PaintballX3 Magazine August 2013, PaintballX3 Magazine | Page 122

feature By Joshua D. Silverman There isn’t much in paintball worse than losing. Maybe bloody neck welts, but those are a part of losing in many cases. One of the few things worse than losing a game of competitive paintball is finding out, as you walk off the field, that you might have won if one or two little things than went wrong, had gone right. Often times the winning and losing teams at events walk off the field together and talk amongst themselves and one of the things often heard is: “you shot me going to the snake but it bounced.” Paintball is a game packed with variables, from weather and terrain to paint, barrels, loaders, markers, batteries, goggle lenses and a dozen other things that, if they go wrong, can lead to a loss. The ability to control as many of these variables as possible only comes with experience and hard work, but at least one can be easily controlled with a little time and effort: paint quality. 122 Redemption or Hellfire or Four Star or whatever the best paintball brands are, doesn’t necessarily mean a gold trophy either. It doesn’t hurt, but in and of itself, it’s just one more step down a long road. What gets old is players blaming issues they can control, but either choose not to address or don’t know how to address, for their losses. A prime example is paint quality. There might have been a time in paintball that companies existed that simply made garbage paintballs, just like there was a time in paintball’s history that companies really did manufacture and sell paintball guns that just didn’t go “bang” (you know who you are. I STILL want my money back). Those times, however, are pretty much over. Yes, sometimes problems like broken down refrigerator trucks or poor handling by a shipping company can negatively impact the quality of paintballs as they are very susceptible to a million different factors that can affect performance, but when high It’s hard enough to win games of paintball quality, tournament-level paintballs from when there are three, five, seven, ten or reputable brands leave the factory, ninehowever many opponents down on the ty-nine chances out of one hundred they’re other end of the field with guns that shoot going to be of good quality. It gets old lisfast intent on hanging that flag. However, tening to paintball players constantly walkit’s even more difficult to win games when ing off the field covered in someone else’s players stack the odds against themselves. paint, laying the blame for that defeat at Buying the best paintball gun money can the bottom of an empty box of their chosen buy, a fast loader, a good pair of goggles paint brand. In most cases, even if the paint that don’t fog, a set of cleats, solid pants that company handed off the truck wasn’t and a sexy jersey doesn’t entitle anyone that good, there was still plenty that could to a “W” on the scoreboard. To go a step have been done to ensure it got to the other further, spending the extra money for Evil or end of the field in good shape. PAINTBAL