Paintball Journal

A tank is one of the most important decisions that you will make as a player. It determines how long your stock length will be, how much extra air weight you’ll have to carry, and how many shots you’ll be able to fire in one game. This will hopefully shed some light on different tanks and when and why to buy them.

Firstly, I am going to assume that you have a gun that uses Air, not CO2. If you use CO2, 20 oz., just because you’ll get plenty of shots out of it for a reasonable price.

Oh, and in case you don’t know, a tank is described by it’s size and pressure. (XX cubic inches (ci)/YYYY pounds per square inch (psi). For example a 45/4500 is a 45 cubic inch tank under 4500 pounds of pressure per square inch.) As both go up, so does the number of shots that you will get out the tank.

Firstly, let us discuss buying a first tank. It’s your first tournament grade gun, and you want a cheap way to start playing, because if you run CO2 through your brand new gun, it will explode.

I’d recommend one of these two tanks. Both a 48/3000 and a 68/3000 are relatively inexpensive, and, well that’s about it.

A 48/3000 is a good choice because it is fairly lightweight, and will shoot roughly 500 shots, enough to at least get you through a game. At most fields, the small size won’t be a problem because of all day air. However, at tournaments they won’t wait for you to fill your tank.

A 68/3000 is typically a heavy tank, unless you get a carbon-fiber wrapped one, but those are more expensive, so we’ll put that a little bit out of your budget in this example. You will get a fair amount of shots, especially if your gun isn’t a gas hog.

So you’ve passed the beginning phases, and a lack of shots and a heavy tank are starting to wear on you. This is where you figure out what’s really important.

If you are a front player, and you have to move very quickly as well as present an extremely small profile, all I can say is 45/4500. These tanks are ridiculously small. It’s insane. They look like slightly elongated softballs. You can get plenty of shots, and shouldn’t have to worry about filling it too often.

If you play a position where you’re required to shoot a little bit more paint, try a 68/4500 for size. These can get anywhere from 1400-2000 shots per fill, depending on your gun’s efficiency. They are also relatively lightweight. (A 48/3000 aluminum tank is roughly the same weight as a 68/4500 glass tank.)

There are also the extremes. Dye makes tanks fillable at 5000 psi. There are 88 and 90 ci tanks. I don’t recommend these simply because you have to try one to figure out if you’ll like it. A lot of fields can’t fill 5000 psi tanks.

That’s why I recommend 45-68 ci tanks. They are roughly in the middle, in both price and size, so you’re not likely to really hate one. And besides, if you do, you haven’t spent a ridiculous amount of money on it, so you’ll be alrite. Plus, tanks have fairly decent resell value, unless they need to be rehydro’d.