jerryd

First real paintball encounter!

Date: Sunday July 27 4:45PM

Place: Wright County fair, MN A small speedball game run by Special Forces Paintball.

Temp in the 80’s with 60 % humidity partly cloudy. In other words sticky.

Some back round.

For the last several years I have had friends who play and encouraged me to come out with them to play. Hinted that they would like to put me on the receiving end of there markers! So over the years I have occasionally read up on some of the terminology enough to understand them and talk somewhat intelligently with them. Several years ago I was on a flight from LAX to MSP with a teenage paintball team that kept talking about their games and showing off weekend battle damage.

I have known about SPF for many years along with other fields in the area.

I never went out of my way to play.

This day it came to me! SPF has setup a small inexpensive try it out type speedball field at the fairgrounds.

I watched and talked to some others that where also watching and learned they played. More gentle and not so gentle encouragement to try it! SPF offered to let me play against a ref! This sounded more like a unfair match so I passed on that. They also commented that the velocity was way down.

Ok, I decided to give it a go.
I was concerned about fogging up googles and my glasses as I’m near sighted. So I really need to play with them. This turned out to be unfounded for the most part. Heat was more of a problem as I decided to use the hood of the provided protective smock.
I will admit I was somewhat afraid of getting hit.

My teammates: 2 other guys where 1 person who had played a couple of rounds and 2 of us that never played before. The other first time player had the goal of wanting to shoot his daughter.

The other side. 2 girls that never played before, 1 played several real games and one expert.

Round 1

Once I got a feel for aim and feel of the marker. I was firing with 2-3 shoot bursts, unlike the other first timers that seemed to pepper the bunker I was hiding behind. I fired on the other person who was really out in the open resulting in yelp from her. I then felt something roll across the top of my arm! No paint or stinging so I assumed that it was not a hit after being stunned for maybe 10 seconds. So I was pinning down one of the girls while one of my teammates was advancing when I got hit in the left hand while holding the front grip of the marker. Ok, that’s what a paintball hit feels like, right in the finger.
Off to the side and try to recover from being in a hoodie and goggles for the first time in this warm weather.

Round 2

Do not remember much about it, other than I started shooting one handed and not exposing myself too much. One paintball brushed my leg! And then got hit in the arm, no ill effects there. Our other player said I was doing well in distracting them and it was working good. At this point I was getting used to the gear.

Round 3

2 of the other team are out of ammo and my teammates have split up what they have. I have a lot more

I fired much more aggressively at the other 2 players, and then I feel like I got hit in the head with a 2x4. Right in the left side of my forehead as that was the only thing I was exposing at the time. That really hurts! My teammates are now out.

Round 4

Me against the 2 experienced players. We both ran for close bunkers.
More like hide and seek, very low on ammo.. Limited firing I ran out and called it. They where also down to the last couple of shoots.

Overall I say it was a worthwhile experience, defiantly different than anything I have done before. Being fired upon adds to the experience.

At work the next day, I comments from my coworkers about what did I hit my head against! So I stated I got hit with a .68” projectile traveling at about 200FPS from 30 feet away fired by a teenage girl! Response from one of my coworkers was paintball!! Did you have fun otherwise?

Some things I learned if I ever try it again.

Maybe shoot abit more.
I need to think about moving around more!
Be more aware of all players on the other team! I suffered from tunnel vision! I had a tendency to focus on one opponent at a time.
Play on a cooler day!

Would I play again? Maybe if it presents itself..

Now going back into lurk mode..

thebeachbum83

sounds like you had a fun day! i hope you liked it and decide to go again some day. you should also try different types of paintball like woodsball or scenario ball, all have different feels and different tempos. hopefully you'll find one that you really enjoy and stick with it! If you have any questions or wanna chat about paintball you can shoot me a pm or an email

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up'd PMR


uber up'd Tippmann 98 Custom (put wayyyy too much $$ into a tippy )

Spray and Pray

That sounds like a very good interpretation of a new players first day. I would write all about mine, but it would take forever.

jerryd

I would say it was probley 15 min of time total not the day, $5 so it was reasonable.

Having been marked in the head for 3 days, brings out more than a few people that asked what wall did I run into. After explaining, I found alot more people have played than I thought who just laugh. Some others who where more curious than anything. Some have others have decided that if I had the courage to try it, they will at some point.

After reading some others first time experiences, I have to agree mine was similar.

Now if my first hit would have been that headshot, I probley would have given up right at that point.

I have decided that I will go checkout some fields in the near future.