Read this first:
HPA or CO2
CO2: CO2 is the cadalac of compressed gasses. Why? Well simply put, its been used to power bb and pellet guns years before paintball was even thought of. Its been used for years before that in industry, for purposes such as cooling, beverage dispension, and my favorite, keggerators.
CO2 when it is in your tank is in liquid and gasious state. When you compress any gas (to my knowlege of the laws of physics), it turns into a liquid. Just like how all liquids have boiling points.
Tip* When you're at your next barbique, put the propane tank on an edge so it is balancing, and tap it with somethign metallic. Then slosh it around. You'll hear "Pwong wong wong wong". Next time your at a field, do the same to a CO2 tank. Its the liquid moving around. You can jugge how full a tank is by this method.
Why CO2 is bad for high end guns.. Well, remember how I said there is both liquid and gasious CO2 in your tank? Lets just assume you have a vertical tank. Like a phantom, or minimag. The tank is set up like shown:
Gas is lighter then liquid in density, so it naturally rises. The gas is at the top of the tank being fed in, and the liquid is at the bottom. When you start to shoot in rapid succession, you begin to use up the gas faster then the liquid can expand. What ends up happening, is there is no gas left in the tank, and you start sucking up liquid.
The liquid is bad for seals becuase it causes O-rigns to freeze. They shrink up like Fiki in a cold shower and sometimes can cause leaks. This is only when seals are very fragile. On a normal tank O-ring this won't cause it to leak.
However, lets say you have an angel that has a 14-way or something. Theres tons of seals in there, and if one seal goes bad, your gun screws up. Things are so precise, that if a little bit of Liquid CO2 gets in there, it can mess verything up, the solenoid will need replacing, blah blah blah, your screwed.
This brings me to my favorite of all gasses.
NO2/NOS/Nitrous Oxide: Nitrous oxide is composed of one Nitrogen molecule, and two Oxygen molecules. Formally known as Dinitrogen monoxide. This stuff is also known as laughing gas. Its also extremely flamable.
Did you know with some titanium barrels (like dye barrels), if the bore is just right, it will actually spark as a paintball exits?
Now lets imagine you're using NOS and a titanium barrel. Boom.
YOU DO NOT USE NOS, NITROUS, NO2, NITROUS OXIDE, OR DINITROGEN MONOXIDE IN PAINTBALL CANISTERS.
This is just a common misconception that most new players have. This is the stuff you put in a car to mix with fuel to make it burn faster and harder (and can also damage your hoses if your car is not set up properly for NO2).
Nitrogen is what we use in paintball. Compressed air.
First, I want you to look at this chart, showign the atmospheric contents that you have been living in for some 13+ years (I hope).
78% Nitrogen. Thats nearly 80%. Another common misconception is that people think the atmosphere is made up of oxygen. Its not.
Nitrogen is found in a lot of stuff. Without it, many bacteria would die, and in turn, plants would die, then humans. We are dependant on nitrogen to survive. If we are deprived of it, I do believe we can die. Theres a whole thing called the nitrogen cycle, but thats a biology thing I wont get into. We actually only need oxygen to convert ATP to energy in aerobic cellular respiration. Again, its a biology thing.
Only 20% oxygen. Notice the argon. Where the hell does this argon come from? I dont know, I have two more years of highschool left, I'll tell you after I graduate. The carbon dioxide obviously comes from us "converting" the air we take in to CO2.
In the early days (1989), a man named Tom Kaye was an avid paintballer. Nobody today really knows who he is or was. To the cats in the AGD forum, he's the creator of the automag, but to me, he's really the guy that created tourney paintball.
He invented a new marker from the ground up in the late 80's. In 1989 he came up with a design called the panther, but it was scratched becuase the Co2 kept messing with those crazy seals. I just want to add, does anybody else notice how these old compnies always named guns after animals?
So one day, Tom got the idea of using another gas to propel his marker. Something that is ALWAYS a gas. Nitrogen! Its used in everythign from agriculture to explosives manufacturing. Its easily found, just like CO2.
So Tom and his band of maggers formed Team nitro. They used 4+1 packs and wore huge 114 cubic inch nitrogen tanks on their backs, since thats all that was available in the day.
As technology bloomed, it was possible for a small company to own their own compressor or booster system for as little as $5,000. So, they started usign regular compressed air. Again, the only reason tom didn't do it right off the bat was because it was just too hard to find a compressor that would compress that high, and even then, you'd have to change fittings, and figure out how to fill it and gauge it.
Compressed air is actually a mixture of gasses, so I really dont think it has a set temperature that it will condense at. As far as I'm concerned, from 0* to 150*, its always the same pressure and state of matter.
Liquid Nitrogen is also used for many different things, mostly for extreme cooling and cyrogenics(cool stuff), but in order to get it into a liquid, you need to REALLY compress it, or REALLY cool it. WE're talking extreme temperatures. Nitrogen has a very cold boiling point. Nitrogen is really cool. IT has almost no viscosity (or resistance of a liquid to flow), so you can spin it in a tub or pot and it just sits there spinning for a long time.
Becuase nitrogen in paintball temperatures is ALWAYS going to be gasious, its supereor. SAme with compresed air, but its a little dirtier and less stable. Its still up there though.
You won't find nitrogen in paintball places anymore becuase its much easier to buy scuba tanks and fill them yourself rather then get a shipment of nitrogen like you would CO2.
Co2 will work fine in many different paintguns. Tippmann's CVX valve was actually designed to work well on CO2.
There is no such thing as a marker that ONLY takes CO2. There are only markers that will ONLY accept Nitrogen/compressed air.
Paintball Gasses 101
