Playing “tag” or “king of the mountain” has definitely turned Rambo-warrior, as the modern version of competitive paintball gaming takes over fields and forests. The formerly simple matter of chasing down an opponent has been replaced by a paintball speeding out towards an opponent at over 270 miles per hour. Paintball gaming is serious stuff as in “Mr. Antelope… meet Mr. Lion”!
Getting a score off another opponent, winning points yet keeping yourself free of eye, hand and lower body injuries (especially for the stalker crawler types playing improv paintball) means getting the right designed paintball gear without over-spending.
# 1 You Gotta Have It – Face, Ear And Eye Safety. Your paintball mask ought to be your first purchase, since protecting your eyes from being shot and damaged goes well beyond the simple thrills of playing paintball one Saturday afternoon. Unlike snow boarding goggles or even industrial safety goggles, paintball mask-goggles are specifically designed, and regulated, to provide injury protection from impacts from a paintball traveling at around 270 miles per hour. You’ll need extensive, yet comfortable lens padding.
Paintball goggles are overly-designed impact-resistant gear with full facial coverage. You get protection, plus you retain your side vision or “peripheral” sight line so that you can rapidly detect, and counter, any stalkers or snipers looking to surprise you.
Ear protection is equally vital, so make sure that your paintball mask “wraps around” sufficiently to protect your ears from getting hit and injured.
Face and chin and upper neck should also receive protection from your mask. You can still talk just fine, play your game, yet not run such high injury risks by ensuring that your paintball mask extends into these coverage areas.
# 2 Crotch Hits – Wear A Cup! Players focusing on speed and agility take one paintball hit to the groin and suddenly realize that losing a point or game is chump change when compared to taking a paintball to the groin. Message? Don’t even think about playing paintball without wearing a protective cup.
Paintball Gear – Clothing & Gloves. The best paintball gloves are lightweight, made out of synthetic leather and nylon. Look for gloves that are full fingered, and with gel padded palms and finger tips, especially for the stalker-crawler-hunter types who are likely to be burrowing through brush, rocks and briar in order to get a take-out shot.
Paintball pants should be loose, made from synthetics for easy maintenance and be gusseted in the crotch, in order to allow greater freedom of movement, plus be able to accept a cup for groin protection.
Getting The Best Paintball Gun – Selection Tips. Money matters so make sure you can save enough in order to buy a metal, rather than plastic gun. Reason? Paintball gaming is all about rough-and-tumble hunting of other bipedals. Your paintball gun has to be able to withstand running, dropping, bumping and rough treatment.
The players’ myth about “you need a long barrel” quickly goes away when you focus on the facts. Marksmanship and mechanical skills training accounts for most of the accuracy factor. Yes, off the shelf stock barrels at 12″ may need to be upgraded with after-market paintball barrels of around 14″. However, pushing the envelope out to 20″ barrel lengths has little to do with increasing your gun’s performance, indeed may hinder performance.
Avoid getting a hand-me-down or cheap paintball gun. You want performance, reliability, ease of maintenance, and quality manufacturing resulting in a smooth internal barreling so that the paintball travels true to your sighting.
Paintball Gun Maintenance. If you want game performance, then you’ll need to play with the best gear, well maintained. You’ll be working with a 12″ to 14″ barrel, fitted to a grip frame, hopper feeding the paintballs and hammer. After each paintball game, clean your gun. Dissemble it first. Remember to always first remove your CO2 cartridges or CO2 bottle air source before cleaning.
Your frame and barrel should be cleaned with a squeegee in order to remove the paint and debris build-up. Warm soapy water for the rest of your gun normally works fine.
Avoid tampering with your trigger mechanism unless the action has been compromised. Re-assembling these components could create a game-ending frustration for you.
O-rings typically fail on a paintball gun, just an O-ring turned out to be the root cause of the Shuttle launch disaster in the 1990s. Looked for cracked O-rings, then replace them before finishing your maintenance with an overall lube job, using specially formulated paint gun oil lubricants.
