I hope this helps you a bit 3L1TE
not greatly edited but.........
Oh, so you want to start paintball do you? well carry on reading!
Well, so far you have made a wise decision, you chose paintball
However, this leads us to our second decision, where to start.....hmmmm?
Well first lets get you a pair of goggles, its always nice to see what you shoot at
Goggles
Now, its up to you if you go first or second hand, i personally went second hand, its basically half the price, just pop in a new lens and you are good to go. However some people like to buy them new for safety.
So, coming up first in our Pair of Goggles sections iiisssss *Drum roll*
The Proto Axis Pro's
a well rounded mask much similar to the older Dye I3's. This masks offers a good amount of head protection, going up to most peoples hairlines, or where they should be and also round the sides just past the ears. There is plenty of space inside and nothing is cramped. You can get multiple lens types, and even change able face plates. However this mask does way more than most, that is not to say your head will be sagging, its just that’s its no Dye I4 and it is noticeable
Overall this is the Mario if paintball were super Mario double dash, well rounded in every respect.
V-Force grillz
The V-Force Grillz are still quite a large mask, going down in my opinion further than the Proto Axis Pro's but this time with much sharper lines, rather than the curved base of the Proto's. This mask is slightly thinner than the Proto's however it offers less head protection. a small dip has been made in the centre of the top of the mask, to create a kind of tilted eye brow look, this means that it is possibly to be shot in the fore head rather than the hair. This mask is slightly lighter than the Proto Axis pro's.
Overall this is a little more aggressive looking paintball mask, giving you a little more length downwards and a little less length sideways. King of like Waluigi. Lanky and badass looking
JT Proflex
These goggles are notorious for their customisability. You can change the colour of just about every part allowing to make your mask literally your mask. However this comes at a cost. This mask a completely flat top line, which rides just lower than your hair, not so much to get shot in the forehead but slightly. On top of this, it is one of the largest mask (forward length wise and width wise) as the front grill is made of a flexible material (as the name hints to ) and to stop it flexing all the way to your mouth it has to be quite far forward. There are also some complaints about the earpieces (the protection for your ears) moving around, this can be a problem, but if you put them back to where they are meant to be they shouldn't move too much while on your head.
So, It is likely you have chosen a mask now, good on ya, your part of the way there on the awesome journey, that is paintball
So, you have your goggles, and you want to get out and play... But you don’t have a marker :S uh-oh, time to pick a marker then
Markers
This section unfortunately changes faster than a chameleon on a TV screen so this may not be accurate for you, so lets date it 17/6/10
Well without further ado, here is our first contestant, i mean marker.
The Proto SLG (all but the 08 they weren’t so great)
The proto SLG is a spool valve type marker (ZDSPB for more info), this means it lends itself to quietness but unfortunately inefficiency aswell. This marker has unfortunately quite high maintenance for a starter marker, however keep it all done up and she will shoot till the end of time. But when i say there is lots of mainteneance, that is not to say the maintenance is hard, twist the bolt out of the back, lube all of the o-rings with a small amount of appropriate lube, and your off. This marker is made by a reputable manufacturer, you will find parts everywhere, and a tech will never shake his head and say 'i don't know what to do'.
Overall, this marker is a very god buy, its simple, light, and it will last you forever, its also nice and cheap, Oh and the Dye ultralight grips where designed by some sort of ergonomic genius and I cant find any nearly as nice...
The Ego/Etek.
Now, coming in to paintball it is likely you will have a price range of around £100 -£250 and that means, that you can buy either an Etek, or an Ego, and possibly the Ego 06. All of these markers are Poppit valve markers (ZDSPB again) that means they will be louder, have more recoil, but will be more efficient. But don’t be down, your Etek or Ego wont need half of the Maintenance your partners SLG did, pull out the bolt from the top tube, lube up the o-rings on that and your done, and even the serious maintenance is only pulling out the rammer from the bottom tube, lubing up i think 3 ?! only 3?! o-rings on that and putting it back.. 3 o-rings for serious maintenance that’s not even fair compared to the SLG. These are also from a very reputable company, and the same rules apply to these as they did the SLG's loads of parts, loads of techs.
So overall, you get a really low maintenance marker, with a little more recoil, but a little more efficiency
Now our third marker is a bit of a hard one to choose, you have been through the reputable low cost markers which have been tried and tested, and now you are into the less well known markers.
I like to put an Invert mini as third...
Invert mini
The invert mini is a bit hit and miss, i had a mini and loved it, might get another just because i liked it that much. However i have heard of people going through multiple mini's and not coming out with one that works from the box. Its quite tough to explain the valving system, but you can expect it to shoot more like a spoolie, but sound a bit different.... The maintenance is much like the SLG bolt out the back, lube the o-rings and your off. Unfortunately unlike the SLG, techs are a little rarer for these makers, however at campaign cup (the UK's turn to host the European paintball series) you will usually find someone. One BIG thing to notice is that this design is macro line less, there is no connection between the bit at the front (usually the regulator) and the bottom of your grip frame which is kind of cool
Overall you get a reasonably low maintenance marker, that has a cool feature at a reasonable price.
Good, so that is your marker out of the way, but how are you going to fire the thing without any propellant?
So we are going to need to get you a tank.
Air System.
There are two main types of tank, a steel tank generally called a steelie, and a carbon fibre tank, which doesn’t really have a nickname. The first of the two, the steelie, can be purchased new for around £60, which compared to the £120 carbon fibre bottles seems too good to be true, and unfortunately it is. A steel tank as you can imagine weighs a considerably amount more than a carbon fibre one I’d expect that is common sense. Also, steel bottles can only hold 3000 PSI , not saying that that isn’t a lot, a rugby ball full of 3000PSI air could fill 300 professional sized rugby balls to the professional pressure. But it isn’t the best. And that leads onto carbon fibre bottles, the bling bling cousin of our favourite steelie. Coming in at double the price you can obviously expect some benefits, for example being lightweight. However they can also hold up to 4500PSI?! That’s 50% more air than your steelie. They also come in more shapes and sizes.
Now, one thing you do need to know about when buying a bottle is its Birth date (so you know when to buy it presents) and its death date (so you know when to spread its ashes) These two dates will tell you when you can actually use the bottle. A bottle out of test is as dangerous as bomb, while in test you know the bomb is inert however like a backwards time bomb, once it gets out of test it can kill a man. Both types of bottles have 5 years from their Birth date till their first ‘test date’ and then 5 years from that till the next one etc until the bottles reaches its death date. Then you must buy a new one.
So buy now, you have your goggles, you have your marker, you have your tank, and you are ¾ of the way there. The final thing I will talk about will be your loader, this is in no way more technical than the others, I just saved it till last because I forgot about it while writing the others
In my opinion there are three loaders you should consider (others would say more, others will just say BUY THE LOADER I’M USING ITZ TA BEZT)
Loaders
Dye rotor
dye whipped this gadget out last year and it has torn the show apart, it is now used by nearly every pro player. The reason this is, is that it is incredibly user friendly. Its tool less to take apart, so swapping batteries is just like the TV remote, the whole thing is water tight, so you can dunk it after a day at the field and boom the paint is gone. And most importantly, it only has one button, and one mode. You press the nice big button, it goes blue, and you’re off. Some might say that also the rotor goes at 40BPS meaning that it feeds 40 balls in one second, it also means that your loader is feeding balls at nearly 4 times the rate at which you can fire them so its not worth mentioning… These awesome features however do not come at a cheap price. The rotor is the most costly loader in this list coming in at around 70-80 second hand… most will say its worth it.
Empire Prophecy
The second loader I would recommend is the Empire prophecy, unfortunately it would seem in this design that user friendliness took a backseat during the design phase. Although the whole shell is tool less this thing can get a bit fiddly when you start putting it back together. However this does not mean the design phase went badly as a whole, the Prophecy seems to be designed around customisability. For example not only can you change the capacity of your loader, you can also change how sensitive it is to sound (it’s a sound activated loader) how fast is spins, how much it spins when it hears a sound and many other things so you can make this loader, your loader. On top of this the prophecy still comes in cheaper than the rotor, at £90 brand new.
Reloader B/ Halo
Finally I would recommend a second hand reloader B. This loader has been in the game for many years and is still perfectly acceptable as a starter loader coming in at half price of both the other loaders when you buy it second hand you can unfortunately expect some cutbacks, for example it has a higher profile than most loaders, and a design that requires a screwdriver to take it apart, making changing the batteries tougher than most will like. However it does boast the same customisability as the Prophecy at a much lower pricepoint.
So that is just about all of what you need to get into this sport, goggles, a marker, a tank, and a loader.
Oh and one last thing, please please please don’t listen to the whole ‘ oh so what kind of ball do you want to play? In the woods or on the sup air field’ BS, every marker ever has been made of brass, stainless steel or aluminium. Our cars and planes are made of these materials, you can be assured your SL94 although categorized as speedball marker can take its fair share of dirt and grit before it breaks.
For the record it is very likely i have made mistakes in this peice, any criticism will be taken in a positive manner
so i can get an average of reads/approvals, can you like the post if you think it is good?
thanks, Dom
