Paintball Journal

I got my 07 Eclipse Elbow Pads and my Eclipse Tank Cover today. It all looks and feels great and I can’t wait to try it out on the field. I can tell the grip on my tank has gone from non-existent to great, and the pads will be helping me get a ton of bounces. Everything fit just fine, too. Here are some pics, which will suffice until I can show you pics of the gear in action!

Here are the pads.


The pads have thumb holes, keeps them positioned very nicely.

The tank cover.

Put it all together and…

I just came across an interesting website that tracks serial numbers for stolen guns. This can be an extremely important tool if you’re buying from Ebay, trading over PBNation, or anything else like that. If you’re a responsible buyer, and you do happen to buy used guns from a stranger, then run the gun’s serial number in their search to see if anything pops up as stolen. If so, then you have just bought a stolen gun.

It happens a lot more than you might think. I’ve heard stories from different people about stuff going missing at tournaments, or just in staging areas. Last fall I was at the field, and a brand new Ion went missing along with my friends hand bag with wallet, keys, and a little bit of money. The bad part is that it happens so fast, within seconds and the person could be walking off with a thousand dollars worth the paintball gear.

And for all gun owners, go right now and record that serial number. It’s the responsible thing, and if or when you ever need to have it, then you’ll love yourself for writing it down. So, use the database, and lets make an effort to put an end to unchecked theft in the paintball industry.

I had been wondering where and how teams got their custom jerseys made. Well, I asked a local team, Junction Boys, where they got theirs and the captain, Big Mike, directed me to Custom Sports Gear.

They offer everything from custom jerseys to tech shirts for your team. And when I say custom, I mean custom. They will allow you to use one of their pre-made templates, or you can go the path of the brave and design a jersey from scratch using photoshop or something of its kind.

I’m not sure on the prices, but from the looks of these sample jerseys, it will definitely be worth it at some point in the future.

We’ve been talking lately about the tournaments we want to enter, and on August 12th there will be a CTS event held at Asylum Extreme in Louisville, Kentucky, roughly a two hour drive. This event is looking like the best option to fill our goal; to enter at least one CTS event as a five man team.

It’s going to be tough competition, there’s no doubt about that, but it’ll give us the big game experience we’re going to need. We’ll play tournaments at Friendly Fire, but indoor three man is completely different than a full size five man.

I was a little skeptical of the idea, but we’ve picked up another player that really wants to get into the tournament scene, and we can whip him into shape in a few practices. We also have two others, one that played the Jan. 28th young gunz at FFP with us as well as another friend who has played a few CTS and other various tournaments before. It’s looking more and more possible all the time as things are coming together quite nicely.

Here is a picture of us, celebrated for out 4th Place. Huzzah.

Anyway, I can’t wait to get all of the pictures. Most didn’t turn out that great, so I’ll probably have to do a lot of post-edit work, like I did with this one.

In other new, we will probably not be playing the March 11th tournament at FFP, because Ben, our potential third guy, will be really out of practice. However, I’ve heard that they’ll be completely expanded and have all their turf in, so we may have to reconsider. Both Evan and I are ready to go, so it’s a possibility. I really can’t wait to play again, because this weekend was a blast.

So we did get to practice on Saturday before the big rains sweeping across the Midwest hit. We cracked out there early, geared up in a fierce bone chilling wind, and finally after fixing some minor gun problems, got some games in.

We did mostly 1 vs. 1s and 2 v 2s, and it all worked out pretty good. It was more of just a day to get us back out there to keep us from rusting too badly. Then we we’re asked to play a game against some middle school, maybe early high school kids, and we played them a game 3 vs. 8 and a game of 4 vs. 8 and won both times without much of a challenge. The only problem I had really was barrel breaking some of the tournament paint from the January tourney, which was extremely brittle and I think the cold made it that much worse.

By the time we finished the second game against the kids it was starting to rain pretty dang good, and we packed it up as fast as possible and hit the road by noon. Then we chilled the rest of the day playing Halo 2.

It was a great day overall, and simply amazing to run on solid ground again. It just gets so oily playing on indoor turf, so there’s not much running at Friendly Fire, maybe an awkward jog if you’re lucky.

But anyways, that’s how we spent our Saturday.

So it turns out we’re going to make it to the field after all. This is going to be a great day, I can already tell.

I love playing paintball period. But there is a difference (duh!) between playing indoors and playing outdoors.

Indoors play is awesome, because it is all year round. However, there is always artificial turf (or dirt), which can be a bummer sometimes, especially when too thin or too oily. I play indoors a lot to work on technical skills like snapping and sliding, things that the close range of an indoor field can really help perfect.

Outdoors play is awesome too! Firstly, the feel of playing outdoors is just more… exhilarating. But the grass is nice, and the fact that most tournaments are held outdoors makes it a necessity to practice at outdoor fields. Also, on a larger field, communication becomes more important, and run-throughs become a lot more viable.

Either way, I think paintball is awesome, but I’m really pining for the warmer spring months so I can get out and play in the sun again.

Sometimes I really have to wonder if somebody up there is just really dead set against paintball. It’s not that I’ve ever had extremely bad luck, well, at least on a consistent basic. But there are times that I wonder, why me? Why can’t I just have a simple game up paintball?

I remember the very last day I played woodsball back in a well developed woods right in my friend’s backyard. Sure, the equipment I was using back then wasn’t the greatest, but I couldn’t get a game in if my life depended on it. It was just chop after chop, take it apart and squeegee it out again only to have it chop minutes later. It was a constant battle, and never before had I seen something like that. It’s a shame my woodsball days retired like that.

Last August - out for the first time in several weeks, and nearly every part on my old B2k4 broke, blew up, busted, fell apart, and many other things that usually don’t happen to a paintball gun at the same time.

Now it seems that we’re having trouble making it to the field at all. Back in November a friend completely snapped the head off a screw in the breech of his gun. We thought we could use some specialized tools on it, but after closer inspection, I just don’t think that’s going to work. So that left at least three of us left to go this weekend. Not bad really, and we’re getting a new guy into tournament hopefully. Well, that same kid just got grounded for whatever reason, and that just leaves me and Dana.

It looks like we’re going to have to wait another week. Oh how this is killing me.

Pushing my total of things purchased off ActionVillage over the $1k mark (to exactly $1060.31), I ordered Large ‘07 Eclipse Distortion Elbow Pads, and an Eclipse 06 Tank Cover - 48ci - Grey, for a little under $70. Though they won’t be in for this weekend, they’ll be in by the next tourney at Friendly Fire, saving my arms a little damage, and helping my snap shooting a ton.

I just picked up the March 2007 issue of Paintball 2Xtremes from the local Wally-world, and wow, what have I been missing? This is a whole new level of paintball publication. Other paintball magazines I’ve read before seemed so airy, fluffy, lacking in depth support, and by this I mean that they are simply missing that passion that paintball is.

I dropped the latest issue of Action Pursuit Games that I’d also picked up, and when I opened Paintball 2Xtremes I was blown away just by the editor’s message! Right then, I felt the passion, and I could tell that it came from the gut. I can tell when an article is breezing over a topic, and when one has had much time and effort poured into it. PB2X does a nice job at digging into the subject matter, and this is what a magazine needs.

I don’t mean to slam on APG, because they have a nice gig running, and they bring a lot of different aspects of paintball into one place. And perhaps this is part of the problem, trying to meet the needs of woodsball, big game scenarios, and tournament speedball all at the same time might actually take away from it. Too much is lost, and nothing is focused on any one point.

Sometimes I really just want something deep to sink my teeth into; I want to engulf paintball in its full intensity. I want opinion, not a news report. I want controversy, not neutrality. I want something focused and in depth, and not just a Joe Anybody story of their day at the field. Stop giving me monthly tips and step by step procedures, and give me what the pros say in such precise detail that we can’t possibly get anything confused. Let me see what they see!

Give me a paintball magazine like that, or give me death!

Every once in a while you find someone who has overcome a radical handicap in order to play a sport. Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone quite as dedicated to a sport as the self-proclaimed “Stubs”. Born without arms, he still plays paintball every weekend, and is even able to rip off one helluva decent string. To all of you athletes out there like this guy, I have nothing but the utmost admiration and respect for you. Keep it up!

stubs and an onyx

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Evil also releasing their newest 07 Evil Minion, and what a surprise, another PM clone! Only this time I think it looks even more like the real PM! Oh well, I guess it’s still pretty cool…I guess. But seriously, I think we need some new gun designs to spice things up. The only new thing we’ve seen lately is the Mini.

And as if the school weeks don’t drag on long enough as it is, they now decide to coordinate a massive attack by giving us an AP Biology test, AP Precalc test, and then a physics test, none of which I really pay much attention too because I’m too busy doodling paintball things on my desks. Saturday won’t come soon enough, because then we’re heading up to Friendly Fire and bringing some new players along with us. Just three days left…

PBNation is also offering up another great deal! This time it’s a drawing for annual supporting members (ASM) to win a free Dangerous Power Fusion. They will be giving away two Fusions, and you must sign up for a membership by March 13, 2007 to be eligible to win. Don’t forget to read the fine print as well, because there’s plenty of it! You can find the registration details here.

What has to be the most exciting news I’ve heard all year, is that an indoor field is coming to Evansville, Indiana. It will be approximately 15 minutes from my house, about half an hour closer than any other field.

Some people from the Toyota plant north of Evansville, towards Princeton, will be running the field. Hopefully, they’ll be good field owners. Already, they’ve decided on FPO, which makes sense for a field that is just starting out. A large portion of profits come from paint sales. Just because of this, though, they can’t gouge prices, because no ‘baller is gonna pay more than $60 for a case more than once or twice.

The field will be about 120×70, with turf and airball bunkers. I honestly can’t wait for the day (tentatively scheduled for May of this year) that I will be able to leave church and go straight to the field. It’s gonna be great, a perfect three-man field for me and my team.

Here’s another run down on some upcoming teams and players for the 07 season.

Nicky Cuba, from what word on the street tells me, as well as an apparent publishing in Splat Magazine, has now signed with the Ironmen. This should make for a great year for them, especially with the Lang-Cuba match up.

Miami Raiders have a nice list of sponsors going already for 07, including First Endeavor Paintball, NXe, Custom Products, Advanced Paintball Electronics, Gen X Global, Spentpb.com, BonusBall King, PBDojo.com, Upfront paintball Sports, and Angry Paintball. Quite a list! They will also be switching to a private label FEP Quests, according to recent gossip.

The Millennium Series has also launched a nice new website detailing all of their upcoming events. The one thing I like about the Millennium Series is the fact that teams from all over Europe come together to play. Here, the serious players may travel across the country, but really there’s not a great deal of difference from either side. But traveling from country to country would be sweet, just to see all the different people and places.

Anyways, that’s all for now.