Who plays paintball?

Despite being over here I've been itching lately to play paintball. I'm just a weekend warrior for it. I used to play when I was a teen, and started back up last year. Bought a Spyder Pilot ACS off ebay with some cheap gear, delivered for something like $120. I was pretty pleased. Also picked up a Spyder MR-1 and a Tippman A5 from a friend who moved. Anyone else play? Woodsball or speed?

I played a lot in my teens as well. I still have a 68 Automag that's been blinged out with all stainless chrome gear. That, and a Spyder Shutter. And my old Brass Eagle Stingray II.

Woodsball = teh shiz. Unfortunately, traditional "speedball" seems to have gone the way of the Dodo Bird and has been transformed into Air Ball and Hyperball. I still love those games as well.

I have always wanted an Airgun Designs E-mag (an Automag but electronic) or at least an Automag RT (with the magnetic reactive trigger).

had a time when I was into paintballin... speed ball... did a few tournys... lots of fun

for rec ball shooting a pump was IT... nothing like watchin a 300# guy hit the snake off the brake :)

had a lot of guns... was partial to cockers... but had a few mags, timmys/clones, rolled a sterling, phantom, PGP, and sniperII for pumps though :)

side note... pump is awesome for rec speed ball... not so much when you got into the woods at least for me... was nice being able to play a few weekends on a bag of paint...

I used to have a Piranha that was ALL TRICKED OUT! Then I sold it and bought an A5. That A5 was awesome. I wish I had not gotten out of paintball.

I havent played in a few years, but I have been playing since the early 80's. Im big into stock class ball. In fact i own and run http://stockclasspaintball.com/ I havent updated the site in a few years (so i guess now i just own it, i have actually run it in a long time), but the message boards are still going strong. At one point we had over ten thousand members, its lost momentum in the past few years, i havent had the energy or means to keep driving the marketing and promotion end of things.

I hosted some stock /modified tourneys, and played in MANY way back on amateur and semi pro teams in the north east. teams with names like "Unseen Evil" "Dead Ringers" and such.. in those circles, they call me Maverick... (yep, serious paintbballers always need a goofy call sign, I earned mine way, way back...) Ive had the honor of playing with big names from past and present, allot of awesome people. Ive been really lucky in that respect.

i really want to get back out on the field soon, Ive been itching to play a little pump, but even more so, a big scenario game, I love night games... Ive got equipment for every type of paintball, from single action true stock pumps, to umpteen bps semi's.. somewhere in the 40-50 gun count... a few were designed by close friends in the industry, and custom built for me. its a sickness almost as bad, and expensive as, cars..if you let it be.. I donated my first paintball gun to a museum.. yep, my line si Skirmish SI is now on display as an antique paintball gun..i bought i t new!

My favorite: Action Markers Shatner Edition Illusion Pump-Yes, its real gold and silver, No i dont play with it but it does shoot very nicely!

neat 924... I'm a member of that forum :)... don't go there much now that i'm out of PB...

stock class is FUN :)

924guy wrote: its a sickness almost as bad, and expensive as, cars..if you let it be..

Amen to that. I had to restrain myself from buying much more expensive guns. I'm actually thinking about getting a Spyder Sonix or maybe even a Victor when I get back. Super cheap, light, and simple guns. No e-trigger, none of that crap. Just pure fun.

I've always wanted to do a Scenario game! However just like with me an HDPE I never made the dive yet. Maybe when I get back.

I haven't played in a few years, but I've played tournament ball at a national level. I even went to England to play for a Marker manufacturer.

I absolutely hate, loathe and despise speedball even tho I'm good at it. It's a waste of paint. A friend of mine and I took on 35 experienced players once and beat them. It was cool. Not so cool was not knowing when to quit and doing it again. They second time they creamed us because they knew how we played. I took 32 hits in less than 5 seconds. I stripped and we counted.

I love Woodsball as someone else called it. All day or multiple day scenario games are fabulous!

I loved the Mutant games. You take one player, the Mutant, and give him a 15 second head start and then everyone else goes and hunts him down. You'd think the Mutant would lose everytime, but the game is stacked in the Mutant's favor. If the hunters hit the Mutant he dies, but if the mutant hits one of the hunters they turn in to Mutants. Once hit they 5 seconds to move over to the Mutant's side.

When the hunters head out it's next to impossible for the Mutant not to hit a few players. The hunters think they are invincible and come at a run, usually in a line and out in the open. The more hunters the more likely the Mutant is to win. It takes a very lucky shot to hit the Mutant. As a matter of fact I've hardly ever been shot out even later in the game because most of the hunters will concentrate on the ones recently made Mutant and soon forget me.

You don't want to be the last hunter left standing. Most surrender rather than duke it out with everyone else. They know they will lose eventually and decide discretion is the better part of valor.

Carguy, we used to play a game like called Terminator. a few guys where the terminators (only headshots killed them) and everyone else tried to protect one "president". Like you said, to people who never played before it sounds really easy. But man is it fun.

I use the term "woodsball" for sort of a cache all. Pretty much any field big enough that you can't shoot all the way across it, and just has normal bunkers (spools and such) and you play force on force games is woodsball to me. I've heard it called recball, and a million other things. However whats the difference between speedball and hyperball? I call speedball games played on small air fields.

oh oh mememememememe!!!! IT's the one thing that competes with cars when it comes down to where to spend my extra cash. I've got a Smart Parts SP-8, that I snagged for 100$ last spring that came with a pod pack, mask, hpa bottle and elec loader, a DP threshold for speed/air/hyperball work, and I'm fixing to snag an old autococker off my cousin that I was gonna convert to pump, but after using it last weekend, I think I may just keep it as it stands after using it 2 weeks ago to outshoot an agitated hopper. I LIKE IT! holy cow, a pure mechanical that can run that fast. I'll just pick up a trilogy sport and convert it to a pump. I actually started out playing outlaw ball, and moved on to woodsball and senario, they're a blast but for sheer adrenaline rush you can't beat a game or speed or hyperball, airball is ok IMO and listening to a stream pound on the bunker you in is pretty darn cool. Senario's just freakin rock, the whole night play thing is fun, unless you don't have the ability to rock NVG, and half the other team does, then it just sucks. some pics from my last senario

I haven't played in 18months or so now. Just too expensive for me now. My buddy owns a shop and paintball team, they play national tournaments and have since 1984 or so. I have only been playing since '98 when we did 15 man hyperball tournaments. I worked for 3 or so fields for the last 8 years or so, but they don't really pay well, and the fact that you have to work on weekends when you'd rather be playing sucks ass as well. I still have 40 or so markers in various states of dis-repairs.

I've trying to get back into scenario paintball games, but I personally have boycotted skirmish USA, partly because of the fact that I used to work there and partly because of the fact that they are such a rip off. I mean the pay $27 for a case of paint and resell it for $99 a case. Talk about bullE36 M3. I'll just drive to EMR to play the big games instead, especially since I get to play there for cost, lol.

If I were you guys, I'd stay away from smart parts right now with them going out of business and all. But as well spyders aren't the greatest either, Gino, the former owner of national paintball, is creating some interesting spyder esq paintball guns that you should look into.

But yeah, back to cars, lol...

Andrew

When I first started playing I heard SSOOOOO much crap about smart parts, and how they suck. Granted an ION will never be a "high end" marker, but other than the banjo fitting I snapped the first time I fully cleaned my sp-8 I've had no trouble with it. It has never left me walking off the field shaking my head, wondering WTF is wrong with it now, is decent on air, and the stock reg once it was broke in and serviced, flat freaking rocks, most of my shots are within 3-5fps of each other, and the only time I experience any shootdown is when the dwell is set for to short of a delay. Its really a shame that such a decent marker gets a bad rep for being a "dressed up ION". That being said, SP brought it on themselves with some shoddy buisness practices from what I understand. Only question is, what is going to replace the freak barrel setup as the "go-to" barrel?

Digdug, did you just say 99$ for a case of paint? I would laugh in their faces. I've been lucky and never played anywhere that was to insane. Kinda makes me sad how much more it costs to play any more. I remember getting dropped off as a kid with 60$ in my pocket and told my mom would be back in a 3 hours and I'd better have change!

What's the minimum a person should get as far as gear to start out? I played once and loved it. I think the gun was made by tippman. Semi auto, I don't think there were any electronics involved

Joey

Always wanted too, just never bought the gear, or had people to play with

But I have done air soft a few times and that was fun, till the battery in a cheap full auto gun dies mid session.

joey48442 wrote: What's the minimum a person should get as far as gear to start out? I played once and loved it. I think the gun was made by tippman. Semi auto, I don't think there were any electronics involved Joey

get a good set of goggles, any major brand will do, its like a helmet gotta try them on and see whats most comfortable, and there are allot of choices. paintballs fly at 280 feet per second in general. gun are adjustable and ive seen them chrono at over 400 (some idiots like to turn up their velocity thinking it will make them better, these are the dopes you want to avoid) so good head gear is critical. everything else is optional. go to a field, rent the gear first, and try it, and talk to people. avoid taking advise from the 15 years old with 3k in gear. look for the old dude in jeans, but doesnt have rental gear , thats the guy or gal who knows whats what :)

I play woodsball every now and then, but it's been a few years since any of my group has played. The only marker I've ever bought was a marked down $50 spyder clone. I want to say it's a really low level ion or something. Everyone said it would suck but it's usually the only gun that makes it though a whole weekend without needing to be cleaned or otherwise worked on. Yeah, it's loud and mows through air, but it's accurate enough and reliable. Just what you want for dicking around in the woods IMO.

I've got like 6 other markers in my garage that I cleaned and lubed for everyone after the last time we played, and they've been there for around 2 years now lolz. I bet there's at least a dozen tanks that I'm sure are expired by now and some cheap paint too.

I was a casual player with a small group of friends in the late '90s. My low-end Stingray II was usually the only gun that would still fire once the temp would drop below freezing. Yup, playing woodsball is even more fun when you can wear snow gear.

RossD wrote: Yup, playing woodsball is even more fun when you can wear snow gear.

Untill the paint freeze's and punches a hole in your snow gear! Seriously freezing temps and Co2 are not good things. If the marker injests a bit of liquid Co2 and has a chance to sit in the reg and expand, you get a heck of alot more velocity on that shot. Add the afore mentioned frozen paint, and well lets just say it sucks.

joey48442 wrote: What's the minimum a person should get as far as gear to start out? I played once and loved it. I think the gun was made by tippman. Semi auto, I don't think there were any electronics involved Joey

Keep looking around and lurking on CL for deals, their out there, I picked up my sp-8, a pod harness, mask, and electro hopper for 100$. I then snagged a pair of barely used jersey's for 35 shipped. Jeans work well, or if you can snag a pair of off color kahki's off the clearance rack they work well, especially if you get the cargo pocket type. Cleats are person preferance, I personally love em, I wear a pair of soccer cleats and generally have no traction issues, the only problem is playing in the woods and trying to be sneaky....I just doesn't work in cleats.

I need another hobby like another hole in the head. It's probably a good thing that I've never had a sufficiently sized group of friends who has paintball equipment.

Of course, after reading this thread, I'm now asking friends what they think about getting some equipment ;).

Clem

I play paintball, although I haven't actually done it for a couple of years. I do however activiely collect certain "vintage" paintball markers and work on them in my basement. I have scored markers that originally cost $1200 - $1500 in the 90s for $100-$200. I have about 20 of them in varying states of disassembly right now.

I highly recommend the M Carter Brown ( http://www.mcarterbrown.com ) forum for paintball information. It is full of great info and friendly people, sort of the GRM of paintball.

In reply to Spinout007:

You know, I probably didnt experience that since everyone elses markers stopped working.

I haven't played paintball in a while. I want to play- my BT Delta Elite is collecting dust right now- but none of my friends are around and I would feel kind of funny showing up to a scenario game all by my lonesome. One of my friends had land in the boonies of NH where we would play every once in a while. It was a lot of fun.

i see a lot of you play, but i was thinking about getting into paintball in 06, but someone talked me into aisrsoft instead and its better and i think cheaper for ammo at least and the guns look cooler, but thats just my 2 cents worth.