starting paintballing

[1MileCrash]

so i've got a youth group which does military style training and we are upgrading our equipment from airsoft to paintball here before summer hits. we usually do a couple ftx's during the summer months in which we use the airsoft. myself and one other adult officer...sometimes 2 others...provide the opfor for the cadets to go against. typically we have 2 or 3 verses about 8 cadets. in order to even the odds i am thinking about getting an automatic paintball gun rather than a single pull trigger single shot style gun.

anyone have any advice on decent/good quality at an inexpensive price (around $200)?

[Frazier]

Look into the PM and DM paintball guns. I used to do the occasional tourney and they seemed to be great guns. Look on www.pbnation.com in their for sale section if you want a good deal on used guns. Hope that helps.

[1MileCrash]

thanks...yeah i'll poke around on there and see what's up. good place to start at least

[raynor139]

DM or PM make great guns. PM or Proto Matrix is DM or Dye Matrix's discount line of guns but they are still excellent guns and share alot of the parts from Dye's guns. I play with the 07 PM Rail model and it can fire up to 30 BPS though i never have it that high. i usually keep it at 20 so I dont have to worry about rounds breaking.

If you want a more realistic look like airsoft guns Tippman models actually look like real guns. They are also very durable and inexpensive. I havent played in the last few years so not sure how much they have improved on them but most of the Tippman stuff unless you got into higher end models had pretty slow fire rates.

Now if you dont want to really invest a whole lot of money into this, Spyder has a decent line for people just starting in paintball and you can get the higher fire rates of more expensive guns. The only downside is they are lacking in the quality.

Now for automatics you really wont see many instead the guns use what they call a ramp up system. Basically a circuit board in the gun actually controls everything and when you pull the trigger all it is doing is telling the board to fire the gun. When you pull it once it fires a single round but if you keep pulling it faster and faster the circuit board will fire rounds faster and keep going up in speed till basically you are firing at a much higher rate then your pulling the trigger.

Also like Frazier said check out PBNation.com alot of good stuff on there.

[SteveCZ28]

i used to be into paintballing alot back in the day. i would reccomend getting into a spyder paintball gun...rather cheap, tons of aftermarket for them and can take abeating...i started out with a stock spyder shutter, which was a single pull single shot...by the time i was done, it was fully automatic, and popping 15/second out of it...and i maybe had 350 in the entire setup....

[1MileCrash]

we had looked at bt-4's but i can't find anything on them being autocockers and we were told that tippman's quality had gone downhill since they began being "mass produced." anything on this?

[silverWS6]

I was supposed to go paintballing today again but fuckin weather is horrible

[raynor139]

we had looked at bt-4's but i can't find anything on them being autocockers and we were told that tippman's quality had gone downhill since they began being "mass produced." anything on this?

When it comes to Tippman they were pretty damn reliable but then again that was over 3 yrs ago when i still played and I havent seen any of the new lines or played with them.

Everything I know of BT-4s is that they are semi-auto guns. Never seen one in use.

[1MileCrash]

yeah that's what i'm seeing. i'm thinking about the tippmann x7 or the bt tm-7. both are autos and are what i'm looking for design wise.

[brendan.9]

i'd say tippmann they make there guns look military and there great tough and shoot great. and some like the one i have can go from semi automatic to fully automatic or bursts many different options on these guns there great

[86 IROC-Z]

I haven't played in a long time, nor have I kept up with prices, but from what I remember you probably won't be able to get an auto gun for $200. Also, unless the game has changed, I can't imagine many fields allowing full auto guns (Closest you could do was a crank adapter for the trigger, and even those were sometimes banned).

I played for probably 3 to 4 years seriously, with a Tippmann Model 98 Custom. It's an entry level gun. The only upgrade I got for it was 14 inch barrel (over the stock one, which is 8.5 inches if I remember correctly). If you want a gun that will do it's job no matter how bad a beating it takes, the 98c is the one you'll want. I've fallen on top of my gun, dropped it off a 12 foot outpost, and had fully submerged in water - all during games (24hour scenario type games where you'll be out in the field for a few hours before returning to camp to reload, have a snack, etc) - and it continued firing without complaints. It's also a very simple and fast procedure to completely field strip it. I haven't played in quite some time, and my 98c sits in my closet, paint peeling, scratched, sticky and stained from years worth of paint, but with a clean barrel and clean balls, it'll shoot the same as it did the day it came out of the box.

That's not to say they more expensive markers available are a waste of money. Many of them are amazing. The guys on the team I played with had more money to spend on the sport, so I was able to play with markers such as Angel, Eclipse, Autococker, Dye, etc. The abilities of these markers far surpass what's capable with my 98c, with parts such as electronic feeders, magnetic triggers, barely-there trigger pull (opposed to my tippmanns' mechanical 3lb. pull), fully customizable through digital interface, nitrogen, light weight, etc. They shoot faster, more consistently, with more accuracy. Although with these high end guns you lose quite a bit of durability, due to all the extra fragile parts:
-Gun battery die? Hope you bought a spare
-Feeder battery die? 13 chopped balls in a blink of an eye, have fun cleaning that out
-Water in the electronics? Game over
My favorite gun to play with was an Oracle Autococker with an E electric trigger frame; it was very fun to play with and shoot, but I couldn't be as daring with it during games Like I could with my Tippmann. It needed duct tape around the small pressure lines to survive the scenario games (The ones seen in the picture below, to the right side just below the barrel):



It basically boils down to what you want to spend and what you want out of the gun.

[1MileCrash]

thanks for the input iroc. at this time i have no desire to play on a field. we've got a training area that we use on a family farm out in the middle of nowhere...pretty good stuff. oak forest, pine grove, 2 meadows/grassy fields, river, creekbeds, marshy semi-seasonal swamplands. yeah we got it all at our disposal.

[86 IROC-Z]

thanks for the input iroc. at this time i have no desire to play on a field. we've got a training area that we use on a family farm out in the middle of nowhere...pretty good stuff. oak forest, pine grove, 2 meadows/grassy fields, river, creekbeds, marshy semi-seasonal swamplands. yeah we got it all at our disposal.

Well, in that case there will be no refs around.

So if you're looking for an advantage, and are sadistic, remove the velocity screw from whatever gun you buy

[1MileCrash]

hahaha. we (the opfor) are going to be building a tank this summer..2 or 3 man tank...and are looking at getting some landmines or some remote detonated claymores. we don't like playing "fair." we believe in giving the cadets a challenge.

last year the 2 of us captured their commanding officer and their vehicle and ordered their officer to drive it into their position as a decoy while we attacked them from the rear. it was funny.

[86 IROC-Z]

hahaha. we (the opfor) are going to be building a tank this summer..2 or 3 man tank...and are looking at getting some landmines or some remote detonated claymores. we don't like playing "fair." we believe in giving the cadets a challenge.

last year the 2 of us captured their commanding officer and their vehicle and ordered their officer to drive it into their position as a decoy while we attacked them from the rear. it was funny.

Sounds awesome


On a serious note I was completely kidding in my previous post, keep all the guns on the field at 280fps.

[1MileCrash]

oh yeah i figured as much. no we have strict rules that you cannot aim at anything above the waist. a few years back one of the cadets got a chipped tooth from a wayward airsoft pellet.

[86 IROC-Z]

oh yeah i figured as much. no we have strict rules that you cannot aim at anything above the waist. a few years back one of the cadets got a chipped tooth from a wayward airsoft pellet.

That's an odd rule. I'd much rather get hit in the chest than possibly in the nuts.

And I never understood why airsoft players only wear eye protection, instead of a full face mask like in paintball.

[raynor139]

That's an odd rule. I'd much rather get hit in the chest than possibly in the nuts.

And I never understood why airsoft players only wear eye protection, instead of a full face mask like in paintball.

Yeah as long as your wearing a mask your pretty much good. And like Iroc said the chest is probably my prefered area to get hit doesnt sting as bad or leave as bad of a bruise as some areas.

[Hi-Po]

I haven't played in a long time, nor have I kept up with prices, but from what I remember you probably won't be able to get an auto gun for $200. Also, unless the game has changed, I can't imagine many fields allowing full auto guns (Closest you could do was a crank adapter for the trigger, and even those were sometimes banned).

I played for probably 3 to 4 years seriously, with a Tippmann Model 98 Custom. It's an entry level gun. The only upgrade I got for it was 14 inch barrel (over the stock one, which is 8.5 inches if I remember correctly). If you want a gun that will do it's job no matter how bad a beating it takes, the 98c is the one you'll want. I've fallen on top of my gun, dropped it off a 12 foot outpost, and had fully submerged in water - all during games (24hour scenario type games where you'll be out in the field for a few hours before returning to camp to reload, have a snack, etc) - and it continued firing without complaints. It's also a very simple and fast procedure to completely field strip it. I haven't played in quite some time, and my 98c sits in my closet, paint peeling, scratched, sticky and stained from years worth of paint, but with a clean barrel and clean balls, it'll shoot the same as it did the day it came out of the box.

That's not to say they more expensive markers available are a waste of money. Many of them are amazing. The guys on the team I played with had more money to spend on the sport, so I was able to play with markers such as Angel, Eclipse, Autococker, Dye, etc. The abilities of these markers far surpass what's capable with my 98c, with parts such as electronic feeders, magnetic triggers, barely-there trigger pull (opposed to my tippmanns' mechanical 3lb. pull), fully customizable through digital interface, nitrogen, light weight, etc. They shoot faster, more consistently, with more accuracy. Although with these high end guns you lose quite a bit of durability, due to all the extra fragile parts:
-Gun battery die? Hope you bought a spare
-Feeder battery die? 13 chopped balls in a blink of an eye, have fun cleaning that out
-Water in the electronics? Game over
My favorite gun to play with was an Oracle Autococker with an E electric trigger frame; it was very fun to play with and shoot, but I couldn't be as daring with it during games Like I could with my Tippmann. It needed duct tape around the small pressure lines to survive the scenario games (The ones seen in the picture below, to the right side just below the barrel):



It basically boils down to what you want to spend and what you want out of the gun.

100% agreed on everything here. I have a Tippman 98 Carbine and it has never failed me. Played for a few years semi competitive with it. I add a 14" barrel and a remote CO2 line/canister to get the weight off the gun itself.

I just recently took all my stuff out and washed the damned cat piss off it, would love to get back into it.

[raynor139]

Sounds awesome


On a serious note I was completely kidding in my previous post, keep all the guns on the field at 280fps.

Yeah ive been hit by a gun firing at 400fps that was probably the most painful shot ive ever taken.