Paintball

here rob, I found a pic of your's.....
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so you are pre-sling shot??

 

For me the best gun out is the Angel. Very fast, decent accuracy (excellent with a new barrel), and reliable as any gun I have ever seen. I run an Angle LCD C&C with an Angle Air N2 tank and absoluetly love it. Ill post a pic in a little bit.

Mark

 

I know tampa and orlando are quite far apart, but the next big NPPL (national paintball players league) tournment is in Tampa between May 18-21. If you have any interest in the sport I highly recommend going. For those who dont have the means, the event will be televised on ESPN2 about a month after. I will keep everyone posted.

I hope some people watched the ESPN2 coverage of last year's Tampa event, it was on tonight 4-10-06 at 10pm eastern time. Every monday at 10pm they will have coverage of another NPPL tournment.

My team will be playing in Tampa 06, so if anyone makes the trip out I can probably hook some people up with VIP passes or the like

 

Here's the pic. Sorry it's so crappy, the only camera I have right now is on my phone and it just went for a spin in the washing machine so it's kind of weak. Anyway it's an 2002 Angel LCD C&C with Angel Air and Smart Parts Freak Barrel.

Mark
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Today anything electro pretty much owns. I prefer Smart Parts products above the Ion line, but brands tend to cater towards specific preferences. I used to own an old pump Tracer (sp?) back in the day, then went autococker, now a tricked-out Vision Impulse. It's amazing how paint has gone from almost $100 a case down to like $35, so good....

 

Andrew,

Is that Classic Army or TM? I switched from paintball to airsoft years ago. I feel like I'm neglecting the paintball gear I have but airsoft has the realism my Army buds and I are looking for. 300 fps but can be easily upgraded? Tell me about it. I have over 1K invested in my Systema M4 that fires over 400 FPS. Anyway, nice gun.

RocketBoy

 

I played for the first time in 1986.....we used the 'Nelspot' (good memory) and 'Splatmaster'. I recall that they were also used to mark trees for removal. It was a handgun style, stacked double barrell and was made from nylon. You put the tube of 10 balls in the top, the tiny CO2 in the grip and pressed a plunger to cock it while tipping the gun back. Maaaaan, those were the days. We played with no more protection than carpentry goggles.

 

Although it is difficult to ascertain from the ESPN2 coverage, tournament-level play involves TONS of strategy. Two weeks before the tournament, the field layout is posted on the NPPL website (www.nppl.tv) and that is when we begin to strategize. Upper-division tournament play is almost entirely choreographed, although it looks quite chaotic. Based on one's opposition and the field-layout, you decide whether you want a conservative or aggressive breakout and then choose your primary, secondary, and tertiary bunkers accordingly. Everyone has a clock either on their marker or they use their own mental sense of time to gauge when each player moves. Getting to one's tertiary bunker/position is critical to winning, because it allows you to get angles on the opposition and force them to stay in their bunkers and eventually get shot out. Teamwork is a critical element for one's success in tournament-level play, we are constantly speaking with one another and keeping everyone informed of the opposition's location on the field. Every single one of the 56 bunkers on the tournament field has it's own unique designation, which we all memorize accordingly.

It is very difficult to explain, but I assure you we do a lot more than 'spray and pray,' which I recall was a popular phrase when electros first came onto the market. I too have been playing consistently for 11 years with the last 5 in national-level tournaments.

In terms of improvements in rate of fire, markers nowadays are capable of 40 balls per second and we have loaders capable of keeping up, but few people reach anywhere close to these rates of fire during tournaments, because that would be a safety hazard. Most people shoot between 12 and 20 balls per second in tournament play.

Accuracy hasn't improved greatly overall. While the top-end paint is still on par with marbelizers of yesteryears, the low-grade paint is almost as good as the top-end, so accuracy on the whole has improved while the top-end has improved minimally.

There was a second airing of the ESPN2 coverage at midnight right after the 10pm showing, I don't know if that was a one-off decision or a precedent.

As far as the new/hot equipment, www.dyeprecision.com makes the DM6 and the Proto Matrix 6, these two markers dominate the tournament scene. Another popular marker is the shocker www.smartparts.com and the final marker is the ego www.planeteclipse.com these four markers constitute about 90-95% of the chosen and sponsored markers on the tournament scene today

Gas-wise, we all use 4500psi compressed air systems (nitrogen for you/we oldschoolers) which assortment of sizes (45ci, 68ci, 88ci) those three are the most common sizes in competitive play.

Price varies according to gear, but the average tourney-level setup costs:

Marker: 700 (shocker) -1350 (dm6)
Tank: ~ 200
hopper: ~ 125

Paint is the most expensive component, in tournaments we (my team) typically shoot upwards of 40 cases over the course of 3 days


With reference to your amateur play comment, if by that you mean recball, then yes you would hang quite fine. Ironically, amateur is also a division in the NPPL, which is one of the more competitive divisions (D3, D2, D1/Amateur, semi-pro, pro), so such an outdated marker would not fare well in a national tournament (no offense)

here is a link to a page with one of the finest paintball videos I have ever seen (unfortunately most are quite poor quality). It takes a while to download (273mb), but it is well worth the wait

page:
http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=1491137

direct link - the director requests you right-click 'save as'
http://stealthmedia-productions.com/...ngtonBeach.wmv

 

http://shawnrobinson.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/shawn-in-snake-chicago.jpg.w300h200.jpg

http://shawnrobinson.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/shawnorlando04.jpg

http://shawnrobinson.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/shawnvegas.jpg

http://shawnrobinson.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/shawn-in-chicago.jpg.w300h202.jpg

Congrats on your D3 finish. Thats not too bad. Good luck in Tampa. Heres a few pics of me playing at events past. My strongest finish was 2nd place D2 World Cup 10 Man in 2004 w/ Bad Karma. I then went on to play in the NPPL semi-pro division w/ the JT Allstars ( formerly ViewLoader Allstars).
Stephanie... I am close to you.
Hey Chaserolls... who is your brother. I may know him. Small world huh.

If anyone is looking for a gun let me know. I have plenty of guns and air systems that I need to sell. P-Car parts ain't cheap. LOL

 

It's a CA, which was the only option for me due to their reputation and use of full metal. TM uses too much plastic in their guns. I don't know the exact FPS but from the factory I believe it's 280. I put a tightbore barrel and upgraded spring for some additional FPS, but mostly for the extra distance and accuracy. Upgrading the ROF is as easy as getting a more powerful battery, but I'd have to do some rigging to make a 9.6 fit in the stock of mine. It's really a nice set up the way it is now. I replaced the flashlight with a red dot laser which is much more useful than the light... My brother has a CA M4, another awesome gun. Looking forward to playing some more in the near future since we haven't played in a while.

 

40 balls per second?! That is just ridiculous!

 

I too had a mini-mag in my paintball days. And that ROF with with no electronics or fancy triggers, just good old fashion finger action. Loved everything about that gun at the time, even the look was the best IMO.

 

when i get around to it, there are more than a few films of markers such as vikings, cyborgs, and angels shooting around 39bps. The angel had an ihalo, while the cyborg and vikings had q loaders i believe

 

Just looking around online, it's incredible how far the gear has come since I played in the mid 90s... though some of it just seems excessive.

It also makes me wonder, with how many very young kids seem to be getting into it lately, who is paying for the Angels and other >$1,000 markers I see some of them with.

 

let me put it this way, a lancer evo VIII MR and a F360 might post close laptimes, but there will always be people who have the luxury of preferring the ferrari driving experience.

Similarly, my marker of choice is a DM6, which retails well in excess of 1000. Is it significantly better than a $650 marker like the shocker, or even a $250 marker like the Ion? Honestly, no, it isn't 4 times as good as an ion or twice as good as a shocker, but I can afford to use whatever marker I choose.

Paintball has become very fashion-conscious. Kids plead with their parents to buy them the most expensive marker and their parents give in because they are trying to make them happy. Although paintball is quite expensive compared to other sports, it is quite inexpensive when compared to some others. The resale and economies of scale on pb guns is much better than cars, so kids can afford to buy and sell and trade around markers according to fashion trends or mere curiosity

 

soo much fun unless your like these idiots

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vx7ZyX_87zM&search=paintball%20gun

 

I completely understand the difference... I had a few high end markers when I played as well. Mainly I just meant that the electronics in some of the newer guns seem excessive, but then again, I haven't played in a while... so I might not feel that way if I did and was more familiar with the newer guns.

I'm in no way criticizing those who choose to buy high end markers. Some people would have said what I had when I played was excessive as well.