Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Is It Just Me Or Are Paintball Markers These Days Are Too Complicated

Unfortunately I am not very tech savvy so the best thing I can do is read the manual and hope for the best. It just seems like paintball markers as well as equipement these days require so much effort to get them working properly.

For example I had a Magna loader, it was probably the most complicated piece of electronic I have ever used. It was annoying as well, mainly because you have to program the damn thing solely with the use of blinking lights. It was a pain in the ass to set up the Magna that is why I sold it within a couple months of owning it.

Also, some markers like the Angel 1 have so much adjustability and so many settings that it confuses me. I know it's cool and all to be able to alter the settings on the marker to suit your preference, but it never works out for me. When ever I get some kind of "high tech" marker things don't go over very well, then I get fed up and sell it. I guess that is why I like to play pump, no batteries no electronic or modes, I just pick it up and play. Simplicity is all I need in a marker.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Pocket Hoppers, They Are Great Little Things Aren't They

As you may know I play pump paintball so it probably wouldn't surprise you that I use pocket hoppers. I have tried 2 pocket hoppers so far, the GXG hopper and the Winchester (with a pod lid mod) hopper. Up until last weekend I was liked the GXG hopper until last Sunday my GXG hopper cracked right down the middle and I have no idea how. Luckily I had my Winchester in my gear bag so I could play the rest of the day.

Anyhow, I like using pocket hoppers due to the very low profile and the fact that they make my overall set up light as well as helping me limit my paint usage. Although my Winchester can only carry about 50 rounds that should be enough for a game but sometimes I run out of paint. A couple days ago I found a solution to the little problem, some kid at my local field gave me a 50 round pod that he found and it happens that the 50 round pod fits perfectly into the elastic part of my tank cover. Problem solved! So I highly recommend the use of pocket hoppers, mainly the Winchester pocket hopper since it has not let me down. And if you require more paint do what I do just carry around a 50 round pod.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Damn These Agglets!

So last weekend I went to play some paintball and I had noticed something, I had never seen so many agglets in one day. For those of you who don't know agglets are those speedball players who think they are the absolute best, knowing everything and they are pretty much all around ass holes. Prime example, during one game a group of agglets (the guys play on sponsored teams) decided to make a stacked team versus my team of walk-ons. So I thought to myself, this should be interesting, right? Well I was indeed right, somehow the agglets started the game before my team was ready, and they started laying down the paint on my team which was still huddled by the dead box. Instantly, half my team was gone and the agglets had their snake player on our side of the snake. If that wasn't bad enough, they lit up the remainder of my team including me.

I can't stand these agglets, I hope one day they might realize that they are complete ass holes and try and better themselves. Somehow I honestly doubt that occuring but hey, anything is possible. Hopefully when I go to play some ball tomorrow I wont have to face as many agglets as I did last weekend because they kind of ruined some of the games I played. Aside from that I am excited to go out and play tomorrow and use my Azodin Kaos Pump once again and prove that I can get players out; one ball at a time
.

Monday, July 12, 2010

I Can Superman Slide, Finally!

So yesterday I decided to hit up the local speedball field for the first time in a couple months. I was feeling a little rusty since I haven't played in a long while and it kind of sucked that I was the only pump on a field full off D-bag Agglets. But I will leave the Agglets for another blog. Anyway, during my first game I decided to try playing snake once again; I am usually a dorito player because my gun fighting skills are significantly better than my snake playing skills. Well the ref yells 5 seconds until the break, I got my gun against the mesh, ready to run like hell.
The ref yells Go! Go! Go! Go! I just run as fast as I can and I dive into the snake, but this time it wasn't my regular knee slide or hip slide; I actually did a superman slide into the snake for the first time. I have never even practiced it before it was almost instinctive. I'm just glad I had my knee and elbow pads on or the slide wouldn't have been so pretty. And it was the first time I got into the snake without getting bounces as well so that made me feel great. Besides me getting bunkered that game, I felt pretty good.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Is Paintball a Sport?

This his been debated for so many years and people can never seem to agree on whether or not paintball is a sport. Personally I believe paintball is a sport because it involves all the aspects of a sport, so why can't it officially be considered a sport? There are rules and referees and all that good stuff, but I guess the general public has viewed paintball as a bunch of boys shooting each other up in the woods.

I don't know if it's because I play the tournament style of paintball rather than recball or because I love paintball so much but it always seems like people think I am crazy because I play paintball. It used to vex me at first but I guess I got used to the fact that the general public doesn't really understand that much about the sport and they just dismiss it as some military simulation for people who are too afraid to join the military.

I think it is getting somewhat better since speedball got back on TV this year but that's just my guess. Hopefully in future society will except paintball for what it is; if darts and poker are sports then paintball should qualify as one as well.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

What is up with all the false advertisement?

After several years in the sport, I have notice a ton of manufacturers use some sort of false advertisement. I don't know how they get away with it and I felt like they robbed me of my hard earned money when I found about their products not performing the way they claimed them to.

Prime example, the Spyder rocking trigger I invested a ton of money into that piece of junk. When I was a naive little noob when I first started playing I owned a 2005 Spyder Pilot and I thought I could mod it to be an Ion killed. Sadly I was wrong and I learned that the hard way, I decided to take the plunge and order a acs bolt and rocking trigger package. The new trigger increased the rate of fire of my Spyder but I was no where near the advertised 30 balls per second, although the acs bolt did work until the bolt pin popped out and I had to cock the bolt with an allen key every time I chopped a ball ( which occurred pretty often since my marker could get up to 21 bps and it had no eyes). My point is the rocking trigger could only get up to 21 bps when it had a ton of bounce but that still aint the advertised 30.

Another type of false advertisement that occurs is when barrels are advertised, barrels don't really affect the accuracy of the paintball, it is the paint to bore match that determines the accuracy of the ball. So I am tired of seeing ads with "rifled" barrels being superior to the competition.

With that being said, I just feel that people in the industry should try a little more honest when they promote the products that they are selling so I don't have to rant anymore about all the money I wasted!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Scenario Paintball or Speedball?

I have tried several times to get into scenario but I just can't. I don't know if it's how the fields are set up or how expensive the markers can be, it just hasn't worked out for me.



One of the biggest regrets I have had over the years of playing paintball was deciding to purchase a Tippmann A5. Yeah I said it, the thing is I was all caught up in the milsim look and adding on a ton of mods. But as a result, my savings account dwindled leaving me with a pretty heavy marker with mediocre performance.

The main thing I don't really like about the scenario/ woodsball scene are the field set ups. They are set up in such a way and are so large that I personally have no idea what is going on. In most games there is so much friendly fire that I don't have fun. This is why I prefer speedball it's much easier to stay focused on what is going on in the game without shooting up my whole team by accident. But hey that's just me.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

.50 cal paintball?

Last year out of the blue, some paintball manufacturers decided to starting hyping up something new, .50 caliber paint. I was pretty damn skeptical about the whole ".50 cal revolution" simply because GI Milsim and Kingman are the main companies that are pushing for it. I am sorry but I don't want a .50 cal Smart Parts marker or a .50 cal Spyder. Also, Planet Eclipse has released a .50 cal conversion it for its Ego's and Etek's, but seriously the kit is around $150, it's a recession; I don't even have the cash to afford and Ego/Etek let alone a conversion kit for it. Since those markers have little appeal among many paintball players and seeing how steep the price is for a conversion kit is, I feel the whole .50 cal thing is going to be hard to get it up and running.

One thing I don't get is I feel the companies that are backing this whole .50 cal "revolution", need to advertise the hell our of their products especially to newer players. I think if the companies can get the newer players to adopt .50 cal they might have something going for them, because to the experienced player the ads look don't look believable at all. The .50 caliber paintball is advertised in such a way that it should be better than .68 caliber, but we all know nothing is perfect.
Well I really believe that .50 cal will end up like the .43 cal paintballs and markers and be a small nice but it would be nice to see a change in the paintball and have .50 cal succeed. If or when most of the paintball companies adopt .50 cal and many quality products are released I would gladly make the transition to .50 caliber.

Playing pump paintball for good

Yeah I said it, I am officially playing pump paintball for good and I am done with playing semi auto. I am done with electronic markers. No more batteries, expensive hoppers or expensive guns.



Initially I started playing pump because I simply could not afford to shoot a ton of paint anymore with my PMR 09. I realized I had to either quit paintball or find some way to save a lot of money. That is when the idea of purchasing a pump marker came to mind. So last summer I decided to take the plunge and buy an Azodin Kaos pump. I loved it instantly, it was so simple; I liked the idea of not having to fiddle with electronics anymore.

Now almost a year later I finally realized that I don't need a marker that shoots 10+ ball per second to be a good speedball player. From simply playing pump for around 10 months I have had a far greater improvement in skill compared to the improvements I have had in the 4 years before I started playing pump. I realized the increased rate of fire I had before I played pump masked my poor skill since I was able to shoot my way out of a problem or get lucky from shooting lanes and playing pump really showed me the areas I needed to work on, like snap shooting and even aiming properly. I am pretty glad that I don't have to spend money on 9 volts or AA batteries or being worried about my gun or my hoppers crapping out on me. The best perk besides the improvement in skill is that I barely shoot any paint, when I used to have my PMR I could go through a case of paint like it was nothing in one day at the speedball field. Now that I play with my Kaos pump, I go through half a bag of paint per day on average, because of this there is no way I will play semi auto again (unless I win the lottery of course, if I did would consider giving semi auto play another chance).

Well there you have it, being able not to afford spending a large sums of money on paint was a blessing in disguise because I discovered the growing niche of pump paintball.
pmr