Paintball guns explained

This article explains how paintball guns actually work and reviews some of the best models on the market.

Paintball is the fastest growing sport in the USA and Canada. Stats show that over 10 million people per year play paintball, just in the US. The sport is absolutely safe, thanks to the modern equipment which players use. The most important pieces of the equipment are the paintball gun, also known as a paintball marker, and the goggles.

Here is how a paintball marker works. The entire principle of operation is founded on the power of expanding gas used to propel paintballs through the barrel at the speed of 91m/s. This speed is imposed by manufacturers for safety limits. The paintballs are produced in such manner that they break when colliding with something, releasing red paint and causing slight pain, like a sting.

The construction of a marker consists of body, hopper, tank and a barrel. To allow a player to carry around the marker freely when funning, they body is fabricated from light materials such as aluminum or carbon fiber. The small tank holding the paintballs is called hopper.

Hoppers are divided in the following types - gravity feed, stick feed, agitating and force feed. Gravity feed is the most basic type of hopper with a limited shooting rate of to only 8 balls per second. Stick feed hoppers can contain 20 paintballs at max. Agitating hoppers are amongst the best ones, no jamming can occur, because they use propellers to agitate the paintballs. Force-feed models use a spring or a belt-fed system to proper the paintballs.

The tank is the container which holds the paintballs to be fired. The barrel directs the shot. Barrels come in different styles and lengths.

Electronic guns have a special chip integrated in them designed to increase your trigger speed. Electronic markers also require CO2 or Compressed Air to propel the paintball. Some of the more advanced models have a display showing how many paintballs are left in the hopper, shooting rate per second and a game timer.

The following types of paintball markers are available - stock glass, pump action, semi automatic, electropneumatic, fully automatic. Semi Automatic paintball markers require only a trigger pull to fire a paintball, but you have to pull the trigger for each and every shot. The fully automatic paintball markers will just keep firing paintballs for as long as the trigger is held down. The stock glass paintball markers are pump action pistols holding between 10-15 paintballs at a time, which need to be tilted in order to feed in the next paintball.

RAP4 is probably the best paintball marker ever made. Identical to the legendary 4 rifle used by SWAT Teams and the U.S. Military, the RAP4 is an automatic marker that shoots 40 or 43 caliber paintballs wrapped in metal or plastic shells. Another great model is Tippmann's M98, probably the most dependable and rugged paintball gun available on the market today. It's strong, durable and affordable.

Article Source: http://www.health-fitness-for-all.com

Paintball Online is availavle at a wide number of manufacturers, so you will easily find all types of prices ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. Author - Steve Timmeson.
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