"What's a good beginner gun?"

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is an oft asked question.  And it is oft answered as well.  Rather poorly, I might add.

What is a good beginner gun?

The answer?

There is no such thing.

Due to a combination of circumstances, including boneheaded players, boneheaded manufacturers, and some relatively recent low cost markers, there is no “good beginner gun”.

You can only separate guns roughly into two categories: good guns and shitty guns.  (Or maybe “cheap guns and expensive guns”.)


Criteria:  Price

As of recent years, good paintball guns have been targeted at the lower priced segment of paintball.  Small, light, efficient electros used to easily cost $800+, but since the advent of the SP Ion, a good electro can easily be had for ~$300 new.

The best example of the lower range of performance and value is nearly anything made by Tippmann.  This includes the ‘98, the A5, the X7 Phenom, and even the TPX.

All of Tippmann’s products are made to be as cheap as possible.  This is why they’re made out of pot metal and have generally poor manufacturing results like overspray and lack of finish on parts.  The top of the line is the X7 Phenom, which runs $400, although that does include a hopper.  But even dropping $400 on a Tippmann still doesn't get you a particularly competitive marker.  I mean, the thing doesn't even have eyes.  And don't give me any shit about the Cyclone.

On the other hand, an Invert Mini, which is a perfectly good gun, comes in at $325 new.  Or something like a Proto Rail for $240.

The flipside of this is that you need to have two other pieces of equipment to feed such a high performance gun:  an HPA tank (prices have come down on those, but still far more expensive than a CO2 tank), and a hopper.  Ironicallly, as fast guns have gone down in price, comparably fast hoppers have actually gone UP in price -- to the point where arguably the best hopper -- the Dye Rotor -- costs nearly $200.  A Prophecy Z2 will run $170 new.


Criteria:  Upgradeability

You want a gun that might start out as a beginner gun, but can be upgraded to a high level marker.  Currently, no such gun exists.  If you start out with a Tippmann 98, then the best you will get out of that will still be a Tippmann 98.  It's not like you can upgrade a '98 all the way to an Empire Axe or PE Ego.

The closest we ever came to this was going from a Spyder to a classic Intimidator, but that was really because the original Intimidators were just expensive dressed up Spyders with pneumatic rams and 3-ways instead of hammer springs.

Most "upgrades" for paintball guns then simultaneous waste your money while not actually making your gun any better.  In fact, sometimes they're worse than the stock parts.  This has gotten a little better over the years with the economic culling of manufacturers, but so long as demand for worthless parts by worthless players exists, there will still be shit parts.


The myth of the “backup marker”

Some people say that they can relegate the beginner marker to their “backup marker”, when really what they’re doing is making a shitty justification for marker whoring.

The purpose of a backup marker is to keep you in operation as much as possible.

Why then would you have a marker that was DIFFERENT than your primary?  So you can carry twice the amount of specialized parts kits?

If your intent is maximum uptime, then your backup marker should be of the same type as your primary.  It should share functional parts with your primary.

If the first gun goes down, you go to the backup.

If the backup goes down, you at least have a chance to Frankenstein a third working marker with parts from both guns.

If nothing else, at least you only have to carry spares for one type of gun, not two.

This is the kind of stupid, illogical shit that runs rampant in our sport.


Bottom Line

Beginners should not be buying paintball guns.  Their focus should be on learning how to play better so that they become intermediate players as quickly as possible.  This is independent of whatever gun they are using.  Once they become intermediate players, the question is moot.

The most practical advice:  start out with protective equipment like mask and knee pads.  Good masks can be had quite affordably and are well worth the money.  The importance of protective equipment is nearly on par with the paintball marker.  After all, you can’t hit what you can’t see.  Usually.

Continue to rent or borrow until you are sure you really want to get into paintball, and then go for the gun you really want, instead of wasting money on some shitty “starter” gun.  By that time, you should be smart enough to know that a paintball gun doesn’t have to cost $1000 to be effective on the field, and you will have saved a lot of money by not upgrading a pile of shit.

Also, do your homework and learn your equipment, and you should be able to buy your guns used at a significant discount.

Gorilla Glue

Alright, so the Trracer rail finally fell off of the gun.

I used Gorilla Glue white, which seemed kind of soft.  It had good adhesion to the nylon, but either I didn't have enough bonding area, or it seems a bit weak.

Most troubling was I got some paint on there, and it seemed to wick into the glue itself, which is a bad sign.  The point where it wicked into the glue is where it first came apart...  so probably don't want to use Gorilla Glue for paintball related stuff.

I'm going to try good old fashioned epoxy next.

Azodin Inline Regulator

Picked one of these up so I could run my mag on CO2 again.

So first thing -- I opened the top half just to get a look at it and make sure it had enough lube.  Looked like it, so I put the thing back together.

Gassed it up, noticed it was only doing like 2-300 PSI.

Tried turning it up, but the snap ring retainer was blocking the nut, so I ripped that out, gassed it back up...

...  and the thing just started venting continuously.

So I pulled the bottom piston out to find a very fucked up o-ring.  Neither buna nor urethane.  No idea what it was.  Pulled a matching buna o-ring out of a Tiberius parts kit and reassembled.

Worked fine, dialed the PSI up to about 450, nearing the effective max of the regulator, and sent about 100 shots of CO2 through, with no problems.

Recharge was OK; seemed fast enough for what I'm going to be using it for.

Finally, a CO2 tolerant regulator that doesn't cost $100!  Fuck Palmers.

Need to make sure all the threads/etc are metric or standard.  The fitting is definitely standard.

If they were smart, the pressure adjustment screw would be 1/8" NPT as well, because then you could just reuse a fitting plug.  Chances are probably not though.

Using the Azodin Inline Regulator on my Automag

Scenario Paintball Sucks

People have been talking to me about scenario games more and more often over the recent months.  I try to temper my words, but really, scenario games kind of suck.

While we were on the field last week, one of the refs commented that it's fat guys that like the scenario games the most.

There is the idea of scenario paintball -- that is, you're running some scenario pretend game with a bunch of other players...

... and then there's the reality of scenario paintball.

I'm one of those players that will typically show up in the morning (if I wake up) and play every single game until there are no more players left to play with.

This is not what I've seen of most players, much less scenario events.  I don't know if it's a physical fitness thing or lack of interest or what, but most people tend to peter out and not play as much as possible.  Most of the time, people will sit out games so they can shoot the breeze in the staging area or something.  Clearly, as an antisocial paintballer, that holds little interest for me.

For rec games, that's fine.  If the teams are fucked up, the refs will juggle them up and balance things out, and you can get back to the direct action.

But for scenarios, and even big games, that doesn't work because teams are set.  So if you got stuck with a team that didn't come to play, well, you're screwed.

And that's the problem of scenario paintball.  People don't show up to play.  Even if they're on the field, they're not out there to play.  So if they didn't come to play, what are they doing?

Look at all the videos.  It's just an excuse for people to go out and indiscriminately dump paint like it's going out of fashion.  Much like the 10-year-olds who go to a paintball field but prefer to blow their paint on the target range instead of in-game because they don't have the balls for the real thing.  These guys go to scenario games and stand there dumping paint on literally *nothing*.  I'm sure the people running the event love it though.

That's assuming they're on the field.  They don't even manage that sometimes.  Maybe they're in the staging area dicking with their faulty equipment.  Maybe they're in the staging area just cutting up and shooting the breeze.

Or maybe they're in the staging area too wiped out from the previous night's drinking.  Clearly, if you came hung over and not well rested, you didn't come to play.

I drove this far and paid this much for what?

Fuck that.

This is unfortunately the other side of the soft argument of "as long as you have fun, do what you want".  Because for some people, being useless does in fact represent fun.

And that might not even be the worst of it...

Testing: Marker Efficiency

Look at this shit.  18 posts, not a shred of fucking verifiable, decent data.  Just a bunch of half-cocked suggestions.

i want a very efficient marker help me out

I don't know why this is so fucking hard (unless my physics assumptions are off).

All these shitheads that do "efficiency" testing are just looking for an excuse to shoot and dump paint; they don't give two shits about science or data.

After the testing is done, they still haven't produced any sort really usable metric, aside from a rather non-useful datapoint like "x number of pods off a 68/45".

Here's what you do.

Take your gun.  Make sure everything is in a steady state as far as temperature.  (No hot fills!)

Record all conditions -- paint used, barrel/bore used, ambient temp, etc.

Chrono it.

Remove everything from the gun except for the tank.

Weigh it.

Reassemble the gun.

Take X number of shots; however many it takes to get enough of a weight change to show up on a scale.  Depending on the quality of your scale, maybe it will be 50 shots, maybe it will be 100 shots.

Remove everything from the gun except for the tank again.

Weigh it.

Divide the weight difference by the number of shots.

That is the amount of propellant you use per shot.

THAT IS THE FUCKING NUMBER WE NEED.

Automag valve weights

Sticking the AA aluminum piston housing on there drops a classic valve within an ounce of an X-valve.

First Strike thoughts

Finally played with FS rounds for this first time this weekend.  Only fired four shots all day (not including chrono); the fourth one wasn't really a shot as the mag had leaked air in the interim.  Out of the other three shots, one was a confirmed elimination (I believe it was a head/neck shot); another one I don't know if it hit the target or not.

(Skip to 1:40 for FS action)

There's a lot of fluff about what these rounds can and cannot do.  Here's my view of the situation.

These do increase the effective range that you can engage a target at.

With normal paint, I normally try not to engage people over 70 feet away.  Note that I'm not a "accuracy by volume" player, so this is sort of the max effective range that I feel comfortable/confident in hitting my target.

The "target" is a source of ... annoyance in some of these range tests.  Some of these guys perform range tests and consider hitting a standing target anywhere a success.  I think that's bullshit, because then you're fucked if your opponent is even partially behind cover, which is most of the time unless you're playing against total idiots (in which case it's not even worth using the FS rounds).

Realistically, I'm aiming for something specific.  Usually a mask or hopper, because that's what's presented to me.  Furthermore, they are hard points which are more likely to get a break.  Sure, you can extend the range to include soft targets, but if your paint doesn't break, then what difference does it make?  You haven't extended your "range" -- you've just extended the amount of paint you waste.

So the effective range must take into account target size.  Mask or gun.

From the groupings and testing that I saw, I think this winds up being somewhere between 100 and 150 feet.

Effective range also has to take into account your opponent's ability to get out of the way of incoming paint.

Since sound perception is logarithmic, and sound dropoff is proportional to the inverted square of the distance, that means at the increased distances, the target is slightly less likely to hear your shot in the first place.

The reduced speed dropoff also means the paint gets there faster.

The paint also happens to be a neutral color, which is harder to spot in flight than something hot pink or fluorescent orange or something.  I've always preferred darker, more sedate colors of paint shell for this reason.

(Incidentally, their neutral color also makes it hard to track the rounds -- might be worth airbrushing the backs with something bright to help trace them.)

All three combine to decrease the opponent's ability to dodge incoming paint, thus increasing its effectiveness.

There's also a less commonly mentioned use for this paint.  The flatter trajectory allows for additional shooting situations, particularly in the woods.  Sometimes you will get a target which is within range under normal conditions, but you can't hit him because the arc of your paint path will hit something, usually a tree or building or something.

With a FS round, you can send a shot underneath all the foliage while your opponent is trying to lob his paint through branches and trees to get at you.  Also applies to buildings with windows and other unusual bunker conditions.

(Clearly, the converse is also true; you can't use FS rounds to land sneaky drop shots on unsuspecting players.)

(Skip to 4:40 for sneaky drop shot)

So these rounds represent a reasonable increase in effective range and shooting situations, in exchange for rather steep cost.  They're not the end-all-be-all of paint, and I think for most people, the rounds aren't worth using, but like many high performance products designed to push the boundaries, they can be devastating when paired with a skilled operator.


They seriously need to make a shorter rifled barrel though.  14" is fucking ridiculous.  And no, I'm not fucking buying one and cutting it down.