When I played a day of paintball, I spent a bag of 500 rounds and two CO2 20gram (?) cartridges for the whole 6 hours. I "played" about 20 games worth....lost count I was having so much fun. I didn't actually reload that much — I tended to conserve ammo — I would check my hopper after each "game" and I wouldn't even top it off much because then my reserve ammo would become excessively loud shaking around in the pods (ammo carriers).
Just a habit, I guess. There are a couple points I would like point out about both lead paper shooting and paintball/airsoft, ugh, playing...
• It is a very cost effective way to learn force on force experience. There is one thing from shooting paper, and there is another when someone is shooting at you.
• The importance of sprinting like a bat out of hell between cover points is very easily learned. Sure we can talk about it, but when you're there you'll realize why. You need to DO IT to understand...
• You can load your hopper or airsoft mags with less rounds. Paintball hoppers won't feed quite right though as the rounds run out because it's a hopper. Airsoft magazines are spring loaded.
• Pain for mistakes, as another pointed out, is a good learning tool. Contrary to popular opinion airsoft stings, paintball does hurt a lot with 3J of impact force. You can draw blood at close range with airsoft guns, so any opinions that it's for wussies is rubbish, because it is not.
• Everybody here should do it, both for fun and experience. There are things you learn there that you don't learn shooting paper and metal swingers. You would be suprised how fast your options fly out the window when multiple people have you pinned behind a large (maybe 1 kiloliter) barrel....
•Recoil though, in an airsoft pistol, is a long ways from a 9mm LUGER recoil. Some of the hardest kicking ones can approach .22LR recoil. The airsoft gas-blow-back pistols are some of the best training tools out there. Seriously. Paintball pistols are lacking, I used one that used 12g CO2 powerlets and held about 12 balls that needed manual cycling for each shot.
• Paintball does side effects if you are not careful. In a "speedball" course, everybody opens the game with a shower of paint towards the other side. Few people are ever hit, I only saw a few hit in that process. Some people, I observed, would go through their entire hopper (about 200-250 rounds, depending, sometimes more, sometimes less) in less than two minutes and use up all their reserve ammo on their belt before the end of the game (which lasted about five to eight minutes). I would use maybe twenty to thirty rounds at the most per game.
•Paintball guns are typically (that is, average) in my experience, accurate to about 25-35 meters. You need to move in close to have the accuracy to hit small exposed elements of the enemy...you should have seen the HUGE pattern my marker was laying out when I was trying to nab someone hiding behind cover — lets just say you could have popped out and shot me because mine was so inaccurate you wouldn't have been hit...
•Airsoft guns tend to be more accurate and BBs, typically white, but can be obtained in black (can't see them buggers coming!) travel faster, smaller and can carry much more. But I see excessive magazine capacity a hinderance upon training, especially when real firearms are brought in. A 30 round AR mag in airsoft could hold 300 rounds or so, in high-cap form, in mid-cap (different design) could hold about 130 or so, and standard cap, maybe 60-80, and low cap, 30 rounds. MIL-SIM players typically prefer the low caps for realistic reasons.
Just a habit, I guess. There are a couple points I would like point out about both lead paper shooting and paintball/airsoft, ugh, playing...
• It is a very cost effective way to learn force on force experience. There is one thing from shooting paper, and there is another when someone is shooting at you.
• The importance of sprinting like a bat out of hell between cover points is very easily learned. Sure we can talk about it, but when you're there you'll realize why. You need to DO IT to understand...
• You can load your hopper or airsoft mags with less rounds. Paintball hoppers won't feed quite right though as the rounds run out because it's a hopper. Airsoft magazines are spring loaded.
• Pain for mistakes, as another pointed out, is a good learning tool. Contrary to popular opinion airsoft stings, paintball does hurt a lot with 3J of impact force. You can draw blood at close range with airsoft guns, so any opinions that it's for wussies is rubbish, because it is not.
• Everybody here should do it, both for fun and experience. There are things you learn there that you don't learn shooting paper and metal swingers. You would be suprised how fast your options fly out the window when multiple people have you pinned behind a large (maybe 1 kiloliter) barrel....
•Recoil though, in an airsoft pistol, is a long ways from a 9mm LUGER recoil. Some of the hardest kicking ones can approach .22LR recoil. The airsoft gas-blow-back pistols are some of the best training tools out there. Seriously. Paintball pistols are lacking, I used one that used 12g CO2 powerlets and held about 12 balls that needed manual cycling for each shot.
• Paintball does side effects if you are not careful. In a "speedball" course, everybody opens the game with a shower of paint towards the other side. Few people are ever hit, I only saw a few hit in that process. Some people, I observed, would go through their entire hopper (about 200-250 rounds, depending, sometimes more, sometimes less) in less than two minutes and use up all their reserve ammo on their belt before the end of the game (which lasted about five to eight minutes). I would use maybe twenty to thirty rounds at the most per game.
•Paintball guns are typically (that is, average) in my experience, accurate to about 25-35 meters. You need to move in close to have the accuracy to hit small exposed elements of the enemy...you should have seen the HUGE pattern my marker was laying out when I was trying to nab someone hiding behind cover — lets just say you could have popped out and shot me because mine was so inaccurate you wouldn't have been hit...
•Airsoft guns tend to be more accurate and BBs, typically white, but can be obtained in black (can't see them buggers coming!
) travel faster, smaller and can carry much more. But I see excessive magazine capacity a hinderance upon training, especially when real firearms are brought in. A 30 round AR mag in airsoft could hold 300 rounds or so, in high-cap form, in mid-cap (different design) could hold about 130 or so, and standard cap, maybe 60-80, and low cap, 30 rounds. MIL-SIM players typically prefer the low caps for realistic reasons.
