Paintball Journal

I’ve always been a big fan of Shockers, more for the looks of them than anything else. A friend of mine has an 06 and I just don’t like how they feel, but I know they can rip just like any other high-end gun. Anyways, I thought I’d post up some of my favorite ones, many of which can be found at Punisher Paintball.

Shocktech NXT Shocker – Urban Camo

Ton Ton NXT Shocker

What I like about this private label is the simplicity to it. Another popular trend is how much crap can you anno onto your gun, and sometimes they just overdo it. I like the new XSV SL74s for this reason. They have a bold, yet simple color scheme, and XSV is milled professionally into the side of it.

Hybrid NXT Shocker – Contract Killer (My Favorite!)

Despite what I’ve said about overdoing some things I just have to let this one slide. There’s a point where private labels and custom jobs go from “Oh, that’s neat” to something more along the lines of a work of art. This is a true work of art. Seriously, who would actually want to play with something like this?

I’ve already voiced my opinion on paintball magazines before, and how they usually just…suck. They take their advertisers and write bs-articles about the gear (that’s just advertising), and then they never get to the real in-depth stuff about the sport. Paintball2Xtremes does, and this remains the true voice of paintball in the magazine world for me.

I was reading through the June 2007 issue yesterday when I read the opening passage from the Editor, John Amodea. It’s always my favorite part to read, and this one was titled “Be More Than Just A Paintball Player”. It goes hand in hand exactly with what we are doing here at PBJ. It was all about the attitude we must portray, the image we give to non-paintballers no matter where we are. No matter what the public sees on TV or in the media, the voice of paintball comes directly from its participants and how they act. Here is a small excerpt that captures exactly what I’m talking about.

“The change means we are now all paintball ambassadors. How we act while in our sponsored gear and what we talk about concerning the sport only further increases the positive image of paintball.”

PB2X 2007, John Amodea.

Nothing is going to help the sport like its players can. Sure, companies can spend billions on advertising, big events, etc. but it is the people, the players that make the difference. Every paintballer out there, like Mr. Amodea said, is an ambassador to the sport, and it is our duty to play and promote the sport in a positive way that will benefit all of us for years to come.

He went on to talk about his plane rides, and how the conversations with those next to him inexorably lead to paintball. He’s noted how things have changed over the last twenty years of the sport, and how the people respond today with interest rather than “Pinball, what’s that?” or “Oh, those war games”.

I’ve had people respond many of times today with those types of questions, but I take the time to explain to them the basics of the sport. Hopefully by the end of the conversation they are somewhat interested, or feel that they have learned something new. Maybe if they’re young enough they’ll even take an interest in it. No matter what though, our goal is to get paintball a fresh, new image, and this is our ultimate duty and responsibility.

Whaaaaat?! Camo is all the rage right now, and skulls are just down right hardcore…but what is this? The first thing is the color scheme, which is the main problem. Is that a light green? And what’s the deal with the purple? Instead, what I would’ve done, would make the pattern black, white, and gray, and definitely make the skulls a lot bigger. From a distance, it just looks like an anno job gone wrong, so size does matter in this case. I really hope this isn’t serious, because this look blows. I mean, how can anybody find this attractive?

Now doesn’t this look so much nicer?

As of last night, I have now officially joined the Ego club, and it feels great. There’s nothing special about except a golden ASA, which looks pretty dang cool imo. It was used extensively for at least a year, but everything is still working fine (what a surprise, an Ego6). I’m looking forward to getting out with it and learning it well. I’d like to just spend an entire day drilling with it, and then go from there. Anyways, here are the pictures.

What you need to know:

Eclipse has launched an online show. They will feature news about products and teams associated with Eclipse. And, best of all, the first episode is airing… wait for it… now!

Don’t hate the cheer, it’d almost be useful if it wasn’t so lame.

Being aggressive, and playing aggressively, is key to doing well at paintball. I’m going to discuss a specific instance where it really pays off, but expect more of this in the future.

In the tournament last weekend, JFK won through sheer aggressiveness. They pushed the field in every game, and rarely finished with any players on their side of the 50. However, one of the most important things is playing smart and aggressive at the same time.

At the break, that often means two or three out of a three man team lane. Delayed breaks can be the start of huge games, especially on a three man, when one elimination is a big deal. After the delay, push key bunkers, snake being a good choice in a lot of scenarios.

Also, once in the snake, move up it! One time, a JFK player got into the snake, had a clear slide down the snake, but wouldn’t move. If he had moved, the game would have been over at least a couple of minutes earlier.

So, the key is often playing aggressively, and be willing to take some chances. Know your strategy, know the field, know the opposing team. If someone had shot a good lane right into the starting box off the break, JFK would’ve been screwed.

Anyone can win, on any given day. Just listen to the cheerleaders… “Be aggressive!”

School is OUT for the summer! Wow, I never thought I’d see the day. So while I’ll be picking up jobs here, Dana’s going to be chillin’ down at his grandparents’ place for two weeks, then to a condo on the beachfront in Florida for another two. Oh well, this is the first time I’m actually looking forward to getting out and working, because I’ve needed money for so long. I hope to make enough to last me through the fall and winter of next year, and I’ll probably pick up another job sometime during school. I love money!

Well, this is interesting…

Hello MobZor Guys and Gals, I wanted to let you know that we will be testing our new forum system and need your help. We are going to pay $0.02 per thread started, and $0.02 per reply for the forum. That’s right, you get PAID to post on MobZor’s forums. We may raise the rate in the future, but for now, it’s 2 cents. Two cents may not sound like much, but 500 posts makes you $10. What other forum pays you $10 for posting and replies? Here is the fine print: RULES: No Spamming. Spamming is A: Duplicate Posts, Posts off topic, or One Line Posts No Flooding. Flooding is opening more than 5 topics in a board category in one day. Flooding posts will be deleted, and you will not get credit for them. No Double Posts. You know exactly what these are. No vulgar usernames/posts. None at all. You will receive payment for your posts after you have reached 500 posts. You can see how many posts you have next to your username. 500 Posts = $10. We will only pay out in $10 amounts. Non-Paintball Related posts are allowed, but highly discouraged because MobZor.com is a paintball related website and the goal of the PPP program is to have useful, accurate information for paintballers around the world. Overall, we are not going to be lame and will not cause people trouble. We are not PBNation and are not going to be as strict as them, but we will have to be if everyone gets out of control, so please don’t make us do that. Payments will be made either via Paypal or Money order. Thanks everyone, Please let everyone know about this program and it will be a success!

So, like you didn’t have enough reason to join MobZor. It’s an interesting strategy, and I have a feeling if it’s heavily promoted (read: PBNation), they’re gonna be paying out a lot. I dunno about it though, I’ve got mixed feelings about what someone looking in from the outside will think. Bribes don’t always have the intended effects. Although paintballers are poor… who knows!

Though paintball is extremely team-oriented, there’s also a great deal on personal skill. It’s finally dawned on me that simply scrimmaging while at the field isn’t going to make you better. To get better you have to drill. I’ve only learned of certain drills over the past few months, but we never run them. When we get to the field we just want to play, right? Who wants to shoot at cardboard boxes, or small pipes? I never really wanted to, but the more I learn about pro teams the more I’m willing to actually run them. All pro teams run drills. They drill, and drill, and drill some more, and then maybe towards the end of a practice they will get a few games in. Two of the most important aspects of drilling is snap shooting and laning.

This is usually done best with another person to help simulate real situations. The 1V1 snap drill is perfect for this. What’s important is to really focus on form and repetition. Every single snap should be just like the one before it. You should come out the exact distance every time, and holding your gun the exact same way. By a simple process of repetition you will find yourself snapping out and hitting your target without thinking once about it, and that’s the way competitive paintball is played; any hesitation gets you killed.

At some point in your paintball career you will find yourself laning of the break. This is one place where gun speed does come into effect (more paint means less chance they run through it), but only if it’s done right. It’s all too easy for inexperienced players to shoot too high or even too low, but laning drills can put your stream of paint right on the spot every time.
First, start with your barrel on whatever it is your breaking from as if it were a real game. Somebody should count down three two one, and then you turn and fire downfield at a box/post that’s just to the inside of one of the back bunkers or even the snake. The goal is to hit the target as fast as possible, and keep the stream on target. If you’re not hitting it right off the break then you need to keep working at it until you can spin around and do it within a half second.

Mix things up as well. Change starting positions, target locations, and even laning while moving to a bunker (running and gunning). Then you can make things more complex by slowly adding to the drill. Start of laning, run and gun to the first bunker while shooting a different target, snap and shoot a third target, then make a second bump, etc. The combinations are limitless.

It might not seem like fun, or a waste of paint, but it’s the only way to go. Serious players should run drills every time they’re at the field to warm up, and save the real games for later. And take it serious; only perfect practice makes perfect. Focus. Concentrate.

As of Wednesday, I will officially be a blogger for Xtreme Paintball. This brings many new exciting opportunities not only for myself but for this blog as well. I plan to use that blog as a way to really get in touch with people and companies and can use some of the material that becomes available through that blog to fuel this blog. I will also be able to promote Paintball Journal through Xtreme to a small extent. I’m very excited about all of this, but do not fear, I will not be leaving this blog to Evan. I will still be writing as usual, every day of the week.

Hopefully this new blog can really get my foot in the door with the vast majority of large paintball companies when they realize the legitimacy and ooey-gooey goodness of my blogging.

It didn’t really surprise me to see so many high ends guns showed up to the tournament on Sunday; from Egos and Timmies to Ions, they were all there. What did surprise me was the…lack of skill. Sure, there were a few people there that had some individual skill, but the majority of them just sucked.

Here’s an example, one we saw too much of.

Most of these people weren’t just bad, they didn’t even know the basics. So many of them couldn’t hold a gun straight, shoot with their off hand, left their hoppers hanging out, didn’t communicate, etc. etc. etc. What really got me was the kid who said, “You really don’t have to be good, just as long as you shoot fast. You’re going to get people out if you just shoot a lot.” I just shook my head and walked away.

So next time you’re at the field or a tournament, don’t let fast guns get you down. Take some time to watch the teams, and you’ll get an idea about them real quick. And when you do show up, team work and good communication will take you a long way. Get out on the field, lock it down by crossing up your lanes, and keep talking!

Evan , JP, and I went to Paintball Paradise today to watch a three-man tournament. JFK entered and pretty much raped, but no one was really happy with the way the tournament was run. Here are some tips for fields wanting to run tournaments.

1) Reffing. Reffing can make or break a tourney. While today’s tourney was pretty laid back, and the reffing wasn’t horrible or anything, there are certainly areas in which it could’ve been improved. Everyone has a right to a fairly reffed game.

2) Field set-up. Make sure your field or fields are set-up well. Today’s field was set up very nicely for the limited set of bunkers that they had.

3) Prizes. At least make sure the winning team makes money instead of being in the hole. Today first place got $120. Entry was $30 per person, plus paint. Technically that’s losing money. Just saying…

4) Promotion. Let people know way in advance, make a big deal about it, put it online. What makes a tournament a tournament are the teams.

5) General set-up. Things like the staging area, the overall prices on everything from paint to food, the bracket style, all influence teams on deciding whether or not they’ll come back next tourney. Definitely can be more than worth it to cut prices on drinks for the day, or to set up a small canopied staging area.

Within this is the efficiency of how you run the tourney. Today there was more sitting around on breaks than actual playing. Extremely boring to play and to watch, let me assure you. Running a fast tournament with quick turnaround is crucial to what a team will consider a good tourney and a bad tourney.

This was my first weekend back to the field in what seems like ages. Saturday started out cool, and quickly warmed up by noon, but the heat was playable nonetheless. I was able to use a friend’s Ego 06 for the day (only because he has an 07), and I am now a believer. “Once you go Ego, you don’t go back.” He couldn’t have been more right, because after that fateful day my eyes were set. I’m hoping I can get the money worked out soon, but I don’t think that will be much of a problem with that.

It was kind of a bummer that nobody wanted to play us together; just not very many serious ballers there. So I spent the latter part of Saturday and all of Sunday photographing our friends’ team JFK. They mopped up the tournament like we predicted last week, and I was able to get some cool photos up.

Haha – It looks like it’s about to fall on him

Well, they’re pretty small for this blog, but it wasn’t meant to be a gallery by any means. I’m just now getting into it really, so there’s nothing special to them, but maybe someday I’ll get a nice gallery put up.

DerDer Headshot Mid Atlantic Open 2007

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I never miss the opportunity to push companies like DerDer. Definitely worth watching, great for a peek at the action of MAO for those of us who couldn’t get out to the East Coast.

JT Sports is completely redoing its website, which is always welcome news to an online paintball junkie like myself. Really, a lot of other companies could take the hint and follow suit. Online is where it’s at. Myspace is probably the prime promoting tool that dozens of companies use.

I’m very interested to see where JT Sports takes its website. They are apparently integrating a flickr account, viewable right here.