Paintball Journal

Rejoice! Spyder hath released brand new killing machines under the names of “Sonix” and “Victor”. That’s right, delay your 07 gun purchases no longer, you can now buy these gun in assorted flavors all over the internet for not-so-surprisingly low prices!

Now, seriously folks, these guns aren’t bad per se. They just aren’t really anything new. Let’s look at the features that are actually useful.

And looking… and looking… oh here’s one!

Rubber grips. Those old plastic grips Spyders used to ship with were damn uncomfortable.

And another! New Spyders come stock with 9.5 inch barrels. ONE POINT FIVE inches longer than the old standard of 8. How ’bout them apples.

Uhm… okay, well that’s about it. So go buy them Spyders. Only 70 or 80 bucks. (Honest opinion, these guns are fine. But only just.)

*EDIT*

OMFG, it finally happened. Evan and I posted about the same subject. Which I blame his ass for, ‘cos I wrote this last night, and he definitely hadn’t posted it by then.

On another embarrassing note, I misspelled Spyder as Spider. Sweet Baby Jesus, what was I thinking? Actually, I really wasn’t. It was the whole “Writing at 1 in the morning, after a 20 hour day” thing. Sorry to all who were traumatized and/or put into medical treatment after laughing so hard from our n00bish mistakes.

Starting at only $79.99, I present to you…the Spyder Sonix!

* Redesigned contour body milling
* 9.5 inch aluminum barrel
* Vertical feed neck
* Dusted matte finish annodizing
* Pull pin top cocking knob
* Delrin bolt construction
* Quick disconnect pin
* One piece velocity adjuster / spring guide
* Ergonomically designed composite trigger frame
* Two finger trigger
* No slip rubber grip panels
* Standard CA thread vertical adapter
* Low pressure chamber
* Aluminum fore grip
* Inline bottom ASA
* Stainless steel braided hose

Hahahaha, does anybody else find this funny? Here’s the deal, for only another hundred bucks you can easily buy a used Ion, and no matter what you say about it, it’s still a good entry gun. If you don’t feel like spending that much, then just go with the Spyder Aggressor. Man I did a lot of killin’ with that gun…*reminisces on the good ole woodsball days*

K2, owner of WGP, JT USA, Viewloader, and the super awesome Brass Eagle (plus a butt load of other sport related companies), has just been merged with Jarden Corporation for $1.2 billion. In a statement released yesterday, Jarden said that they will claim full control of the California based K2, Inc. by the third quarter this year. Jarden Corporation already owns brand names like Mr. Coffee, Patton, Sunbeam, and Coleman.

Let us hope that this will benefit the paintball community greatly by providing useful and innovative products in the near future. I’m sure that Jarden will be more than open to suggestions like Flex’s that double as Grill Masters and Sunbeam Edition Karnivores.

Ah, yes…the Ego 7; only the sexiest gun on the market. Everybody wants one, yet only a lucky few have it. If you’re a dreamer like me, maybe this Virtual Tour of the Ego will make you feel just a little better by bringing you closer to it than ever before (that is if you don’t already own one). It’s complete online tour that takes you step by step throughout the guns build, and what needs to be maintained to keep it in prime condition. It even comes in four languages.

But what do I care, I just love looking at it! Man, I just wish other guns had virtual tours, because this makes cleaning look like a joke. Props to Planet Eclipse and the designers for taking the time to do this!

It’s a tough life, being a paintballer. You spend and spend and spend on gear and paint, all of which sooner or later must be replaced. You practice and practice and practice, only to be beaten at tourneys and during rec games.

Pretty soon it seems like it’s more of a chore than anything else.

I pushed paintball too hard with my friends. For me, practicing, getting beat, playing all the time was all part of the fun. But apparently not everyone enjoys those aspects of paintball like I do. Every single moment that I’m on the field feels like life to me. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. We were playing at least every other weekend at the start of the year, spending huge amounts of money on paint and gear. No one could keep up with it, and we were on a crash course to practical dissolution of our team.

Which is where we are today.

Every member of No Trace has financial difficulties in varying degrees, which is of course an issue. However, no one seems to care, except for me. I’m starting to see that more than just extreme initial enthusiasm is necessary to maintain even just a group of friends to ball with. I’m still optimistic about being able to roster a team for the CTS event in August, but it’s going to be an uphill battle the whole way.

But when we take a podium finish, on that day when we finish in front of every other team, because of our hard work, because of our sacrifices of time and resources at the field, on that day, it will all be worth it.

So for every player who is fighting this side battle, keep it up.

Viva!

Everybody who knows basketball knows the game HORSE. Each player will take turns shooting the ball, and when a player makes it the following player must match the exact same shot or take a letter. The first person to spell HORSE loses. Well, why not do this with paintball?
Set up multiple targets in an area; maybe a field or backyard. They can very in size, distance, and height to add realistic perspective. Then, find a position where you can see all of the targets, and begin. Now there are two ways I can see this going about.

1. A player will take the lead, and pick any target to shoot at. He will shoot at it until he hits it, counting how many shots it took. Then the second player will step up to the same position, and take the same stance. If the second player hits the same target in fewer shots than his opponent, then his opponent takes a letter. If he matches the same number then the game continues without either player taking a letter. And if the second player fails to hit his target in the amount of shots, then he takes a letter.

You can also play with as many players you want. Each player would then have to hit the target, just like the second player.

OR

2. The second version is simpler. Each player will alternate shots until one hits a target. Then the following player must match that shot. If he doesn’t, then he takes a letter. Then the game goes on, and the process is repeated until somebody loses.

This is a fun drill that you can do just about anywhere, and it conserves a lot of paint while helping you learn a gun. I plan on trying it out the next time we make it to the field.

Ragtop has become well known as the premier scenario paintball video producing specialists. Covering almost every single major scenario game in the US, they’ve progressed into an awesome team of film directors and editors, that sometimes eclipses what the big names like DerDer and MWAG do. If you don’t believe me, then check out these two previews for some of the latest Ragtop productions.

2006 Wrap Up

Battle for Ironforge

There’s a new contest on PBNation. This time they’re offering $500 in give away prizes to their store. Here are the specs. As usual, you need to be a supporting member to be eligible to win.
$500 Heroes for a Day Give-a-way on PbNation

Hey, here we go again. 10 winners in one contest!

To celebrate the new release of Heroes for a Day we have a great contest that anyone can win and we are going to have a bunch of winners. With our good friends at Monkey with A Gun we are going to be giving away $500 worth of gift certificates for use in the PbNation store to a total of ten winners.

The Breakdown:

$100 for 1 Grand Prize winner

$75 each for 2 second place winners

$50 each for 3 third place winners

$25 each for 4 forth place winners

10 winners for a total of $500.00

Read the fine print and enjoy.

Got the tag? Get the Swag…

You must be a current PbNation Annual Supporting Member to register for the contest on the ASM forum on PbNation.

When someone says High Def Paintball, I start to salivate. I get a little twitchy, like I’d just downed a Bawls or something, and little beads of sweat start to form on my brow.

Perhaps this isn’t you. Perhaps you don’t enjoy seeing the latest paintball action with sick music and killer angles brought to you in high definition for free.

But for the other 99% of us, we’ll take these offerings from DKfilms and exalt them until the next production comes out. The links to download HB 07 are available here, and be sure to check out DKfilms’ new site.

So it’s the day after Prom, and even though I didn’t go to the dance, I made it to the after prom and the after-after prom. It was fun, everybody was there, and I didn’t even have to worry about all the other hassle. So around 5 a.m. people we’re beginning to get tired, well I was at least, so I decided to head home instead of staying out to sleep. My own bed was nice. A few hours later I was up again, and it was just too nice out to stay inside on the internet all day. So I did what I do best.

After spending five hours on the water I’m dehydrated, sun burned, famished, and my eyes keep having odd spasms from fatigue I guess. I actually feel quite dead right now. So for the paintball part of my post…no paintball this weekend, and no paintball next weekend. Looks like we’ll be waiting for a bit before we get out again. I need sleep.

Following up on Dana’s post about violence in paintball, I’ve thought of some things that we can all do to give paintball less of a wild, violent game look and more of an organized sport. My family knows I play paintball, and whenever we’re at family gatherings they always ask if I’m still at it. Right now they think paintball in general, when actually it needs to be viewed as speedball and woodsball; they are entirely different games.

What I’m going to try to do is elaborate on speedball, and explain the differences and the setups and the styles. Speedball is organized – time is set, the field is symmetrical, and nearly every aspect has some regulation. I want them to see it as the sport I see it as.

I also want people at school to see it like this. When I tell them I play paintball they say things like, “Oh, that’s cool…Doesn’t that hurt?” Whether it’s guys or girls, they only see the woodsball side of it; that’s all they know of it. And I think that’s the only reason why paintball still remains that way. It’s because the people just don’t know about it.

So I think I’ll make this my goal. When I tell somebody that I play paintball, I want them to say something like, “Cool, woodsball or speedball?” Or, “Do you play on a team?” I have yet to see this though.

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

Paintball has a huge online community. It’s been said that most paintballers spend most of their time talking about paintball on PBNation and watching paintball videos on YouTube and DarkSide, rather than actually playing. So why don’t teams, especially the ones playing on or close to a Pro level, maintain decent sites?

In my search in the past week for good sites that contain viable information, I can only express profound disappointment in most of the teams for not providing what so many fans would like: a site showing current rosters, events, rankings, sponsors, and all of that good stuff. While PBNation’s team forums are decent places, a more organized and compressed place to gain insight into a team would be more than welcome. Hell, even a well-run Myspace page or something would work.

All of the pro venues like PSP, NPPL, and Millenium maintain great websites. PBNation is one of the largest sports forums in the world. Get with it, Pro Teams. Make websites, and keep them up to date!

(Oooohhhh, I just called you laydeez!)

I think it’s about time that I get back to the field. I haven’t played in…well over a month at least. I’m still not really pumped to get out, but I’m ready to play again as the burnout is beginning to fade. I went from one extreme to the other.

At one end it was nothing but paintball, eating, sleeping, and breathing paintball. We were playing just about every weekend since January, and then after the tournament things just bottomed out. From all that it went to not really caring about paintball. The weather was getting warm and I felt like doing something else, spending my money elsewhere besides the field. I hope it never gets that bad again, but I still want to play. I’m still going to work on my game, but just not as fanatical as before.

Anyways, that’s where I’m at right now (as well as piled under stacks of homework, papers, and upcoming SATs and AP Exams).

Recently we here at Paintball Journal got a little surprise. We were featured on G4TV’s “Attack of the Show”. In a segment called “BlogWatch”, the hosts of AOtS talked about two paintball blogs, ours, and Paintball Guns . Net. Surprisingly, neither of the blogs were contacted by them to let us know about it. Eh, not that we’re complaining.

You can stream the episode through G4TV’s site, but it’s a little buggy sometimes. Hopefully we’ll be able to direct link you someday, but until then you’ll have to make do with G4’s flawed “Pile” video system.