Paintball, Paintball

Depending on the style of paintball played, a game can last from seconds to hours.

It wasn't until a year and a half later that George Butler, a friend of theirs, showed them a paintball gun in an agricultural catalog. The gun was a Nelspot 007 marker manufactured by the Nelson Paint Company.

They used 12-gram CO 2 cartridges, held at most 10 rounds, and had to be tilted to roll the ball into the chamber and then recocked after each shot. Dedicated paintball masks had not yet been created, so players wore shop glasses that left the rest of their faces exposed. The first paintballs were oil-based and thus not water soluble; "turpentine parties" were common after a day of play.

Oil-based paintballs are still available through the Nelson Paint Company and are still used for tree marking and for veterinary purposes. Nelson's oil-based paintballs have been used to mark animals on every continent of the world, including Antarctica.

Dropped ammunition is known as 'loose paint', and should not be used in a paintball marker.

Most reusable paintballs are the same size as normal paintballs, but weigh less and do not contain a paint filling. They do not break open to leave a paint mark on players, so the lack of filling makes them practical for indoor locations where accumulation of paint from broken paintballs would be a problem. This fact also makes this form of paintball questionable, since no mark of paint is left, it allows players to cheat much more easily. A Reball is more expensive than a paintball, but since they can be cleaned and reused many times, they potentially have a lower cost per use. Some paintball parks have added dedicated reball fields, and some fields have actually gone exclusive with Reballs, eliminating the use of paintballs entirely. The primary use of Reballs, as intended initially by the manufacturer, is as a practice aid for teams who wish to save money by using reusable ammunition. Other manufacturers have created similar products, such as the V-Ball, a Velcro (hence the name V-Ball) reusable paintball. Reballs are also used at a lower velocity because of their inability to break on whoever they hit. For example, a Regular paintball will normally be shot at approximately , but a Reball is supposed to be used at around.

They can range from golf carts covered in plywood to real military tanks with real guns converted to fire paintballs. Many paintball sponsors and businesses sometimes have their own paintball tanks which they take to events. Although local paintballs parks usually don't make use of vehicles (since the cost of the vehicle and its maintenance can be prohibitive), tournaments and other 'sponsored' events will often feature several.

Commercial fields sometimes (but do not always) provide such amenities as bathrooms, picnic areas, lockers, equipment rentals, air refills and food service. Commercial fields usually adhere to specific safety and insurance standards and have a paid staff, including referees, whose job is to make sure players are instructed in proper play in a manner that ensures all participants' safety. In order to avoid liability, commercial fields strictly monitor paintball velocity with chronographs.

The same trained staff and insurance found at permanent commercial paintball parks can be found at these events.

Sunyjim's Paintball Club - London Ontario Paintball History [2] . Retrieved 2007-02-19.

Source: Wikipedia > Paintball