| | | Paintball Guns |  Paintball markers (also known as paintball guns) are
the primary tools used to play paintball.
Paintball players use paintball guns called "markers"
to tag their opponents on the other team. The marker's
original design was used to mark trees from a distance
by forestry service workers. After paintball players
started using it to play games, the design began to
change. When the first official paintball game was
played, the pioneers of the sport used Nelspot 007
tree markers, manufactured by the Nelson Paint
Company. These were the only paintball markers
available at the time. They held ten shots and used a
carbon-dioxide propellant to fire the paintball. The
paintballs at the time were oil based, instead of
water based like today's paintballs. Bob Gurnsey's
newly formed company, National Survival Game struck a
deal with Nelson Paint Company to be the sole
distributor of their markers and paintball gear.
Paintball markers have four main components: a body, a
hopper, a tank, and a barrel. The body varies from
model to model. Most offer a muzzle velocity of 300
feet per second or less. 300 fps is the maximum
allowed muzzle velocity for legal paintball play. Some
players choose to add on a longer barrel to add
accuracy to their shots. It is thought that a
specialized sniper barrel will add an estimated 20%
accuracy. The hopper refers to the jug that holds
paintballs and feeds them into the body. They come in
two styles. A gravity fed hopper uses gravity to load
paintballs into the gun, while an agitation hopper
moves the paintballs into the gun with an automatic
mechanism. Of the two, the agitation hopper is widely
regarded as more reliable. The tank holds whatever
compressed propellant is used to fire the paintballs
from the barrel. |
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