Paintball Guns

The most important piece of equipment for playing paintball is the paintball gun, also called paintball marker. There are a variety of paintball markers on the market, with various manufacturers producing various models, such as the various Spyder paintball guns, Tippman paintball guns, sniper paintball guns and Angel paintball guns available. All paintball guns use an expanding gas, such as carbon dioxide or high pressure air, as a propellant to fire the paintball. Regulations prohibit paintball velocities from exceeding 300 feet per second.

Whether you’re looking at a sniper paintball rifle, a Smart Parts Ion paintball gun, an Angel paintball gun or a Spyder paintball gun, the overwhelming majority of paint ball guns have four essential parts; exceptions occur in the stock-class, or pump-action, type paintball guns. The first part is the body of the gun. The trigger frame is located as far forward as possible on the body, to allow the mounting of the propellant tank so as to create a compact and balanced design. Electronic gun bodies are made out of aluminum, plastic or carbon fiber.

The second part of the paintball gun is the hopper, also called the loader. These devices essentially store the paintballs that are then fed to the gun to be fired. Gravity feed hoppers are the cheapest hopper; they usually provide a firing rate of about 8 balls per second. They do have the disadvantage of often becoming jammed by paintballs that pile up at the feed neck. Agitating hoppers attempted to resolve this problem, by using battery power to shake up the paintballs, thus avoiding the jamming. Force-feed hoppers also facilitate the dropping of paintballs through the feed neck while avoiding jamming, but they do not make use of gravity

Agitating and force-feed hoppers rely on batteries and one disadvantage of this is that they may not work because of moisture or dead batteries; some players use them because they could potentially provide them with a higher rate of fire, while other players avoid them. These two types of hoppers are also more expensive than the gravity feed type.

A third important part of the paint gun is the tank, which holds a compressed gas used to propel the paintball through the barrel of the gun. The gas could be carbon dioxide or compressed air; each has its advantages and disadvantages. The last part of the generic paintball gun is the barrel. As with an actual gun, the barrel has the function of directing the path of the paintball. There are a variety of barrel lengths, styles and even bore sizes, to match different types of paintballs.

With all this variety, you’ll be able to find the best paintball gun for your needs. Indeed, it will actually seem like you’ll have to decide among a variety of custom paintball guns, made especially for you and your paintballing comfort.