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Paintball guns or markers, as they are sometimes called, are used to propel a paintball at a high speed rate. A basic paintball gun uses a compressed gas propulsion system. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) or Nitrogen (N) or ordinary air can be used for this system. The gas is stored in small cartridges or tanks that are attached to the paintball gun. A hopper is also attached to gun. This is the part that contains the paintballs.
Different types of guns have different firing mechanisms and systems; however, they still employ the same basic thought. The guns are cocked in a manner that allows the paintball to drop out of the hopper and into the barrel of the gun. A small gust of the compressed air will then be released into the barrel of the gun behind the paintball to push the paintball and impel it forward.
A type of paintball gun, the Autococker paintball guns, has adjustable valves that mechanically divert the compressed gas to the front area of the gun upon firing. The gas pushes the bolt back and recocks the gun. Another type of paintball gun, the Automatic paintball gun, uses the compressed air or an electric motor to repeatedly recock the gun after each fire. This goes on as long as the trigger is being held down.
Stringent regulations are being enforced to standardize the power of paintball guns to make the game safe. The paintball guns that are used for playing games are adjusted to attain a top speed of only 300 feet per second. This is because paintballs traveling at this speed is not likely to cause any severe injury. The paintballs discharged by these paintball guns may only sting a bit and leave a slight bruise if it hits you directly on the skin.
Using a paintball gun can be described as a cross between firing a real gun and tossing a ball. The paintball propelled by the gun will hit the ground at a shorter distance, so if one intends to fire at someone at a far distance, he would have to tilt his gun up at a certain angle to allow the paintball to travel through the air at an arc. All this is because of the fact that the paintball gun’s firing range is considerably limited because of the slow projectile speed.
Paintball guns were not made for use in sport. The popular paintball gun of today started out as a tool for foresters in the 1970s. Individuals who worked for the forestry and agriculture industries would use the guns to put marks on specific trees, for use in research or for planning trails. The guns were also used to mark cattle.
The paintball gun grew from its humble beginnings as a forestry tool in to a piece of equipment for a very popular game when some foresters or farmers decided to shoot the guns at each other and invented the game of paintball. The game didn’t really soar into the state of popularity that it enjoys now until the year 1981, when some weekend warriors got their hands on a few forester guns and make use of them as weapons for a grown up adaptation of the children’s game “capture the flag.”
In the game of paintball, two teams try to take the other team’s flag while defending their own flag from being captured. Players are taken out of the activity when a paintball hits them. There are referees involved in the game. The referees are there to make sure that no type of physical contact between other players occur, he also proclaims a hit player “down.”
Most paintball games last for about 15 to 40 minutes; however, some players will play for hours on end. Paintball games can be played with only a handful of members on a team or hundreds of players per team.