Paintball: How to Choose the Ideal Marker

Choosing Your Marker is Crucial to Your Paintball Performance

Jerry, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Mar 17, 2008 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

Choosing your marker when getting into paintball can be very difficult. When most people get into paintball for the first time, they're hardly worried about the performance of the gun, but are more worried about the price of the gun. Most people assume that all guns are going to shoot around just as well, but you only pay more for higher brand names. This is true to a very small extent. As a rule with most paintball products, you get what you pay for. If you pay more, you're going to get a better gun. This is only to an extent though, no one needs a 2,000.00 gun.

There are multiple factors to consider when it comes to purchasing a paintball gun. I'll break each factor down into categories to help you decide on a gun which is best for your needs.

The factors to take into consideration when purchasing a paintball gun:
-Speed (rate of fire)
-Accuracy
-Durability / Reliability
-Size and Weight
-Price

As I've already said, when you choose your first gun, your primary concern is typically price. However, you need to be worried about many other factors.

In order of importance for me (this may not apply to you) the factors are: Accuracy, Speed, Reliability, Price, Size.

Accuracy is important to me because accurate guns are ideal for woodsball, and even speedball.
If you're looking for accurate guns:
-Tippmann 98 Custom
-Tippmann A-5
-Any other Tippmanns.

Speed is also important and extremely important for speedball and indoor paintball.
If you're looking for guns with high rates of fire:
-Evil Minion
-Higher end Spyders
-Ion
-Smart Parts

Durability and reliability are very important. What good is a gun that constantly breaks down?
If you're looking for very reliable guns:
-Tippmann
-Evil
-Ion
DO NOT GET:
-Spyder
-Phirana
-Black Maxx
-Any other older/unheard of guns.

Size and weight aren't that important, but semi important in an indoor or speedball setting.
Just get lighter guns. This isn't that important.

Price... If you want a cheaper gun, you're going to sacrifice all other attributes.

My overall highest recommended gun is the Tippmann 98. It combines speed (response trigger), accuracy, and extremely high reliability with a very low price. It's very easily customizable and can be manipulated to become a more woodsball or even speedball gun.

The guns I've listed above, I have personally tried and either recommend or don't. You may have different preferences, these are just mine.

Good luck choosing your marker!

Published by Jerry

I'm currently still in highschool. I'm in training for the navy, and will enter the service in July of 2009, shortly after graduating from high school. View profile

Paintball: How to Choose the Ideal Marker

Choosing Your Marker is Crucial to Your Paintball Performance

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