Buying first gear, let me know what you think...

[Homewrecker]

Hi, I'm an old occasional player from Manchester UK looking to take it all a lot more seriously this time. Due to venue limitations around here, I imagine I will be playing quite a lot of woodsball, but I definitely want to get into some speedball.

This is a basic list I’ve put together after some research (note this is without actually being able to try anything out, which will be my next step). Your thoughts/criticisms/suggestions of my choices, would be very much appreciated.


Marker: Etek 3 LT – Also feel free to share any day-one upgrades that might be worth a look.

Goggles: Proto Axis Pro or possibly Dye i4 (need to give them try on I reckon, they look pretty small for my massive face) any other suggestions around this price mark would be appreciated.

Hopper: Dye Rotar - probably a little fancier than I need, but I thought what the hell, the design makes it easy to maintain for a noob like me. Also it looks pretty awesome.

Any advice on air tanks would be mega useful too.

Cheers for your help
Tom.

 

[Lovetone]

Gun - great choice, no ups needed.
Goggles - personal preference, try on a few different makes and styles. Empire Events are great.
Loader - Rotor is very expensive (guess its kinda justified) but if you want to save cash, buy 2nd hand, or if you want new stuff, the Invert Halo Too is my recommendation

Also, get down to the MTPC site (training venue, host site of the CPPS series) its an hour south of Manchester. Many people drive from Manchester there and its the best site by far.

 

[Homewrecker]

Gun - great choice, no ups needed.
Goggles - personal preference, try on a few different makes and styles. Empire Events are great.
Loader - Rotor is very expensive (guess its kinda justified) but if you want to save cash, buy 2nd hand, or if you want new stuff, the Invert Halo Too is my recommendation

Also, get down to the MTPC site (training venue, host site of the CPPS series) its an hour south of Manchester. Many people drive from Manchester there and its the best site by far.

Cheers, I'll definitely have a look. Don't suppose you know how easy/expensive is it to get HPA refills around the Manchester area?

Also apart from thermal lenses, is there anything else I should be specifically looking for when it comes to Goggles?

 

[frenchy2475]

Just make sure the goggles are comfortable is the main thing. Spend as much as you can on them too. The top goggles will be the most resiliant to fogging up.

I use Empire E-vents which are really good. They dont fog at all and are really comfortable. Also worth mentioning that the foam in goggles will eventually start to come away in their life. The events have complete foam kits availiable now very cheap. I-4s dont. The I4's are a very small mask that may leave your chin unprotected if you have a bigger face. Events tend to give you more covarage.

 

[Smileanator]

etek 3 sounds like a fairly good choice to me mate, ceartinly wont dissapoint but being a bit of a dye/proto fan I would reccomend the proto matrix rail. (PMR). shoots amazing.

dye rotor is also well worth the money, you wont regret it trust me

pro axis and i4 are both amazing masks, I find the i4s far more comftable and to be honest ive never met anyone who had a problem wearing them, personally I think up to a point the whole "too small for big people" is a bit of a myth.

as for air tanks, buy a pure energy or DXS carbon fibre wrap. steel bottles are nice and cheap and work fine but theyre uncomftable to shoulder and are heavy as hell. basically my advice is to get decent gear to start with as ive found first hand that it sucks to realise that in a month or two you want to upgrade. depends really how sure you are your going to keep playing.

 

[Homewrecker]

etek 3 sounds like a fairly good choice to me mate, ceartinly wont dissapoint but being a bit of a dye/proto fan I would reccomend the proto matrix rail. (PMR). shoots amazing.

dye rotor is also well worth the money, you wont regret it trust me

pro axis and i4 are both amazing masks, I find the i4s far more comftable and to be honest ive never met anyone who had a problem wearing them, personally I think up to a point the whole "too small for big people" is a bit of a myth.

as for air tanks, buy a pure energy or DXS carbon fibre wrap. steel bottles are nice and cheap and work fine but theyre uncomftable to shoulder and are heavy as hell. basically my advice is to get decent gear to start with as ive found first hand that it sucks to realise that in a month or two you want to upgrade. depends really how sure you are your going to keep playing.

Cheers man , I'm pretty possitive I'll be playing alot. I used to do it alot when I was younger, but couldn't afford to really take it up properly. Now money isn't as much of an issue, so I'm gonna be all over it. It's come as a pleasent suprise that Manchester seems like a very reasonable place to be based for this sport too.

Ive done a fair bit of woodsballing, never done any speedball, except where they have it at a delta force style place where everyone just hides at each end of the field trying unsuccessfully to shoot stupidy long range archs with clap'd out Infurno's..... ends up looking like some silly medievel longbow battle. So I'll have to learn the ropes with that, try not to get entirely smashed to bits.

 

[frenchy2475]

Tanks wise, has to be Guerilla Air. Very light indeed (lightest availaible) they do a 48/45 (tiny tank) and a 68/45. Give lips a call for these and they will give you a good price.

 

[Homewrecker]

Tanks wise, has to be Guerilla Air. Very light indeed (lightest availaible) they do a 48/45 (tiny tank) and a 68/45. Give lips a call for these and they will give you a good price.

Cheers for your input, I'll definitely look into all those suggestions.


You're all very helpful here arn't you?

 

[Homewrecker]

Those Empire E-Vents, are they duel pane or thermal lense (or niether)? I've had a quick look, but it doesn't seem to say

 

[frenchy2475]

Thermal dual pane. They come with a clear lense but you can buy different colours for them.