Choosing Paintball Guns

There are a lot of variations on paintball guns and the different ways to modify them. The principle question that you have to ask yourself is what strategy you're pursuing and what rules you'll be playing by. Professional tournaments have much stricter rules and regulations on paintball guns and how you can modify them than you and your friends do when you're playing a game in someone's field. 

Here are some of the main factors that I would keep in mind when selecting what options to equip your gun with:

- Am I playing by myself or on a team?
- Do I do better with long range shots or close up hits?
- Do I prefer to go hunting for the other players, or do I do better when I patiently wait for them to come to me?
- Am I going to be playing professionally one day, or is this just a fun weekend game with friends?
- How well can I control multiple shots?

Those are all questions that only you can answer for yourself. Hopefully these will help you determine where your talents lie when it comes to handling paintball guns and playing the game. 

Now, let's discuss some of the different options available to you. You'll have to work within your budget, of course, so don't feel like you won't get anywhere if you can't start out with the ideal gun. Find a good starting point, and then upgrade as time goes on.

Standard paintball guns are composed of four parts: the barrel, the body, the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) or High Pressure Air (HPA) tank, and the hopper. The mask is a necessity as well for your personal protection, but technically isn't a part of the gun itself. Ditto for paintballs. 

Barrel length will have a significant impact on your accuracy and maneuverability with the gun. Most are in the 3-21 inch range of length, though some custom ones go as long as 48 inches. Most players select something in the 14-16 inch range. Some players like to go with longer barrels for tournament use, since it allows them to move obstacles without sacrificing cover. 

CO2 and HPA tanks are used to propel the paintball out of the gun. HPA tanks offer a more consistent velocity than CO2 does, but come with a heftier price tag. The pressure that the CO2 is held at can sometimes condense into a liquid, which explains the inconsistent velocities with those tanks. 

Gravity feed and agitating hoppers are the two most popular types to hold paintballs. Gravity feed hoppers are simply and cheap, since they rely solely on gravity to make additional paintballs available for shooting. However, sometimes the balls can come down too quickly and jam things up as a result. Agitating hoppers operate off of a battery (which can die if you keep tabs on it) that powers a LED light to sense when a paintball is ready to drop to be fired.

Paintball guns have an almost infinite capacity to be customized. Finding the ideal one for yourself will take time, research, and practice to see what works best with you.