A paintball marker, also known as a paintball gun, is the central piece of equipment in the sport of paintball. Markers harness the power of an expanding gas (carbon dioxide or compressed air) to propel paintballs through the barrel. Muzzle velocities can approach 300 feet per second (91 meters per second), though any speed above 300 feet per second is unsafe. Below 300 fps, most paintballs will break upon impact without leaving significant damage beyond a localised but fairly severe bruising. Due to the extreme speed of flying paintballs, players must wear masks to protect the eyes, mouth, and ears when barrel blocking devices are not in place. Every commercial paintball field has rules regarding barrel blocking devices, muzzle velocity, and wearing masks.
The majority of paintball markers have four main components: a body, a hopper, a tank, and a barrel. There is, however, a strong following of stock-class players who use markers with a purposely low rate of fire and capacity. Stock-class markers are usually pump-action and powered by 12-gram CO2 powerlets.
The paintball community generally prefers to use the term "marker" rather than "gun" in order to mitigate the public perception that paintball markers are weapons, and that paintball is a dangerous sport. The term derives from its original use as a means for forestry personnel and ranchers to mark trees and wandering cattle. Technorati Profile
Marker construction varies widely, from ultra-economy models not seriously made for the sport, to multi-thousand dollar electronic markers with custom graphics and body milling. Marker body The largest external and ergonomic difference in marker bodies is trigger and barrel position. High-end marker designers work to push the trigger frame forward toward the center, or slightly forward of center of the body. This allows the HPA tank to be mounted in a position that provides compactness and balance without requiring any additional modifications that drop the tank down and forward. (Such aftermarket "drop forwards," may create a large gun profile, which can cause eliminations due to hopper hits.) In economy markers, users often modify the marker to the extreme in this way, sacrificing a low profile to produce the same feel. Though this is an irrelevant consideration in games where equipment hits do not count, a majority of fields, even in woodsball games, will count hopper hits as an elimination. As a side note, some markers mount the barrel farther back in the gun body to preserve overall compactness.
Most electronic guns are built with light materials such as aluminum, plastic, or carbon fiber, to reduce the marker's weight. Trigger frame Triggers are the second external consideration, and one of the most important as it provides the player's direct interaction with the marker. Expensive markers universally employ electronic trigger frames with a variety of sensing methods. Some markers, especially autocockers, use carefully set pneumatics to achieve a light and short trigger pull. A good trigger will have an extremely short throw, with adjustable firing and travel limit stops.
Another important note is that valves and recocking mechanisms will have an effect on the minimum possible trigger travel. Electronic triggers may be straight switches, hall effect sensors, or break-beam IR tripped. Many markers are switching to magnetic trigger return, which provides decaying force as the trigger returns. The trigger frame is also what houses the logic for the rest of the marker, such as ball detection systems. Upgrades are available on most to improve the detection speed or increase customizability of the marker. Valve How the firing valve is designed to operate affects the recoil, rate of fire, and how the valve fires in time to the trigger pull. Many economic and rugged markers use a simple blowback design. Blowback guns require user-recocking when initially applying gas pressure. These valves are usually easy to replace and require little, if any, service work. The downside to this design, however, is its high operating pressure, which leads to a larger recoil and thus less accuracy. It can also send air back into the stack of paintballs, causing feed disruptions. Sear-trip or hammer systems use a hammer and spring valve, as in blowback guns, but do not use pressure from the valve to recock. A separate mechanism is present to operate the bolt motion. In a gun with electronic cocking, such as an upgraded Autococker, the hammer system remains in place while the cocking system is replaced with electronics. In an entirely electropneumatic marker, such as an Intimidator or E Matrix, both the bolt operation and valve operation are entirely electronic. Recocking the marker is no longer true recocking, as both the valve and bolt are operated electronically and on separate pneumatic systems.
Though most high-end tournament markers may be deemed "electropneumatic," there are various ways of operating the marker. The Matrix series and similar markers (Smart Parts Ion and Shocker, ICD Freestyle, FEP Quest and others) use a design called a spool valve; the Intimidator and similar markers (Planet Eclipse Ego, MacDev Cyborg, Bushmaster Series and many others) use a poppet valve design. The difference is the way the valve jets air. A spool uses a sliding seal where a poppet uses a face seal. Face seals have active force applied and the seal itself only experiences a compression force. A typical spool valve has at least 1 o-ring that undergoes a shear/compression duty cycle every shot, leading to faster wear and less reliability. However, due to having less reciprocating mass and requiring less pressure to operate, spool valve guns are well known for lack of kick, smooth operation, and very little noise.
Also, spool valves are usually fully balanced, meaning if the bolt was exposed it could be moved freely with your hand because there is no active force to overcome to vent the air. This problem has been largely overcome by the advent of better balanced valve designs. This has helped decrease the recoil while maintaining the wear and efficiency of the poppet design.
Most guns have a separate ultra-low pressure system that controls the gas pressure used to open and close the bolt. In totally electronic markers, kickback is almost entirely eliminated, as the only mass that must move in the gun is the bolt, which is often short. The firing valve will also open faster than is perceived by humans, giving a high end gun a distinct "fires before you pull the trigger" feel. Any marker with a hammer, such as the Tippman 98 and the Autococker, has a significant firing delay when compared to a full electropneumatic.
Valves also must be designed with a specific operating pressure in mind, but this can be altered to a large extent by changing the valve spring on most guns. Low pressure valves provide quieter operation, and increased gas efficiency when tuned properly. Going too low, just as too high, can decrease gas efficiency dramatically. The valve must let the proper amount of air through to prevent "shoot-down" and limiting rate of fire. Some guns have integral or external (or both) chambers, called expansion chambers, that hold a large volume of gas at the firing pressure directly attached to the valve. This prevents shoot-down and makes up for any lag in the regulator system. Shoot-down is not a serious problem in slower markers, but at 18-20 balls per second, how much gas a gun can continually stabilize and how fast it can do that becomes an issue.
There might come a time in your paintball playing lifetime that you will have the amazing opportunity to enjoy a fun filled and exciting paintball weekend with some of your friends. Often times, some of your local paintball fields may organize such paintball weekends where you can go and camp out and get involved in games all throughout the weekend. If you do not have such a field that offers such weekends, then you might even want to think of organizing such a weekend yourself.
Just think about how much fun it will be to get out on the field for a couple of days with a great group of fellow paintball lovers. You will more than likely have the opportunity to mingle around and meet new people and possibly even make some friends along the way. This can be a great opportunity to chat and share tactics and tips with one another and maybe even check out each other's gear. You might even find yourself learning about some new products that you will want to try!
If you are going to be attending an organized paintball weekend, then you might find that there are a couple of vendors on hand if you happen to run out of supplies. However, it is always good to stock up on all of your paintballs and replacement parts before you even set out for your adventure. Depending on how much playing you are looking to do over the weekend, a container of 1,000 paintballs should be enough to tie you over.
Do you happen to have a child or other family member who is having a birthday coming up who is also a big fan of paintball? If so, then you might want to think about taking the steps to throw him or her a great paintball party. Such an event can be approached several different ways, and all that you really need to remember is to have fun with it. You can either plan that party so that playing paintball is involved or just go with a festive paintball theme.
Starting off with some of the basics for the paintball birthday party, you can begin by having a cake that is decorated with what look to be paint splatters made out of different colored frosting. You can even put up couple of white sheets outside ahead of time and have them peppered with paintballs. Once they dry, you can then place them either inside for an indoor party or outside for an outdoor party. There are plenty of fun possibilities when it comes to all of the different things you can do for decorations.
If you decide to have a paintball birthday party where the guests can actually play paintball, you can even have great prizes for some of the winners. A perfect idea for prizes could be gift certificates in different denominations. Once you begin all of your planning for this fun and festive party, you will definitely begin to see your hard work paying off. This could be a paintball birthday party that folks will be talking about for quite some time to come.
Hoppers, also known as loaders, hold paintballs for the marker to fire. There are many variations, but the primary types are gravity feed, agitating, and force feed.
One common problem to all hoppers is ball breaks. When a paintball leaks its contents into the hopper from either a break in the hopper or from a previous container, the leaked material (which is usually water based) causes the gelatin shells of the balls to deteriorate and sometimes stick together.
While agitating and force feed hoppers result in a higher possible rate of fire, they may fail due to dead batteries and contact with moisture, which keeps many woodsball and scenario players away from them.
Gravity feed is the simplest and cheapest form of hopper available. Gravity feed hoppers consist of a large container and a feed tube molded into the bottom. Paintballs roll down the sloped sides into the tube. These hoppers are limited to an intermittent 8 balls per second. Gravity feed hoppers are very cheap, since they are made of only a shell and a lid, but can become jammed easily as paintballs pile up above the tube. Occasionally, rocking the marker and hopper can keep the paintballs from jamming at the feed neck.
This problem is made worse when using a modern fully-electronic marker. Most economic and mechanical markers use a blowback system for recocking, or other methods where a large recriprocating mass is involved. This will shake the balls in the hopper slightly, facilitating gravity feed. A marker with both electronically controlled recocking and firing will often exhibit no shake whatsoever while operating. Because of this, small packs in the hopper are not broken up, and feeding problems are made worse.
Stick feeds are primarily used on pump and stock-class markers and are simple tubes that hold ten to twenty paintballs. Usually stick feeds are parallel to the barrel and the player must tip (or rock, leading to the term, rock'n'cock) the marker to load the next paintball. Some stick feeds are vertical, or at an incline to facilitate gravity feeding, but this contravenes accepted stock-class guidelines.
Agitating hoppers use propellers to agitate, or stir up, the paintballs. This prevents them from jamming at the feed neck and feeding more rapidly than equivalent gravity feeds. Older tournament-level hoppers are of the agitating type, since the higher rate of fire requires a more advanced and consistently-loading hopper.
Unlike the previous types of hoppers, there are two types of Agitating Hoppers: those with eyes and those without. These eyes are two electronic devices inside the neck (tube) of the hopper and are often inside electronic markers. Eyes are used to detect whether a ball is present or not. In a marker, the eyes will keep the gun from shooting until a ball is fully loaded into the chamber. In a Hopper the eyes detect when a ball is not present to cause it to turn. Agitating hoppers without eyes will run down batteries and may bend or dent paintballs which will in turn cause a short, less air efficient, skew shot. Agitating hoppers with eyes will only spin whenever there is not a ball, which causes less chance of damage and longer battery life.
One notable agitated hopper is the Tippmann Cyclone system. It is used on the Tippmann A5, X7, and can be installed on the 98 Custom. The Cyclone system uses excess gas from the blow back to force feed a ball into the gun. There are several benefits to this, it does not require batteries, and it only cycles when the gun fires. There are, of course, several downfalls to the Cyclone system as well. The Cyclone requires more CO2/HPA, therefore makes the gun less air efficient, and it adds many moving parts to the marker, decreasing the reliability.
Force-feed hoppers are superficially similar to agitated hoppers. They can use a propeller, be spring-loaded, or utilize a belt-fed system to force balls at an accelerated rate into a marker. The difference between the two styles is that the design of the feed mechanism does not rely on gravity to move paintballs into the feed neck. Instead of simply agitating, the device actually captures the paintball. These are the dominant form of hopper, as modern markers outshoot what gravity can supply. few markers use force-fed loaders shaped in imitation of firearms magazines such as the Real Action Paintball RAP-4. They are also appealing when a low profile is required, such as woodsball 'sniper' positions, as the force-feed nature allows the hopper to be mounted in non-standard locations. Some also include other features, which may include information about how many balls are remaining in the hopper, how many balls per second are being fired, and game timers.
The newest type of force feed hoppers communicate wirelessly with the marker's electronics via radio frequency. This allows the hopper to begin feeding paintballs before the pneumatic system of the marker has even began cycling the next shot. Not only does this system almost totally eliminate mis-feeds, but it can greatly increase the speed of the loader and increase battery life due to the loader only being in operation when the marker is preparing to fire, as opposed to the continuous operation of many other loaders. An example of the radio frequency activated hopper is the DXS/Draxxus Pulse. It should be noted, though, that Procaps (the maker of the Pulse) is being sued by NPS (maker of the Halo B, another force-fed hopper) for alleged intellectual property theft of the magnetic aspect of the RF Chip and the internals of the Halo hopper. DXS/Draxxus has halted production of the Pulse, and its future production is unclear.
It should be noted, however, that in order to use this feature, you must have a chip soldered to the electronics board in your marker. Fortunately, many new marker manufacturers and aftermarket electronics makers have announced that their markers/boards will support this new technology.
