Chris Schneck

Electronic triggers for paintball markers, either sear tripping or solenoid actuating, give anyone with the cash an instant advantage in rate of fire capabilities. With rates of fire nearing 20 balls per second or more your uber paintball marker should be used with caution and in a tactically correct way to yield any real benefit. ( oh and to make sure no one gets hurt )

Suppressive fire isn’t a new or revolutionary concept, but its surprising to see many new or relatively inexperienced woodsballers using it haphazardly without control or team coordination. I cant deny that there isn’t a slight satisfaction to raining paint down on someone, but you need to learn when to stop shooting as not to bonus ball anyone and how to time your barrages to help in team movement.

It’s quite simple really, while one person in the squad is laying it down on the opfor everyone else should be moving into a different position to try and build an angle on the target. After a lot of practice this isn’t even something that needs to be discussed before hand, if you hear a teammate shooting at someone that’s your signal to move and to try and flank them. The whole practice of shooting and moving is what makes paintball .  .  . paintball! Speedball or woodsball, it doesn’t matter, this is how the game universally works.

Unless you’re a full fledged noobinator, then the correct thing to do is to stay in one spot with your finger on the trigger and after 2 minutes when your rain of paint terror is over and you’ve accomplished nothing, quickly call yourself out and walk off the field.

Just as a paintball marker is only as good as the person using it, having full auto capabilities in your squad is only as useful as the squad itself. Practice and team coordination make full auto useful, not the individual or their marker.

In August of 2008 I was contacted by Matt from mydogtag.ca asking for a review of the dog tags supplied by his company. As is true to my form, I never actually say anything good or bad about something until I’ve tried it for myself for a reasonable period of time.

I can’t endorse this site & their service enough. If you’re in Canada and you or your milsim team are in the market for custom dog tags there’s no reason you shouldn’t already be at mydogtag.ca

Every step of dog tag customization is present in an easy to use and understand format. Enter the text for each dog tag, choose the actual material for the dog tag and then choose what flavour of silencer you want ( I of course went with woodland camouflage ) . For under $10 CDN funds you really cant go wrong.

The setup and order process was painless, shipping was fast and the dog tags hold up to some intense woodsball. Thumbs up all around!

If you look online for them, you can find them. Those damn statistics that say paintball is THE safest thing you can do, even safer then bowling? I personally find that hard to believe.

Google it, and read safety bulletins.

What I can believe is that regardless of the sport there are risk factors inherit to each sport that will ultimately lead to someone becoming a statistic. Here are a few reasons why paintball is safer then other sports.

•  Wearing protection, like a mask,  is mandatory.
• There is no physical contact in paintball, unless accidental.
• We aren’t sitting on anything motorized, with or without a seat belt.
• We don’t carry a stick, bat or racket.

So whats my point? Well I think paintball is too safe, so safe that its not playing to our natural morbid interests. Take NASCAR for example, have you ever watched a race for the race or are you watching for the 200mph flaming pile up!

I think we as paintballers need to man up and pad our stats some more to be more in line with the popular mainstream sports of today. I propose we all ride quad ATV’s, in two man teams, and everyone has a cricket bat for melee combat as a backup in case their marker goes down. Bunkers will be abolished as the entire field will be a motocross track, the objective of the match will be to be the last two man team still on their ATV.

Now who wouldn’t watch that on FOX sports.