Paintball, No Just a Bunch of Hot Air!

My how the times change, in my day we were lucky enough to get our hands on some paintballs, let alone have something to shoot them out of or have a propellant of some sort to shoot them with. As a kid I was more than happy to be able to shoot paintballs out of my wrist rocket, sure it was painstakingly slow to load rounds and about half of the balls shot broke but it was fun nonetheless. Well now a days there are three main propellants out there that allow you to shoot much much faster and with much fewer ball breaks. The two most used paintball propellants that are used in the sport today are CO2, Propane and Compressed Air Also Reffered to as Nitro or High Pressure Air. My goal is to help you understand what the difference is between CO2, Propane and Nitro and then also tell you about some pros and cons of each.
Nitro vs. CO2 vs. Propane For the past 20 years CO2 has been the propellant of choice when it comes to getting balls out of barrels. The main reasons that CO2 has been more popular are these, CO2 is readily available and cheap. There you have it, cheap and easy pretty much wraps up CO2 in a nut shell. Compressed air or nitro on the other hand has these things going for it, potentially higher psi, no need to evaporate, and a much more consistent velocity. With those things said, lets delve a little further into the pros and cons of CO2 and Compressed Air. As far as propane goes it is still in it’s early ages but is looking like it is going to be the perfect mix of accuracy and affordability, we will keep you posted.
CO2- Here is the long and the short of using CO2 as a propellant for your paintball gun. If you are looking just to play a little paintball here and there and just want something that is easy and cheap to get then CO2 is the propellant for you. Any paintball shop should be able to fill your CO2 as well as a number of other places and its inexpensive to have them do it. Now if you are looking to get into paintball fairly seriously and you are going to be playing a lot and shooting a lot of round as quickly as possible we would recommend not going with CO2 and here is why. CO2 is considered by most to be less effective than compressed air and is much harder on your equipment.
High Pressure Air (HPA) or nitrogen is stored in the tank as a gas which saves the headache of the evaporating issue. Air is stored in the tank at a very high pressure, typically 3000-5000 psi, and output is controlled with an attached regulator, this regulates the pressure from 450 psi to around 800 psi depending on the type of tank. This results in a much more consistent velocity than with CO2.
Keep in mind propane is still in its beginning stages but as of now the reports are that it shoots just as consistently as compressed air, you can shoot about 60 times more balls per tank that compressed air and CO2 and you dont have to worry about Hydro or Quality Tests.

Nathan Young is a Paintball enthusiast who owns an online paintball store called Art City Paintball. ACP
Carries the full line of Tippmann Paintball Gun and Tippmann Paintball Supply.
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Paintball, not All Fun and Splat

It has come to our attention that there are a lot of people out there that don’t really know that there are different types of paintball. Our mission is to help those poor lost souls and open their eyes to what awaits them in the world of paintball. Although there are many variations of the game of paintball we don’t want to overwhelm you so we will stick to the main three. Now these may arguably be the main three but for the sake of this article we will say that they are the main three variations of paintball and they are Woodsball, Speedball, and Scenario Paintball.
Woodsball is oldschool paintball at its heart. Paintball started off for the most part being played in wooded areas which lent themselves to the “capture the flag” and “elimination” type paintball games to be played. Because woodsball can be played over several acres and there are usually not many areas where large portions of the field can be viewed at one time, woodsball games tend to run longer than other types of paintball play. Wooded areas also give players the ability to take part in some more realistic wartime situations such as ambushes, assualts on fortified positions and protecting VIP’s etc..
Speedball differs from woodsball in a number of ways. One of the most obvious differences is the look and size of the field. As opposed to the large and natural landscape of woodsball, speedball is played usually on artifical turf with artificial bunkers on a field that is typically no larger than half of a football field in size. The artifical obstacles and bunkers have evolved over the years, in the old days of paintball they were made of anything that was laying around mainly larger wooden spools and crates, they then moved onto corrugated sewer piping and eventually evolved into the more costeffective and asthetically pleasing inflatable bunkers that are more popular today.
Scenario paintball games are based on a storyline or theme. Scenario games allow for a wide range of player skill levels and an even larger amount of participants. These games can span a period as short as 12 hours or last for days. Objectives vary based on the storyline but cooperation is a major theme in these games. The largest game to date was Skirmish’s Invasion of Normandy, held annually in Jim Thorpe, PA, which drew 4,007 players in 2006. The summer of 2007 should be another record breaking season for paintball, it should be fun to see.

Nathan Young is a Paintball enthusiast who owns an online paintball store called Art City Paintball. ACP
Carries the full line of Tippmann Paintball Gun and Tippmann Paintball Supply.
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