Andy, when you play competitive paintball mate, confidence in your equipment is just one part of the 'confidence' jigsaw.
You may well be confident in your ability because you have trained yer nuts off and are satisfied the nature of the training was directly of benefit to your playing but... if someone then hands you a marker that ostensibly fires much the same as your own, if that little maggot of doubt creeps into your head that the marker you are now using won't perform as well, this will undoubtedly affect your performance in some way.
This is a general suggestion because I realise there will be people out there who aren't affected in this way but for the most part, people's confidence is merely an eclectic array of confidences masquerading as a singular phenomenon.
I think I'll start up another thread somewhere on this subject because some of the things I discovered when reading up on it would prove useful maybes.
