What's a good setup for a beginner?

[motorbyclist]

Hi guys, me and my mates are looking to buy our first paintball guns, but of course we don't know the ins and outs of paintball yet so have no idea what we're buying:o

We've all played a game or two at some point, but at $40 or more per game i was curious to see how much a gun cost and it definitely looks cheaper (long term) to get the kit yourself!

One of us has acquired a Spyder Sonix and it seems ok. currently eyeing up some more of them on paintballshop.co.nz and trademe (yes, we're over 18)

what i want to know is which guns/part will/wont give us trouble? what's recommended kit for a beginner? what parts do what?

wanting a mask with a peak for safety and aesthetics
cheap, reliable and effective gun.
cheap hopper, looking at a standard $7 one - what's the story with the electronic ones?
basic gun care advice
cheap source of balls - what's the difference between grades?
is a 20oz bottle worth the weight/cash? cheaper to fill? less tips to get them filled for sure, but how strong are they? would riding around on a sportsbike with them in a backpack be a wise idea? (too bad if it is, gas is $2.20 a litre!)
what should a co2 refill cost?
I've got an air compressor and dryer setup at work, could we run on air using co2 equipment? (got zero-grade nitrogen, helium and co2 there too but i'd get fired for stealing it)
what's the difference between gases?
t-shirts and shorts - brave or stupid?
important paintball knowledge in general please! i'm an engineering student so get as complicated/advanced as you want;)

remember we're all students, so budget is a concern. we mostly live on 10 or 12 acre hobby blocks (i'm just down the road from actions paintball) so have plenty of safe areas of our own to go nuts including paddocks we can do whatever in, native bush, a pine forest and a few orchards, and are just looking for a cheap way to have fun and keep fit without driving the neighbours nuts with our dirtbikes.

once we've gotten started, and if we stick with it, then we'll look at diverting funds from our bikes and get more serious (expensive) gear and maybe entering some tournaments - or handlebar mounts for our guns and make what is quite possibly the best game ever conceived:D


yes i've done a bit of reading, and i'll save the "milsim" stuff till later when we've got semi decent weaponry (or we may as well turn up with milsim peashooters dong a driveby from the window of a boy-racer honda civic blasting so much bass out the windows that we can't even hear the extra big bore muffler tip) - and i totally agree with the diff between airsoft and paintball; who cares how real the gun looks? noise is real, and so are marks to prove you hit someone! it's game not a war

[ANTSMAN68]

obviously you are lookign at woodsball/*bushball, rather than tournament,

go with tippman a5 or x7
or spyder mr1 mr2 mr3, or any of the spyders for that matter,

you cannot put compressed air into co2 bottles, you will kill yourself when the fittigns blow,

generally the air we use is out of scubas at 3003 psi,(at least) co2 bottles are somethign like 850 psi, you do the math.legal air bottles for on your gun are 350$ and up, then u need to hire scuba or buy one, , co2 canisters are 50$ and up, and fields will fill them if you ask nice and pay a fee($5) usually.

electronic loaders feed the balls quicker so as to avoid the bolt coming forward on a half chambered ball and squashing it into soup,(well worth it)

with regards to the (we have our own land), u and ur mates aRE way better to be playing at a rental field with ur own gear when u get it,as safety wont be as good at ur own place, ppls will lift their mask and get shot in the eye=good bye eyeball, cos paintballs muzzle velocity is around 200 mph !

also play at a rental field because u get more people to shoot at,

masks, most important piece of kit, get a good one, dye or vforce, u get what u pay for , and if you want to be able to see the opposition with less fogging, spend around 180$ on a mask.

and lastly, if u only take one piece of advice from here, this is it, you are more likely to get yourselves into trouble either with the cops or with ambulance staff when your are either seen runnign around with guns or when you are explaining to them how you blew your best mates left eye ball out, which turned him into a screaming mess on the ground....

have fun , but do it at a rental field, they are way more fun.....

ants

oh yeah, and since u are down road from actions, may as well just go there to play, ppls there will be able to give you good advice on what gear to buy and point you in the right direction and hopefully keep u out of the laws grasp..

[appleby 15]

depends on what kind of paintball you want to play? bushball or speedball?

if you were thinking of speedball/tournaments then an Ion or a PMR would the best choice. your looking at around $400 for a new one of either.

These run on high pressure air so you would have to purchase a HPA tank which can be quite expensive aswell. Most fields include air in the entry fee of playing so you dont have worry about that. HPA gives a more consistant flow of air through the marker giving a more consistant velocity.

because of the nature of state change with co2, velocity is not very consistant.
The co2 begins in the tank as a gas, but through high rates of fire (by high im talking like 8bps) the co2 begins to liquidise and freeze. this is will increase the velocity of the gun which is not good. Also if you try to put co2 through a marker that isnt set-up for it, youl screw the market all together. however, a HPA tank needs to be tested regularly and this can be quite expensive however a co2 tank does not need as much attention.


As for loaders, gravity fed (the $7) is a waste of time really.
Electronic loaders have a mechanism in them that force-fully feeds the paintballs faster than they can loader themselves. Basically they grab the paintball and force it into the feedneck and then into the breach of the gun. these are a must if your gona be shooting above about 8bps. electronic loaders are pretty much the same price but good loaders are: Halo, Vlocity or Vlocity JNR, Empire reloader b or B2. those are quite high-end loaders so a Viewloader revolution would be right. very simple but doesnt feed as fast as others.

if you were looking at more social, recreation paintball or recball then spyders are good. Spyder VS1s in particular and would be good for your situation as they run on Co2 aswell as HPA.

as for gogs, pretty much all gogs will come with a peek. as far as aesthetics goes, peeks are lame lol but thats only my opinion.
there always a biased with gogs but JT are the best, inparticular JT proflex or spectra. Spectras are made of hard plastic all round and proflex are made from soft rubber type stuff. proflex are pretty much "industry standard" i suppose. very popular gogs.
however VForce and Empire produce good gogs aswell.
pretty much you want a goggle system with a thermal lens or that can take thermal lens's.
the difference between a thermal lens and a normal lens is a thermal lens has two panels with an air-lock in the middle. this pocket of air stops the lens from fogging up.

The co2 tanks should be fine to carry on a bike but dont go crashing with them.

Shorts and t-shirt??? i dont think so. Paintball needs full coverage so pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt is a must. also pads. specialised paintball pads can be very expensive but simple skateboarding knee and elbow pads will do the trick perfectly fine.

dont bother playing milsim, its lame. if you want to advance in the sport, tournaments are the way.

At the end of the day, youl learn from your mistakes and as far as gear goes its up to what you feel right in.

hope it helps
-Gareth

p.s. I work at actions paintball so when your around next time just ask 4 me.

[motorbyclist]

right... so spyder sonix are ok? what about these? http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=160040814


so how much does it cost to play at actions if we've got our own gear? i should hope no-one's dumb enough to take their mask off mid game, and we were thinking of ways to make sure no non-players get hit... how far can a paintball typically travel?
i think games at home will be inevitable if it's going to be too time/budget restrictive to play at actions, but i am listening about the whole safety thing

pads? really? we were really just going to go jeans and sweatshirt with a "several metre" rule - last time we went paintballing down near tauranga all we had was tshirt and shorts with cotton overshirt supplied... only a few bleeders:P

is it safe to assume all masks are built to take paintball impact reliably?

and thanks for the info about hoppers - we've already had one ball blow up in the gun and now i know why :) when my pocket allows i'll looks at getting an electronic one (reckon it could be put on the student loan? nah didn't think so...)


oh, and are you sure the co2 can't take air if i only give it a few hundred psi? if a fill up is only $5 i won't bother, but i can't imagine what the problem is if i'm using dry air at recommended pressure...

[motorbyclist]

depends on what kind of paintball you want to play? bushball or speedball?

uhhhhh......

paintball?

[NZPaintballer07]

bushball is ur typical paintball that you would play, in a bush type setting. Speedball is fast paced and competitive ball. Also no way you would/want to put air in a CO2 tank, keep the CO2 to CO2 tanks and HPA to HPA tanks ;-)

Cheers:)

[Chuckles]

CO2 tanks cannot take air. CO2 is a liquid that boils off to maintain a (reasonably) constant pressure of 850psi. Air tanks are filled to 3000-4500psi and have a regulator to drop output pressure to 850psi. Spyders need 850psi to work. So even if it was safe to fill a CO2 tank with air (to 850psi) you would only get 5-10 shots before having to fill again.

About masks anything with a thermal lense from the companies vforce, JT, Dye, Empire, Vents or Proto

Bystanders- if you're going to play in an area you need to signpost telling people not to enter. Play where you can see people approaching from some distance (100+ metres) and if you can see someone then they're too close and should be wearing a mask.

Masks in play-do the drill sergeant thing of pinning people to a wall and yelling at them "never take you're mask off". If you're within view distance of the play area you should have a mask on. Between games everyone should have a barrel plug or condom on their gun.

Pads- not necessary but you're knees will thank you for wearing some padding.

Electronic Hoppers- a viewloader revolution or empire reloader 2 will be sufficient for none tournament play.

Important if you insist on playing on your own land you must purchase a paintball chronograph. This will cost $200-600. What it does is measure the muzzle velocity of your markers (marker=correct term for paintball gun). All markers should be adjusted to 280 feet per second (fps) and checked several times throughout the day (specifically after changing anything on the marker). This is because anything above 300fps can damage or break the lense on a mask and the $8000 from ACC isn't worth losing an eye for.

[wonder]

icon x are ok, they are a cheap workhorse, the only real prob they have is the screws holding the feed neck are not long enough. but that can be fixed by removing the washer.
Wilkinson sports in whangarei may have them on sale soon for cheaper than that too.
unfortunately duel gas bottles havnt come to NZ yet and iv only seen a few different models on the wholesale market anyway so i dont think they will. a co2 bottle is 1800, 2250 or for the duel gas 3000psi working press but if its only got co2 on it and it doesn't have a reg its co2 only, as well as the fact most co2 bottles wouldn't hold enough air even if they could be filled to 3000 psi
a 770cc 3000psi sfq bottle holds 1000-1400 shots with co2 or 400-470 with 3000psi air and is about the size of a 1l coke bottle and weighs about .8 kg

actions has a OGD, go to that its heaps cheaper, about the same price as getting paint from the sports shop if i recall, and you dont have to worry about other people getting shot
or you could come to the OGD up here and then its cheaper than buying paint off the net

[Frodo]

OGD = Own gun Day

[motorbyclist]

OGD = Own gun Day

cheers:o


CO2 tanks cannot take air. CO2 is a liquid that boils off to maintain a (reasonably) constant pressure of 850psi. Air tanks are filled to 3000-4500psi and have a regulator to drop output pressure to 850psi. Spyders need 850psi to work. So even if it was safe to fill a CO2 tank with air (to 850psi) you would only get 5-10 shots before having to fill again.


right, that makes sense

[motorbyclist]

i should hope no-one's dumb enough to take their mask off mid game

well today i witnessed stupidity and bad luck that has proven the case for hard lining on paintball safety (ok i didn't witness it, i had left for uni to study for exams - otherwise i would've stopped it happening)





on a (hopefully) lighter note, what is a reasonable price to pay for paintballs? what's the difference in brands/grades? i see some cheap "splatter" ones on trademe, some "tournament" grade ones and a few others:confused:

[wonder]

basically there is 2 main types veg oil and glycol filled. veg oil have better shape but can stain and are oily but are not common anymore, glycol wash off with just water but swell with water much faster but get good ones and look after them and they are just as good shape and size as veg oil .
fields wont let you use veg oil types on their fields so its best to avoid them for many reasons.
theres really not a lot of difference in the grades of paintballs in the good brands of paintballs anymore.
the gun city stuff doesn't have a very good rep and they are not a good place to deal with.
rps balls from killwell are also crap.(sports shop stuff)
i have my dought about the stuff from global imports (sports shop stuff)
i had to stop people using pb direct paintballs here as they are very oily.
paintball shop have had their probs but sell good stuff at a good price now. costs $70 for a box of rec grade from them.
but if you are going to use them on a field it always pays to ask them as most fields get septic about byo

[motorbyclist]

cheers for that


obviously you are lookign at woodsball/*bushball, rather than tournament,

go with tippman a5 or x7
or spyder mr1 mr2 mr3, or any of the spyders for that matter,


and i just had a quick look (online) at one of those


oh-so tempting


what's the story with the electronic ones having automatic fire disabled? doesn't that defeat the purpose?

[Vijil]

Automatic fire (or anything more than one shot per trigger pull) is illegal in New Zealand, however this doesn't stop electros being very handy. With a double trigger you can fire as fast as you can touch the trigger - and you can use two fingers. Assuming the marker can handle it some people can get up to 18 or so balls per second this way. It's what we all use in speedball (airball, tournament ball, whatever you want to call it. The one with inflatable obstacles).

Basically, electros are smoother firing, break less paint when they have eyes and are normally able to put out more paint per second. This is also why we prefer HPA in speedball - CO2 will get very very cold and maybe freeze your marker up completely if you shoot as much as we do.

[sketchnz]

I dont know if your still confused to the different types of paintball but this is our team from christchurch and its tournament paintball.
http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o175/kainsketch/?action=view&current=kidsofhate_0002.flv
The elcetros have hair trigers witht the right fingerwork you can easily shoot over 15 balls a second.

[motorbyclist]

so i got the MR1 with 20oz bottle and a Vforce Vantage mask all in black, and my brother got 'em in green

also got squeegee, oil and several thousand balls

going to get gas tomorrow and it's all go :D

thanks guys

[motorbyclist]

http://www.paintball.net.nz/showthread.php?p=10171#post10171

went to use it for the first time and it loads multiple balls into the chamber and tries to fire them. nice shotgun effect, but no good for accuracy nor range:(

[sketchnz]

check the ball detents

[motorbyclist]

haha cheers,

fixed now (i hope)

weird that it was no sign it was ever there to begin with though, while my brother's was intact

[sketchnz]

maybe it wasnt installed at the manufactor.

[chops77]

use to run my spider on co2 worked fine,got more than 10 shots?.Kyns feild for advice hmmmm.talk to a man named Amon if u want good advice on paintball hell figure out all u want. charlie.

[cody27]

\
i had to stop people using pb direct paintballs here as they are very oily.
Which type of Pb direct paintballs are you talking about? Those bonus balls are Chinese and are very cheap and sometimes stain but have a thick shell so don't break in cheap guns so are perfect for rec ball players and beginners. Those jumbos/elixirs etc they sell are Korean so are better quality paintballs with a thicker brighter fill they are awesome paintballs to play with and are still cheap (compared to other sellers) excellent tournament ball. Also the guy who sells them sponsors the wanganui tournament http://www.wanganuipaintball.itgo.com and sells the paint even cheaper there.

[wonder]

im not to sure what brand they were. may have been their brand if i remember rightly. most of what came here was those sample boxes with the 4 different types.2 lots were in plastic buckets if that helps.
i never seen them stain but in saying that i didnt let anyone use them when my gear was out, so all of the stains would have gone home with them.they did leave oily marks on timber though.

in saying all that i havnt seen any in the last 4 months
thick shell balls isnt always good for beginners, as it allows for the guns to get wound up and the extra bruising puts quite a few people off. perfectly ok if everyone knows what they are doing but not the best for new players

[Freighttrain]

thick shell balls isnt always good for beginners, as it allows for the guns to get wound up and the extra bruising puts quite a few people off. perfectly ok if everyone knows what they are doing but not the best for new players

surely these would be chrongraphed for this reason?

[wonder]

not always and there is where the prob lies. they also hit slightly harder. remember im talking about players that are having their 1st, 2nd, 3rd-6th game and are yet to figger out that winding the gun right up isnt a good thing

[MikeE]

not always and there is where the prob lies. they also hit slightly harder. remember im talking about players that are having their 1st, 2nd, 3rd-6th game and are yet to figger out that winding the gun right up isnt a good thing

Hence the point of going to a legit field...