Congratulations on your decision to join the exciting extreme sport of paintball! One of your first tasks will likely involve looking at paintball guns for sale and then making the big decision on which one to purchase. The following 5 considerations may help make this task less painful as well as more enjoyable.1. Consider The place you Will Play
One extremely important consideration which is often overlooked by many paintball players looking to buy paintball guns is where they are going to spend most of their time playing. Will it be in an abandoned lot, nearby wooded area or at the local paintball course. This important fact must be carefully regarded as it will help to look for the types of paintball guns you may need to stick with as a result of the air supply. Playing mostly at commercial paintball locations means you may have access to compressed air or CO2 needed to fire your paintball marker. This leads us to the other important consideration.
2. Consider Your Power Source
Most modern paintball markers or guns operate using one of two power sources, either carbon dioxide gas (CO2) or high pressure air (HPA). Depending on the place you live and generally play your paintballing games, you may find it easier to obtain refills for your CO2 tank than for a HPA tank. It is extremely essential that if your power supply is CO2, that you stick with paintball markers that will be made for CO2! Since CO2 is a liquid gas, if it really is utilized in a paintball marker designed for using only compressed air or Visit Jit HPA, the CO2 can seriously damage the gun beyond repair.
So if CO2 will probably be your power source of choice, then when looking at paintball guns for sale consider quality name brand paintball guns especially created to use using CO2 such as the Spyder line of products that include models like the Spyder Victor, Xtra and Sonic, in case you are on a tight budget. If you can afford the higher priced electronic models, then Spyder has ones for example the Spyder Pilot, Electra, VS1 and VS2. Yet another very popular maker of name brand CO2 paintball markers is Tippmann, especially if you like paintball guns with a military look. Popular Tippmann products include the Tippmann 98, A5 and also the newer X7 series. Other well recognized companies into the C02 paintball market include Smart Parts and Piranha. It should be noted you can buy some models of paintball guns that can operate with either CO2 or HPA.
As already noted, there is a second source of power used with paintball guns,which is compressed air, known in paintballing circles as high pressure air (HPA). As a rule, the newer and a lot more expensive breed of paintball markers use HPA, (which is more stable than CO2 resulting in better firing accuracy), and generally cost more than the traditional C02 models, sometimes around $2000. This helps to describe why there is for example wide selection of pricing for paintball markers from less than $100 to several thousand of dollars. Popular name brand high-end HPA markers include Bob Long and Dye paintball guns.
3. Consider What Features You may need
The biggest single determiner of price whenever you are looking at paint ball guns for sale is certainly the range of features that a paintball marker comes with. For example one basic feature is whether the marker is electronic or not. Electronic guns enable you to set firing modes via what is called an electronic trigger or "e-grip" so you can change the paintball marker from a single shot weapon with each pull of the trigger into 3-shot burst per trigger pull, or semi-auto, and then finally full auto for continuous firing as long as the trigger is pulled and held. Obviously electronic markers are more expensive than non-electronic ones, and then you've got the added expenses of the technology needed to allow your weapon to rapid fire such as anti-chop systems to stop paintballs from breaking, auto-feed loaders or hoppers to hold the paintballs, as well as the list goes on and on. These added features are what drives up the costs very quickly whenever you are looking to purchase paintball guns. So it really is essential that you only consider those paintball guns for sale which have just the features that you really need, particularly if you will be just a beginner. Why pay for addons that you do not need or will rarely use?
4. Consider Ease Of Upkeep
There isn't anything more frustrating than to arrive at the paintball course all excited to play only to discover your paintball marker is broken and you don't have a clue how to fix it. Or perhaps even worse, your marker breaks down during a game and also you are performed for the day. So yet another significant consideration when looking to purchase paintball guns is your own personality type. Are you a "Mr. Fix-it" who loves to tear things apart and figure out how they work so you can fix them yourself? If not, then don't consider any paint ball guns for sale that are very complex and complicated with plenty of issues which can go wrong! Sometime the more fancy features the paintball marker comes with means all of the more that can go wrong. Therefore your personality type with respect to "doing it yourself" can help you determine what brands or models of paintball markers you should buy and not buy.
5. Consider Upgrade Potential
Some paintball markers, for example the popular Tippmann X7 series, are designed to be upgradeable which means as your playing skills improve you may make improvements to your gun as well. This is a really nice feature, especially if you develop a robust loyalty to your particular paintball model or company and don't wish to change to something or someone different. Many players would rather spend extra cash on upgrading their current paintball marker, that they can be used to, than paying the same amount to purchase a whole new marker. Others report that frequently upgrading their paintball marker helps to keep the sport exciting, when you want to keep playing to find out how your effort level changes because of the upgrades to your marker.
Advances in paintball technology in response to the rising popularity of this extreme sport means that you will discover more models and brands of paintball guns for sale than previously. So it is more important than ever to do some serious thinking and research before you make a decision to buy paintball guns, with numerous choices now available. Making usage of the information provided in this article, combined with some online research of paintballing sites will enable you to make an educated buying decision as to the very best paint ball guns for your skill level, needs, and price range.