No Limits

One of the terms you may run into early on while getting involved in the adrenaline pumping sport of paintball is “paintball marker.” So what is a paintball marker? To put it really simply, it’s the paintball guns. Many players refer to them as “markers” because the paint balls the guns shoots “marks” the target. A paintball marker might also be called a paintball gun or just a paint gun. After the safety mask, which is always the most important piece of equipment, the paintball marker is the next most important since there can not be a game without it.

The first paintball game was played in 1981 in Henniker, New Hampshire. Nine players took part, and the sport of paintball was born. The earliest models of paintball markers were uniform (after all, this was just the beginning of the sport). Now there are literally hundreds of choices between various makes and models of paintball markers. Some are very cheap, some are extremely expensive. No one could have imagined the huge variety in choices.

One of the first decisions you’ll want to make when using paintball markers is to decide what type of action you want from your paintball marker. By action, this refers to the way that an individual paintball marker fires. There are three types of actions that cover most of the cheaper and basic lines of paintball markers: pump action, semi-automatic blow back, and hybrid blow back. Each type of action makes a paintball gun work very differently, so think about how quickly you want your marker to shoot and how much work you want to do to make it fire. Obviously the pump action is the slowest, while the other methods offer better rates of fire.

Paintball has become a hugely popular sport, and so it only makes sense that with the dramatic increase in participants and increased demand for equipment, that there would be an increase in paintball supply to cater to this growing market. Paintball supply is a general term that is equivalent to “paintball store” or sponsor. A paintball supply is a store, either physical or online, where one can get any type of supplies needed.

Many paintball supply places will often times have a “package deal” for those just getting into the sport. This can include a gun with ammonition, goggles, or any collection of equipment needed by anyone before going out to join a paintball game. Part of what makes a paintball supply useful is not only do they offer equipment at every level of pricing, from the cheapest paintball markers to the most expensive ones, but paintball markers can often be upgraded in many ways: the barrel, the air tank, the ammo holder, the sights, all of these things can be changed and upgraded, and a paintball supply will have all the necessary parts, pieces, and experience to do so.

A paintball gun package is not a bad way for a beginner to start off, if the beginner has done enough work to have a vague idea of what they want. The paintball guns often come with gravity-fed hoppers ranging from a hundred rounds and up (and know your style: if you are a sniper, don’t pay an extra $20 for a hopper that holds another 100 rounds of ammo). Paintball supply places will have experts to help you out, but that can only be so helpful. You have to have a basic idea of what you’re looking for or how deep your interest is, and beyond that don’t discount an expert’s advice too quickly. They can save you a lot of grief.