New to Paintball?

Paintball Station recommends new players that plan to buy there own equipment, do so in the following order.

1. High Quality Goggles/Paintball Mask is the best investment a new paintball player can make. A good paintball mask is the most important thing you can have on the paintball field, even more important than your gun for several reasons, but mostly safety! If you can't see, you can't shoot and you can't run! Its also important to dry the sweat from the headband inside your mask between games. If you put on a mask with a wet headliner, then it will most likely fog-up in game.

2. Footwear & Clothing designed to be warn for paintball is very sturdy, breathable, loose-fitting (to help "bounce" paintballs and to allow for the maximum range of movement). This is also a very good investment for a new player.

3. Paintball Marker (a.k.a.: Paintball Gun). Take your time to choose your first paintball gun, a good paintball gun can be very expensive, and you can save a lot of money if you buy a used gun, but you have to be very careful when buying a used paintball gun. We recommend new players buy there first gun from a local store (like Mad Dwags & Doodlebug Sportz) so you can get help when you have a problem. Only buy your paintball gun online or used if you know what you are doing, or you may be very unhappy with the results. Sometimes Paintball guns require complex-maintenance and the local store may not be able to repair the product you purchased online. We here at Paintball Station have found Tippmann Brand Paintball Products to be very good for first time buyers. They make several reliable paintball markers that will take a lot of abuse, they require very little complex-maintenance, they are available everywhere and there are lots of 3rd party upgrades to improve there performance.

4. Pods and a Pod Pack, because when you put a fast hopper on that new gun, its going to shoot a lot of paint, and you will need to carry some extra paint. I recommend only a one or two pod pack. Don't try to carry more weight that you are going to shoot.

5. a Hopper is the device that feeds paintball's into the paintball gun, and the gun can only shoot paintballs as fast as they are loaded into the gun. Fast hoppers will cost around $100, ultra fast hoppers are $150 and up. Hoppers in the $60 to $100 work well enough for most players, and will allow electronic paintball gun to shoot up to 10 paintballs a second or more! My favorite hopper is the Dye Rotor, it is very expensive, but it works better than any other hopper on the market because; it's (almost) indestructible, it can be cleaned very easily, it works with most paintball markers, and it even (kinda) works underwater! (Paintballs and batteries do not work underwater, but the Dye Rotor Will)

6. Barrels. Now that your gun shoots fast, its time to make it the most accurate you can. Barrel-kits improve accuracy by offering the player slightly different diameter barrels to better fit the paint that you are shooting that day. a better fit, means better efficiency (more shots to a tank of air), a more accurate shot (paintballs take the same trajectory), and a more consistent mussel velocity (that will effect the distance the paintball goes). My favorite paintball barrel is the Deadlywind. It is a very lightweight carbon-fiber design, that uses SmartParts Freak inserts originally designed by SmartParts, who is now out of business, but many of the products they designed live on through other venders that still make "clones" of the original SmartParts designs. Some stores still sell many of the old SmartParts Products.

7. High quality paintball ammunition. More expensive paint offers several improvements over the lesser grades.

   • Field-Grade paintballs works in most guns, but it is lighter, so it won't go as far, and it is less-brittle so it wont brake in the cheaper guns (and it is less likely to brake on the target), and the casing is less aerodynamic.

   • Mid-Grade paintballs are heaver and go further when shot at the same velocity. the casing is more brittle than Field-Grade, so it brakes on targets better, but you need  a good gun to shoot it with.

   • Tournament-Grade is the best you can buy. It brakes super easy, its heavy thick goo-like fill is brightly colored and easy to see, and its hard to wipe off.