Why side feed?

[russc]

Ok followup question. Why did we standardize on right feed over left feed? Since most of us are right handed wouldn't it make more sense to have left feed as standard? Moore tucked in behind cover and all that?

Right feed for a right-hander gives you the best field of view for maintaining field awareness. Even centerfeeds are bad for this. There are pockets of your sight line that lose depth of field because you can't cross up and get binocular vision.

[maggot]

It's already been said, but centerfeed didn't really become the preferred option until Halos hit the market. Side feed gets you 3 extra balls in the stack and is way more reliable with gravity and Revvy hoppers. That's why the below monstrosities were popular upgrades at the time.

[lew]

Hey, I like high-rise feednecks!

[Magmoormaster]

That's not true at all... High end cockers were going centerfeed only by the late 90s, 5+ years before the Halo. People wanted it but there wasn't much availability.

[lew]

Exactly, and 12/18v Revolutions could easily keep up with a mechanical vertical-feed Cocker or even a vert feed Shocker.

[SignOfZeta]

Regardless of how much paint one wants to sling, sighting down the side (10-11 o'clock) works fine. Most Snipers are vertical feed. Pretty hard to use your previous shots as tracers when your ROF is diminished, but that doesn't seem to stop most from getting first round hits. With good paint, I can long ball an opposing player at a hundred feet with a vertical feed. Not much of a problem.

So can I. We aim by feel. Because I’ve shot so many rounds through all my guns I don’t really site at all. Paint was $0.25 a round in the 80s though and basically nothing was semi auto yet so we thought we should aim a paintball gun exactly like a BB gun or a firearm. Eventually we learned that with the pathetic range and accuracy of a paintball gun that level of care isn’t needed or even rewarded.

[Hp_lovecraft]

We all wanted sites in the 80s and early 90s. Dot sites were pretty standard. Case in point, the first center feed: the brass eagle barracuda:

it mounted a site rail ABOVE the hopper
it made sense when you were shooting one ball at a time, and not “walking “ your balls on target

also, for the left/right thing, consider the mini-mag. It’s main selling point was , at the time, it was the -only- way to have a right feed PF ‘mag. Standard PF automag were all left feed and everyone hated them.

[lew]

We all wanted sites in the 80s and early 90s. Dot sites were pretty standard. Case in point, the first center feed: the brass eagle barracuda...

Right, but, by the mid- to late-'90's, sights had dramatically fallen out of favor for the reasons that Signs mentioned above and yet side feed was still de rigeur.

[Hp_lovecraft]

Right, but, by the mid- to late-'90's, sights had dramatically fallen out of favor for the reasons that Signs mentioned above and yet side feed was still de rigeur.

I can remember in 97 converting my VM68 to direct feed because that was the "cool thing to do". I also remember cutting off my trigger guards on other guns... also because that was the trend at the time.
But even in the late 90s, most players were still in the woods. Speedball was becoming more accepted, but it wasnt the standard yet. Newer players still expected sites, and aiming. We remember all the cool high end guns from the era, but 95% of guns using were brass eagle and tippmann.

Another thing to think about, feed and hopper sizes were still not standard in the 90s. You had a variety of feed sizes, and it was the standard for elbows to come with "sleeves" to match to your gun. Plus the oddballs like the stingray, and tippamnns. And small hoppers using a smaller size were still commonly shipped with guns. It was common to have a whole variety of elbows in your gear bag to match different guns with different hoppers.

Good times.

[The Inflicted]

Right, but, by the mid- to late-'90's, sights had dramatically fallen out of favor for the reasons that Signs mentioned above and yet side feed was still de rigeur.

Sight rails were still ubiqutious, though, and were basically omnipresent on the first two generations of electronic guns.

https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/paintball-news-aa/the-dead-zone/33024-the-evolution-of-paintball-guns-1987-2009#post33152

The Angel LCD and Bob Long Defiant both had sight rails, despite being centerfeed.
Heck, the Brass Eagle Rainmaker had two sight rails!

[lew]

Good times.

F-in' A, man. F-in' A. Although I was but one one teenager, I'm really glad to have been able to carve my own little niche out of that section of history.

I remember that 50 rd. hopper that came with my Spyder Classic package from Sportsmans Guide. Threw that sucker in the trash first opportunity I had since all my cousins were using VL hoppers.

Stimulating conversation, folks. I'm always glad to hear another's point of view.

[lew]

Sight rails were still ubiqutious, though, and were basically omnipresent on the first two generations of electronic guns.

https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/paintball-news-aa/the-dead-zone/33024-the-evolution-of-paintball-guns-1987-2009#post33152

The Angel LCD and Bob Long Defiant both had sight rails, despite being centerfeed.
Heck, the Brass Eagle Rainmaker had two sight rails!

I had a way of cutting through the BS, and I always wondered "did anyone bother to make an offset sight mount for those markers?" Apparently, it took the industry as a whole a long while to realize that paintball guns can't utilize a sighting system very effectively.

[Nish]

Just throwing out an idea here but my guess is that right feed might have suck because most people were right handed, so they would reload with their right hand.

Remember the earliest direct feeds were DIY jobs with pipes angled out of the side or back. My bet is there was nothing more to it than the guy that made it like his that way.
Once that happens you need to risk a lot of money and convince people that your new really high feed, right where they look to aim, is better and they can aim some place else.

[Hp_lovecraft]

I had a way of cutting through the BS, and I always wondered "did anyone bother to make an offset sight mount for those markers?" Apparently, it took the industry as a whole a long while to realize that paintball guns can't utilize a sighting system very effectively.

Though a quirk of modern paintball is the milsim trend. To me, Milsim is just 80s paintball. Any milsim gun is now expected to have at least a site, but as well as accessory rails. Less for actual aiming, but more for the look and style. That was also a big component of 80s paintball. Back then, the quality of the simulation was just as important as who won the game, just as with milsim today.

In the 80s, fields mimicked combat scenarios, and you might have rules like "arms and leg shots dont kill you, but you can't move or shoot until the doc finds you". That stuff went away in the 90s.

[lew]

I've never paid much mind to milsim, but your observation makes a whole lot of sense.