Is Junk Quality Paint Jeopardizing Certain Play Styles?

[gabe]

I've all but stopped playing stock class because of it. At least I can get away with playing open class, but the paint isn't great these days. Even the most recent tournament grade paint I shot was still inconsistent. Lots of out-of-round balls.

Same. Even open class is a pretty iffy thing unless you're just playing against renters. A renter just hosing with a 98 is a real threat when you're throwing one ball at a time and every ball is just flying off at right angles to where you're aiming.

Closed bolt guns are pretty much a novelty with the paint now. My autocockers have been relegated to wall hangers.

[OpusX]

The most recent round of local field paint is requiring a .675 sizer and I am quite surprised. As long as I can get inserts to stop roll outs I don't really care, but once that is an issue, I'm not sure what to do.

[RedLeaderSB]

How is Nelson Anarchy these days?
I presume you would need to custom order a skid based on what I read on the website.
Maybe an mcarterbrown custom skid, gator black shell orange fill?

[Jonnydread]

Yep they only do custom orders now. I'd be down to go in on an MCB-wide Anarchy order, although I would prefer a non-black shell cause dark colored shells are tricky to see in the woods.

[MrBarraclough]

Nelson is all custom order by the skid now. My local field uses Nelson Precision and Nelson Ranger as its two paint grades and it has to be custom ordered for us.

[Arthur]

I give it a go with my Mags, S6.5 or DAM but if the paint is inconsistent, I rely on the Etha 2 which shoots pretty much anything fairly decent.

The QC on just the size and shape consistency just seems off, even comparing back just 10 yrs ago.

[nak81783]

We're addicts. We keep buying the same amount of paintballs or more even when the quality goes down, because we need our fix. The "dealer" has no incentive to improve quality. In fact, the dealer will likely continue to cut costs, degrading quality, as long as sales volume remains constant, to increase profit.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Not this guy. I buy bags and when it’s particularly good I buy a few cases to have on hand. The proshop I buy from gets decent paint it’s just been small bore. When it seems to shoot and break really good for me I stop on the way home and stock up.

[AnarchicArctic]

I’m with Chuck on this. One of the benefits of limited paint styles is you can buy a bag to try. If it’s crap you’re out $15-$20. If it’s good, stock up before you go. I agree with your assessment of the distributor “cut costs mentality” though. Late stage capitalism has absolutely abandoned “craftsman accountability” for planned obsolescence and bigger profits.

[AnarchicArctic]

My stock class play has definitely been affected by crappy paint, but not enough to cease my enjoyment of or cause me to abandon the format. The worst is the footballs I’ve gotten in bags of GI. So out of round they got stuck in some of my feed tubes and required a whack to roll down to the breech. That definitely sucked. Sometime spent pregame doing “quality control” alleviated the issue, but was absolutely a pain in the ass.

The tiny paint is easier to deal with. Freak barrels just aren’t enough. Anti-rollout fingers and the rubber detent renaissance are upon us. My phantom with the ASP mod hasn’t missed a beat. My pgp that I modded for Spyder detents is right there with it. Modern problems require mid-90’s solutions I guess.

[Mr. Hick]

"Modern problems require mid-90’s solutions I guess."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that one made me laugh pretty hard. It's true though, that ASP detente is a life saver.

[SignOfZeta]

The problem isn’t “modern paint”, the problem is “field paint only” combined with bad fields.

At Monster Game 2020 (Hell Survivors, Michigan) the field paint (their own Fireball, made by the dirtbags at GI Sportz) was too large to use Freedummy’s wedgits. I had to take them out to avoid breaks. So to me it’s for sure not small. This is in a Phantom. The main issue with Fireball is that it bounces too much. When I BYOP I use Valken Graffiti. It was smaller than Hellfire last year but shoots way better, breaks way better, and still flies straight even a year or two later.

What is needed is some kind of paint selection at the field, charge whatever, I really don’t care. I’ll pay $150 for a case of Graffiti because it lasts the entire season with the way I play (all pumps).

[Vince]

Yes regrettably, it's true...

[Mr. Hick]

Excellent Meme. Roadhouse Rules.

[Jonnydread]

Mediocre balls have never really affected my ability to enjoy limited paint games, like Chucky said, just get closer. Obviously I would prefer the paint to be bigger, more consistent, and so on, but I find that the majority of paint gripes I have come from shooting over the chrony and overthinking, not actual issues during gameplay.

[Havoc]

Bouncing paint is my complaint I have a lot of shots that don't break. Most of the paint flys ok but when I do hit I want it to count

[Mr. Hick]

Agreed! Nothing worse than having the drop on some one at close range to watch a ball bounce.

[SignOfZeta]

It also hurts!

[nak81783]

This may sound silly, but has anyone ever seen the requirements/specifications for any paintball? For example, sphere of diameter .684-.693, when stored at 55-75 degrees Fahrenheit and 60% or less relative humidity, guaranteed for not less than 6 months from manufacturing date. I realize tracking/enforcing this would likely drive costs through the roof, but I'm just curious what the starting point/expectation is.

[nak81783]

I'll see if I have access to that spec at work tomorrow. I doubt I do, but I've been surprised before.

[nak81783]

Go here for paintball specification summary: https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/p...tion-astm-1979

[Siress]

and now you have some insight into the text under my avatar

[spartan985]

I find myself wanting to play pump less, at least I have my Emek...

[iamthelazerviking]

I am a huge lover of pump. Strictly played pump for some years. But these days, mech semi is just more enjoyable.

[Siress]

I love playing pump. We had a limited paint game recently and I voiced concerns about the FPO-fields paint quality. Everyone here shut me down saying field paint is always great. Now, this particular group still made it an awesome day of play but I was spot on with the paint concerns. It was small, oval, and you pretty much had to hit a hard piece of equipment for it to break. I personally took a direct shot to the back of the head form ~20-30ft and it bounced.

Yeah... junk paint is compromising the fun of pump and limited paint play. That's the kind of play that I've treasured and brings me back to the game. Be it pump, or sneaking around the woods picking people off with well-timed accurate shots. That's just not something I can count on anymore - and I have not the expletives to describe that frustration. Had some pretty solid paint when I played at a new field last year. Not sure what it was, but it was white shell and had red stars on it IIRC. That was good stuff. Ironically, that particular field has such a high player density (or at least it did that day) that there really wasn't an opportunity to sneak around. It was a blast, though.

That said, I think we should reflect on the success of airsoft. People seem more interested in confirming their skill at hitting the target than they are concerned with proving that it happened. If that hypothesis is true, then the garbage paint quality we've been seeing for a decade or more now may have a causal link with the relative reduction in paintball players - or frequency of play.

[Jonnydread]

We lied to you because we wanted to see you

[Siress]

I'd have been there even if I had to shoot the brass eagle paint from the aughts.

[SignOfZeta]

I don’t get this “paint is bad, I’m quitting pump and going semi”. I don’t get it at all. I don’t see how it could be any more enjoyable shooting more bad paint with a single finger, for one thing.

Also, you are totally playing into their trap when you do this. You’re buying MORE of the BAD stuff than you were ever buying of the better stuff, you’re rewarding them for selling crap paint so...what do you think they’re going to do? There just going to develop even worse paint so you can buy even more of that. We have to be brave enough to put a stick in the spokes at some point. I let it be known that I care about paint quality every time I check in, I suggest everyone do that. Tell them you aren’t too cheap to buy overpriced field paint as long as they provide quality. If they only have two different colors of GI Sportz then complain. The noobs won’t insist on quality because they haven’t been playing long enough to know what quality to expect.


If you let the little methed-up 14 year old speedballers totally bend the industry to their will then that’s what they will do. Us beardos with wallets need to occasionally make our voices heard.

[SignOfZeta]

You don’t have to buy a $600 case to outspend the noobs...sheesh! I’m not arguing...whatever all this math is.

You don’t have to spend more than all renters combined every time to be noticed. Just come often, don’t be cheap, and do it for years on end. Most people only play paintball once or twice and never come back. It’s very easy to be noticed in a crowd that’s mostly replaced every year or two.

If you always pay your bills in advance, if you know how to treat noobs properly, if you don’t cheat, etc, if you act like an old man should your field WILL notice you, even if you don’t want them too. When you own a business you have favorite customers, people who you are relived to see. If you act like a reference grade example of a player/customer they will eventually start to ask you how your day went. If the paint doesn’t work in your gun, they need to work with you to fix that and at that point they will.

[SignOfZeta]

As for FSR, it solves one problem and creates at least three much worse ones. I can’t wait to see it go the way of the dodo.

[nak81783]

SignOfZeta, please share what you see as the three much worse problems caused by FSR. I’m just curious if our thoughts align. Thanks.