paintballing


     Paintballing is a fairly new sport that takes a combination of good equipment, athleticism, and skill. This sport was invented when “ A friend of ours found this gun in a agricultural catolouge that was used by cattlemen to mark cows. It wasn’t long afterwords that we bought two of these things and had ourselves a little duel. After it was over we knew that we had stumbled apon something great” –Hayes Noel. Paintballing is a fairly easy concept to explain, One team essentially hunt the other team. Players are armed with paint filled marble sized balls that when shot, travel at about 60 mph.
     There are many different forms of this game that can be played. There is the most popular game which is single elimination, or if you are hit once (and the paintball breaks), then you must remove yourself from the game. Another game is capture the flag, two armed teams both have flags at an assigned station. You have to capture the other teams flag and bring it to your teams station without getting eliminated. The last game that i will tell you about was also the first game. Two armed players stand back to back, with only one shot, a third person tells the two players to take ten paces and after the players have gone the required distance, they turn and shoot. If one person hits the other, they win.
     The euqipment of paintballing is very advanced, in the begining, no saftey gear was required. Now, it is mandatory. Each player MUST wear a mask. The average player will be armed with a gun, a co2 or nitrogen tank, and about 200-400 stored paintballs that are kept in pods. A mid quality semi automatic gun can be purchased for about $100. But prices can range up to $1000.
     The question that most people ask when purchasing a gun ask “What kind of gun do I want? Well, it depends what you want. If you are a new paintballer and want a gun to play around with, then you might look into buying a Wal-Mart pump action gun. If you want a quality gun that will perform in a game, then you want a semi- automatic gun that costs from 100-200 dollars. If you are an experienced paintballer and want to take your game to the next level then you want a high quality, nitrogen powered gun. But these guns are VERY costly and you could be paying in the thousands for one of these.
     As you can see, what started out as a agricultural tool, turned into a toy for a group of friends and before you knew it, it evolved into a costly and fun sport for action junkies of all ages.