Paintball Journal

This is somewhat of a follow up to the theft post. It’s a shame that I have to be writing this really, but hopefully it will offer some people protection against thieves like the ones we ran into.

First off, probably one of the most important things you can do is to check the serial number on your gun. All guns should have one written in someplace or another. Your manual can probably tell you where. Grab the number, write it down.

Second, it may not be a bad idea to etch your initials somewhere on the gun, but not anywhere that it will ruin the gun’s value. Put it in an obscure place where it’s unlikely that any other person would find it and be able to sand it off.

If you’re with a group of friends at the field for a day, never leave your equipment unattended. Since games usually only last for a few minutes (even if you play two or three at a time), someone should always volunteer to sit out a round to stand guard. Then after that set, another person can take some time out. Trust me, it’s worth it, and if you don’t believe me, you can wait till a case of paint or something much worse goes missing. The same goes for tournaments, too. Ask a parent, or a good friend, just somebody that you can trust, to watch your table in the staging area. It does happen; I’ve heard too many stories about it.

If you’re allowed to go to the parking lot, and especially if the parking is right next to the field anyways, it’s not a bad idea to just leave everything in the car. I also know of many people that do that at our local field, because they’re tired of getting their paint lifted.

At Silver Spur, they have a few tables set up in the pro-shop, and usually the teams that have really nice stuff will just leave it in there. Pops wouldn’t let anybody touch it, and if they did, they would be in a very bad position. So if your field’s proshop has the room, ask the owner if you can just set your stuff inside.

So what are doing here, reading this right now? Go and find that serial number and mark your gear. Be smart, and hope that you don’t have the misfortune to run across a problem like this.