Some real world firing observations.

[Reiner]

It would seem silly to treat it the same as .68 as it is a totally different product with totally different characteristics and thereffore needs its own set of safety rules and criteria.

I agree. Nevertheless, in Canada and the USA, insurance companies ues ASTM standards and those do not allow firing above 300 fps, even for paintballs of caliber less than .68. And yes, that makes it a serious handicap going up against .68 caliber in anything but close range interaction.

It would be fine in a renter ownly environment, but more and more of my customers are showing up with their own gear and I doubt that many would choose .50 cal over .68 cal knowing they would be severely handicapped. I barely even get a group anymore that doesn't have at least one or two gear owners in the group. And since we are trying to expand the market and get more people interested in paintball, it's only natural for more people to want their own gear, so renter only groups are becoming fewer and fewer. The whole .50 caliber idea doesn't seem to fit into our business plans.

Having said that, I have no problem stocking .50 cal balls alongside .68 cal balls, should there be a meaningful demand. As it is, to date, I've had only a handful of customers even ask if we might start stocking .50 cal paintballs. And most of those were people asking just out of interst because they see the debates going on in forums, such as this one, not because they were seriously thinking of converting.

 

[Stee-vo]

.50 cal

I only know of one site in the UK that is trying to run .50cal only rental games. They are marketing it as painless (well less painful) paintball so I will watch that with interest. As far as I can see in the UK .50cal has faded away after the initial debate and launch and I do not know of any teams shooting it or of it being widely available at any events. In fairness I am mostly on the site/scenario side of the industry so it might have some tournament players using it (I would be interested to hear if it was being used anywhere and by who).
It is actually a good product but as you know it suffers badly in comparrison against .68 in most game situations so it has a major battle to get established.
My understanding is that it should have ahuge impact in Japan, Germany, etc where current rules on projectile energy levels basicly make .68 unplayable so it will allow a whole new market place to develop for paintball.
I hope it does get a foot hold, I think it could have a part to play in the rental market and also junior paintball where young players us it till they get old enough to step up to .68. A bit like racing drivers learning in go-karts till they can step up to real cars.

 

[Gee Tee]

Did the 50 cal ball shot at 320fps have the same effective range as 68 cal ball shot at 300fps?

 

[Gassy]

The site that is running purly .50 cal games for rental players lets you use .50cal or .68cal for walkons.

if your shooting .68 cal you chrono to a limit of 280fps

if your shooting .50 cal you chrono to a limit of 300fps

they say you get roughly the same effective range with both calibers

it would be nice to think more kids enjoy the games as it doesn't hurt as much and I hope it goes well for the site involved.

 

[Scrumpy]

Right let's get this out in the open! The other site using .50 cal is YPC and yes I know there is bad blood between andy sables and robbo but he is doing his upmost to support .50 cal (and paintball in general) from what I've been hearing this is taking off at the site especially as .50 cal games are open to kids as young as 10. I really want to not only use .50 cal but want to back it fully.

 

[Piper]

Also Campaign Paintball in Surrey and Demolition Paintball in Brighton are all using .50 cal

 

[Robbo]

Right let's get this out in the open! The other site using .50 cal is YPC and yes I know there is bad blood between andy sables and robbo but he is doing his upmost to support .50 cal (and paintball in general) from what I've been hearing this is taking off at the site especially as .50 cal games are open to kids as young as 10. I really want to not only use .50 cal but want to back it fully.

Scrumpy, since you have mentioned this [and I got no idea why your post warrants mention on the bad blood] I will add something here; life ain't a vase of roses, sh!t happens and people do and say stupid things, and so, sables did something stupid once which was designed to make me look stupid, or so he thought; I have actually got no problem with what he did because as I said, we all do these things; however, when I do similarly stupid things, I apologise and have done so many times on these boards.

The problem I have with sables is, when I called him up to confront him with what he had done, his knee-jerk response was to deny it .... unfortunately for him, there wasn't any doubt in this circumstance as to his culpability and so, when he denied the action, it left him no room to apologise which makes me kinda think he must be intellectually challenged because he seems unable to reason this thru.
And I know he's not a stupid man, far from it in fact ... and so it just may come down to a knee-jerk reaction leaving him little room for manoeuvre ....
Had he apologised, then I would have accepted it no problem and we would all be getting on fine now but a man's pride is a curious thing, seemingly possessing the capacity to provoke us to do the most ridiculous of things.
If a man has the balls to apologise then I'd be much less of a man to not accept such an apology.
There is only one man who has sought to position himself outside of that acceptance and that's jeff abbott, andy sables isn't in that same category as abbott, nowhere near.
sables is a lot brighter, he isn't a thief and nor does he stoop soooo low as to use a man's children to insult him.
Life's rather nasty sometimes it seems :/

 

[Alex R]

I've marshaled all of the .50cal games at YPC so far (I know this may get deleted) and the younger players loved it and all wanted to come again for their birthdays when they came around etc, there were no complaints about nasty marks or the pain of impact and so the parents were happy, even some of the parents played and preferred it to .68's. We Chrono'd the guns at about 270fps and the range was quite good. So far the .50cal seems a good way to get younger players in the stable for the future so to speak. The Dark Sports paint is very good and the only ball breaks we had are when the kids thought they were Rambo and tried pulling the trigger as fast as they could and so chopped a few in the breech, but this is the same with most mechs so no problems there. The guns we use are the Spyder Opus(I think) these are easy to strip on the field for cleaning and are a nice compact size, we also use some tiny bottles not sure on size, I think but don't quote me on it they're 0.2l, but they're ideal for younger kids as they're light and not clumsy or as heavy as the usual 0.8 steel bottles... So over all I like the .50cal, although I haven't played it my self yet, it could be promising on the rental site side of things...

For the Marshaling side of things, as was said in the first post, the balls are hard to so in flight, so if you do marshal and .50cal hit's your site, be prepared to get shot quite frequently, even though it doesn't really hurt that much it can be annoying... The Spyders are easily cleaned, pretty much the same as the good ol' infernos but the cocking pin stays in the bolt which means they're less likely to get lost. I've not fully stripped one down yet, but would imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to tech, but they can be quite gas hungry if dry fired to often. The standard gravity hoppers are dinky, but hold around about 350 balls but it doesn't matter how many it holds as they soon disappear to the dismay of the parents The smaller bottles are as I said good for the kids and can roughly get around 500-650 shots off a 3000fill before needing to be filled again, but been that small it takes alot less time to top up compared to bigger bottles... So far we haven't bothered with pod packs yet, so can't comment on that...

This is only my 2p's worth after only doing this a few times... If it's ok I'd add more after a few weeks to see how things go...

cheers,

Al

 

[Gassy]

I've marshaled all of the .50cal games at YPC so far (I know this may get deleted) and the younger players loved it and all wanted to come again for their birthdays when they came around etc, there were no complaints about nasty marks or the pain of impact and so the parents were happy, even some of the parents played and preferred it to .68's. We Chrono'd the guns at about 270fps and the range was quite good. So far the .50cal seems a good way to get younger players in the stable for the future so to speak. The Dark Sports paint is very good and the only ball breaks we had are when the kids thought they were Rambo and tried pulling the trigger as fast as they could and so chopped a few in the breech, but this is the same with most mechs so no problems there. The guns we use are the Spyder Opus(I think) these are easy to strip on the field for cleaning and are a nice compact size, we also use some tiny bottles not sure on size, I think but don't quote me on it they're 0.2l, but they're ideal for younger kids as they're light and not clumsy or as heavy as the usual 0.8 steel bottles... So over all I like the .50cal, although I haven't played it my self yet, it could be promising on the rental site side of things...

For the Marshaling side of things, as was said in the first post, the balls are hard to so in flight, so if you do marshal and .50cal hit's your site, be prepared to get shot quite frequently, even though it doesn't really hurt that much it can be annoying... The Spyders are easily cleaned, pretty much the same as the good ol' infernos but the cocking pin stays in the bolt which means they're less likely to get lost. I've not fully stripped one down yet, but would imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to tech, but they can be quite gas hungry if dry fired to often. The standard gravity hoppers are dinky, but hold around about 350 balls but it doesn't matter how many it holds as they soon disappear to the dismay of the parents The smaller bottles are as I said good for the kids and can roughly get around 500-650 shots off a 3000fill before needing to be filled again, but been that small it takes alot less time to top up compared to bigger bottles... So far we haven't bothered with pod packs yet, so can't comment on that...

This is only my 2p's worth after only doing this a few times... If it's ok I'd add more after a few weeks to see how things go...

cheers,

Al

It's Cool Alex don't worry,a nice informative post mate and lets hope the kids move on from their good early experience to walkon/scenario and tourny paintball.

 

[Stee-vo]

Good post

Al, great feedback there and really glad to here .50 is taking off at YPC. Your feedback pretty much confirms my observations in that the paint is good and the markers work fine and that it is ideal for smaller kids. We have a tiny air bottle we have been running the .50cal on and we get 200 shots from it and it massively reduces the weight and takes seconds to fill. With a hopper holding 350 balls rental customers do not need pod packs and as you said it leaves fewer marks and hurts less so the parents are less concerned.
At 270fps the .50 would have way less range than a .68 but it makes no difference in .50cal games only for rental players. Sounds like a really successful experiment and one we will probably copy in the near future.
Just out of interest have the hoppers been improved as then ones i saw origionally were not robust enough to survive the rough and tumble of rental play.