Paintball Gun

The paintball marker utilizes the power of expanding gas (compressed air or CO2) to push out paintballs through the barrel at the speed of 90 meters per second. This speed is the industry standard applied for safety measures and all paintball marker manufacturers comply with it. The paintball marker consists of the following elements - body, hopper, tank and a barrel. The body is made from light materials like aluminum, or carbon fiber to make it easier for the player to carry it around while running. It must be pointed out that hits on the paintball marker don't count.

The hopper is a small container which holds the paintballs that will be fired. Three types of hoppers are available - force feed, agitating, and gravity feed. The biggest problem related with hoppers is when a paintball breaks inside and splashes all the pain. This makes it impossible for the rest of the paintballs to go through. Gravity feed is the most basic type of hopper. They are limited to 8 balls per second. Consist of a large container and a feed tube, but quite often, gravity feed hoppers jam as the paintballs pile up above the tube. In such situation, you should try shaking the marker. The stick feeds type can hold up to 20 paintballs. Agitating hoppers are amongst the best ones, no jamming can occur, because they use propellers to agitate the paintballs. The force-feed hoppers force the paintballs into the marker using a spring, belt-fed system or a propeller. This model is far better than the gravity feed. Some even have a microcontroller installed and a display showing how many balls are left in the hopper, a game timer and how many balls are being fired per second.

The tank of a paintball marker contains the gas which propels the balls. The barrel of the gun directs the shot. Different lengths and styles are available.

The following types of paintball markers are available - stock glass, pump action, semi automatic, electropneumatic, fully automatic. The semi automatic paintball markers are the most widely used model at the moment. Semi Automatic paintball markers require only a trigger pull to fire a paintball. The next paintball drops down from the hopper and is automatically read to be fired by the next trigger pull. The fully automatic paintball markers will just keep firing paintballs for as long as the trigger is held down. The stock glass paintball markers are pump action pistols holding between 10-15 paintballs at a time, which need to be tilted in order to feed in the next paintball. The electropneumatic paintball markers use electronics to regulate the loading.

Perhaps the best paintball marker ever made is the RAP4. RAP4 is the first real action paintball marker that is identical to the legendary M4 rifle used by SWAT Teams and the U.S. Military. The RAP4 shoots 40 or 43 caliber paintballs wrapped in metal or plastic shells. The RAP4 automatically ejects the shells in rapid-fire succession just like a real M4 rifle. This is an automatic paintball marker allowing you to switch between semi and fully automatic fire. It's simple to operate and maintain. It doesn't rely on hopper for reloading, instead it loads through a bottom-mounted magazine just like a real M4 rifle. You can order this model from http://www.rap4.com.