Some Basics About Paintball Guns and Paintball

Paintball is a game originating in the early 1980s, where players try to eliminate others by splattering them with paint in gelatin capsules, or paintballs. These balls are shots from a paintball gun or marker, which were originally co-opted from a type of paint marker intended for trees. It's estimated that as many as five million people play in the US alone. Despite the military-sounding use of the word paintball gun, insurance suggests that paintball is one of the safest sports you can play. Fewer people are injured playing this game than in golf, tennis, and even bowling.

Paintball is a fast-paced sport. The average game by casual players lasts between five minutes and a half hour. However, after the game is over, there's no reason not to start a new one. The most basic form of the game is an attempt to eliminate all the players on the other team. However, for people who've gotten tired of this, there's also the option to complete a specific objective. Common variations on paintball games include capture the flag or eliminating a particular player, like a team captain. The only thing required is for all players to agree on the rules and objective of a given game.

Paintball guns can fire their soft ammo at speeds of up to three hundred feet per second. Higher speeds are banned on most paintball fields, as they're considered unsafe. This is the speed over which damage can be caused by the paintball when it hits the body. However, you should remember that even a squishy paintball traveling at three hundred feet per second can leave a bruise. Most players wear fully covering clothing to help reduce this.

The main components of a paintball gun are the body, hopper, barrel, and gas system. The bodies of most paintball markers are made up of aluminum to make them lighter. They can be anodized for different colorations, and made to many different shapes. The body is where the trigger, valve, and bolt are all housed. Different designs are more or less expensive, and more or less efficient.

Loaders or hoppers are the part of the gun that holds the paintballs. They also come in many different types, but usually feed paintballs by one of three mechanisms. Gravity fed hoppers are the cheapest, but can feed at only around eight balls per second, and they can easily get jammed. Agitating hoppers user a kind of propeller to stir up the paintballs and keep them from jamming. They can also feed more paintballs at once. Some include an LED and sensor to identify whether there's a ball in the tube. Force feeding hoppers are similar, in that they use a method to force the balls into the marker quickly. However, instead of letting the ball fall via gravity, it's actually placed into the paintball gun.

The other major difference between types of paintball guns is the method of propelling the paintball. Commmonly, especially in cheaper models, carbon dioxied is used, usually in cartridge form. Other markers may use high pressure air or nitrogen in a tank. These are more expensive, but provide more consistent velocities.

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