[Marine Machine]

In England, paintball is more laid back than what I have read on these forums. Virtualy know owns there own paintball gear and there are very few competitions, so I apologise if this question comes of n00bish.

What varibles actually makes a gun good?

Theres all these people who commend there marker but I dont actualy know whats so good about them. You follow?

[Solac]

I come from the NE of England (Yorkshire) and your ight, there is no big sport of paintballing here, it is not big. In the USA it seems massive, at the moment I cannot find one paintball tournament in my area, my local place does not allow people to bring there own marker unless you speak to the manager and convince him that your gun does not giuve you an advantage (whioch is hard because the manager knows nothing about paintball)

[cr1baby]

1st off call it a marker not a g*n

and no don't really follow you...

[Marine Machine]

I called it a marker later on. Its best to increase your dialog then repeat the smae word

Back to the subject. I heard people talk about the FPS, RPM, Etc. I just want a list of attributes that you would look for in a Marker.

[Ugly Bassist]

Originally Posted by cr1baby

1st off call it a marker not a g*n

and no don't really follow you...

Yeah, we do follow. If you don't have anything to contribute than don't.

Basically what most people look for in a gun is alot of things. Some people find different need in their markers than others. Most guns will shoot about the same range stock, no matter what. Velocity can vary but all have the potential to shoot up to standards with just the change of a spring.

So what's that leave? Accuracy? Well, any gun can be accurate, it just takes the right barrel, and hardly any guns have a good stock barrel. So you really wouldn't look for that in a gun.

What I think it comes down to is, reliability, upgradability, price, and style. It has to be reliable, you don't want it breaking down in the middle of a game, or the first day you buy it. Upgrades, many people like to put upgrades on their gun to make it preform better, some guns offer more upgrades than others. Price, it has to be within you budget, and it has to offer full value for what it costs. And finally, style. I don't mean looks, which alot of people base their purchases on, I mean style of play. Many woodsballers wont be interested in an Angel, Timmy, or things like that, and many speedball players wont be interested in a woodsball related gun.

So it all depends..

[Marine Machine]

Thanks PBNewbie69, I found that very useful

[Ugly Bassist]

no problem. kind of broad range, but thats paintball..

[SmokeM]

PBNewbie gave a lot of good information.

For what its worth and from someone who has played through many changes over the years, it really comes down to what you want to be able to do with your marker. From your description, if the local fields make it difficult/impossible to bring on your own gear, then buying your own stuff may not be the best way to go.

In my case, I have upgraded/changed out markers numerous times for some of the reasons mentioned by PBNewbie. In addition to the information provided previously, I would expand upond that advice as follows:

1. Accuracy is actually affected by a couple of different factors.

The barrel is one important aspect, more importantly a good paint to barrel match. Paint does vary in exact size within the 68 caliber range, and for this reason, barrels come in various bore sizes. Some manufacturers make numerous barrel backs and/or inserts to address this issue. Others just try to get one barrel that seems to give the best match for the type of paint they most typically use.

Another, equally important factor is consistent velocity. If your velocity varies from shot to shot, then your accuracy is going to suffer as well. The best way to ensure consistent velocity is to maintain a steady air pressure to your marker via a regulator. Another good approach in this manner is a low pressure marker. For example, stock Spyder will run at high pressure ranging from 750-900 psi depending on air source (CO2 versus compressed air) and ambient conditions. As your shooting, your going to see fluctuations in your output pressure and subsquently your velocity (swings in velocity are typically +/- 8 fps). A low pressure marker on the other hand like and Angel, Shocker, Timmy, etc. will be operating closer to 200 psi with the actual output pressure of the air source being regulated down to that level. Depending on the quality of your regulator, you may only see variation in velocity of +/- 2 fps regardless of how fast you are shooting. That equates to much better accuracy. One last note on this issue, you can modify many high pressure markers to operate at lower pressures, but will require a regulator.

2. Reliability - some markers are known for having little or no problems on the field, and also the amount of maintenance needed is related to your experience with that type of marker. Autocockers known for their accuracy typically require someone with a bit of experience to fine tune the mechanism. In the lower cost spectrum of markers, I personally have had a great deal of success on reliability with spyders and tipmanns. In the higher range markers, I loved my impulse and love my shocker.

3. Most markers are fairly upgradeable, but depending on how much you have to spend and what you are looking for, it may be cheaper to just buy a higher value marker rather than upgrading a cheaper marker, but alot of that depends on your financial situation, and whether you want to be tinkering and upgrading.

4. And of course, some people are looking for something for style purposes. That is more of a personal choice that I will leave up to you.

Best of luck to you and I hope some of this information helps out.

Smoke

[Ugly Bassist]

Nicely said..

[Alpha]

Originally Posted by Marine Machine

I called it a marker later on. Its best to increase your dialog then repeat the smae word

Back to the subject. I heard people talk about the FPS, RPM, Etc. I just want a list of attributes that you would look for in a Marker.

Howdy. Great to see some international participation around here. I always enjoy talking with people form other nations.

FPS is basicly how many feet per second the paintball is travelign after it leaves the barrel. The higher the FPS the more distance you will get (however fields limit this to 280fps, and there is a point where force exherted on the paintball is too much and it will explode in the gun before accelerating.

You can call it a gun when your around toher players. Marker out in public.

The reason why paintball seems so much more popular int he US is ebcuase it was invented right here in the New England.

Check out www.pbreview.com for some fields in England.

Better markers...

A Higher RPM (more commonly expresed in balls per second) is better for speedball. The sport has evolved into two areas in the 1990's. Speedball, and woodsball. Speedball is more about screaming out positions, fast paced action pack... action. Woodsball is more laid back, and more for the newer player (face it, its a stereotype, and most of the time its true. We all started out in the woods. The newbies are mostly in the woods).

A lighter gun is better for speedball.. But it can be good for woodsball too. Since woodsball is slower adn longer, you get fatigued more easily. Btu lets face it, what kind of man can't hold 10 pounds at waist level? I thought so.

My marker is an AGD (Which is an English company) Automag RT Pro. The best marker in the world. ITs got arguably the fastest recharging valve (meaning it refreshes faster so you dont get velocity shootdown). You can pump out 26 balls per second without shootdown, and people have gotten them to hit 34.

It comes stock with a Level 10 antichop 2 stage superbolt. This bolt is amazing. YOu can stick your finge in the chamber, and fire off a whole tank. And your finger will be fine.

Very light too.. My marker is 2.0 lbs flat.

Very light trigger too. And it never needs batteries.

www.TheMagSmith.com

[HP_lovecraft]

The question is vague, since different types of players would prefer different characteristics. This is why there is no #1 gun.
But here is a rough guide to the most important things to consider:

1- USABILITY. This is by far the most important thing, though usually ignored. Basically, it is a measure of how "EASY" the gun is to use. Several factors contribute to good usability. This includes the size and weight of the gun. But also how easy the gun is to maintain and clean. Harder to measure is how easy the trigger is to use, or the feed system or reliability of components or likelyhood that it will chop a ball.
A classic example is the early automags. They suffered from major problems that resulted in people LOOSING TOURNAMENTS.

1A- DURABILITY. A corrolary to usability is durability. ALso often overlooked. To put simply: It has a measure of how long the gun can work without needing maintenence.
This applies to everyone since rec-players tend to do poor maintenece, and tourny-players tend to use the gun HARD between maintenece. You want the gun to work perfectly from start to finish of every game.

2- BPS. Not as important as many think, because nearly all electros can not shoot faster then anyone can pull the trigger. Still, it is important that the gun not inhibit your playing style with a slow ROF.

2A- MODES. A corrolary to #2. MODES are being allowed again, so it is important that the gun you use have the sufficient modes required to match the playing level.

3- Effeciency. Simply put, better effeciency allows the user to have a smaller, lighter tank directly relating to increased playing ability. Early Shockers were unpopular specifically because it required the used to have a massive tank due to terrible effeciency.

4- Consistency. This is the measure of how well a gun can shoot a group of paintballs with the smallest amount of variance. Consistency and quality of paint are the only things that really effect accuracy.

Thats about it.

nick