| The sport of paintball can be as simple or as complex as you make it. All you need is a marker, or paintball gun, safety equipment to avoid serious injury, plenty of ammunition, and a battlefield. But if you're ready for a paintball gun upgrade, there are a variety of places to start with your current paintball gear.
If you know you will be playing paintball more, and if you know that you want to really get into the sport, then you really are going to start with a good paintball gun. It makes aiming easier, balances the marker, and allows the gun to be brought up on target fast. In fact, a quality paintball gun often makes further upgrades unnecessary.
When upgrading their gun, many people choose to get an electronic paintball gun. Electronic guns have modes that allow you to set the marker firing modes, from single firing mode to semi or full auto firing. There are also various features that help enable the gun to rapid fire such as anti-chop systems. When you're evaluating the electronic marker, the key statistic is the balls per second or bps.
A barrel is a good next step. However, high quality barrel kits will cost as much as a low-end gun, and will not improve accuracy as much as simply upgrading to a better gun. The size of barrel you should buy depends on what style of paintball you play most. If you play x-ball, speedball,or hyperball then you might want to invest in a shorter barrel.
A hopper, or a loader, is another popular paintball accessory. The hopper is the small tank which holds the paintballs that will be fired.The body is usually made from light materials like aluminum, or carbon fiber to make it easier for the player to carry it around while running. There are various types of hoppers as well that match the dexterity of the player and his or her ability to afford one. Some of them are the gravity-feed, agitating, stick feed and force feed hoppers.
As you can see, there is a whole world out there of a possible paintball gun upgrade. Remember to start with a quality gun, and that will make it easier to add additional equipment as time goes on. Also, getting used equipment can often make it easier to afford an upgrade. |
