth a shot if you are serious about getting big paintball sponsorship, as once again, some individuals in these companies do realize the potential market value of newbies to the game. This is why it is important for you to explain to whomever you are approaching why your newbies and their friends who will be in attendance are potential customers of their paintball products.

You can also approach businesses outside the realm of paintball. They may purchase your paintball supplies for you if you offer to provide attendees to the event with stickers, posters or other forms of wearable advertising to the event. You can also offer to post the business’s banner on the field.

Also before approaching a paintball sponsor make sure that you will be taken seriously by also submitting a business plan and a team biography. In your business plan explain exactly why this event would be good for their business. It also helps if you charge an admission and donate the proceeds to charity. Almost every sponsor, including paintball sponsors are more inclined to support a charitable event than one that is just for fun.