BYOP Fields?

[Magageddon]

I'm curios if anyone has or have had a byop field they've frequented in their time playing paintball? I used to play a lot at picasso lake paintball which is still a BYOP field oddly enough. Was wondering if that played into the quality of the field/refs from your experience? The last few times I've played there haven't been great refs quality wise compared to other fields in the area. Really I'm mostly curious if any BYOP fields still exist?

[Trbo323]

I have similar stories. Every field that is byop or even allows it is lower quality. Safety reasons, staff, fields, typically all are on average worse.

My best guess is less money to do those things and lack of effort to buy paint in skid quantities maybe

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Melrosejedi]

Albany paintball experience (Ape) is a bring your own paint field. I havent been there in almost a year , but was last time i was.

[iamthelazerviking]

A field here I still haven't been to let's self equipped walk on players bring their own paint.

[Shrimp266]

My primary allows both. Good paint for sale at the field at solid prices. Also allow you to BYOP. The reffing and experience is top notch.

Less money if BYOP to spend on refs. But that is only one component to have a good set of refs and a quality field experience.

[ejacksophoto]

I'm curios if anyone has or have had a byop field they've frequented in their time playing paintball? I used to play a lot at picasso lake paintball which is still a BYOP field oddly enough. Was wondering if that played into the quality of the field/refs from your experience? The last few times I've played there haven't been great refs quality wise compared to other fields in the area. Really I'm mostly curious if any BYOP fields still exist?

Picasso Lake and Playground are both BYOP fields in our area.

On Target and Quickshot also allow BYOP on specific days.

[Grendel]

PBC (Paintball Charleston) has BYOP as an option but they buy enough paint of good quality that I just buy at the field. It is nice to be able to bring leftovers from other fields and events and use up what I do not want to keep at home for outlaw/teching markers. PBC has pretty good reffing in general, they are paid and typically turn games around reasonably quickly.

[Jonnydread]

Every field that is byop or even allows it is lower quality. Safety reasons, staff, fields, typically all are on average worse.

This has been my experience as well.

[cougar20th]

The only places I have played that were BYOP are

BOLP in Lee NH: Sadly closed. Small field but Great field 1 airfield and 1 woods field. We always used the Airfield for Reaperball. Great people.

RobinHood Paintball in Havre De Grace, MD: Played there once last year. Excellent experience, Awesome staff nice well taken care of fields. Planning on heading back in the spring.

[maggot]

Echoing that BYOP is bad news, IMO. People shooting more cause it's cheaper. Crap paint quality (doesn't break/hurts). No re-chronoing after paint changes. Field doesn't make money, so is poorly run.

[markdem]

OSG in New Hampshire allows BYOP at their big events. And i think they are one of the best (if not the best) fields in the north east

However for regular play, (not big events) i would probably agree with you

[cellophane]

The only time I've seen BYOP allowed locally is for paint that is left over from tournaments, and that is kind of an unwritten courtesy for the teams, since most of those players are buying 2+ boxes of field paint most weekends as-is. Plus it is usually 5-star or equivalent, so quality isn't an issue.

I've seen some videos of cheap paint that was so bad even stomping on it in boots didn't break it. Would not want to get shot by that...

[Chappy]

The worst paint I have ever been shot with was at a fpo event, just saying. Every field experience is different. There might be a big picture correlation between fpo and field quality but some of the worst fields I’ve played at were fpo.

[MrBarraclough]

My home field, Southern Alabama Paintball, is BYOP-friendly (just no FSRs or Valken Infinity allowed) and is a great field. Bit of a time capsule, being only woodsball with a rental fleet of Tippmann blowbacks and offering both HPA and CO2 fills, but a great field for woodsball and scenario play. The nearly 18 acres of playing area is subdivided into 7 fields/areas that can be combined in different ways depending on the crowd size and scenario.

Because the field is a bit old school, running only 1 game at a time with all players sorted onto 2 teams, they don't need a huge staff. They've got a pretty good core of experienced staff, supplemented by a revolving door of temporary hires. When it gets busy, they'll recruit a few "player refs" from amongst the regular players to help keep an eye on the kids and watch out for safety issues. I'm glad to help the field out and don't mind carrying a radio on high turnout days. If I need a break in the middle of the day I'll throw on a high-vis vest and help ref a game or two.

$20 admission with all-day air and $45-65 cases of paint (depending on grade) is a pretty good deal. I think that what helps the field continue to offer that and maintain decent quality is lower overhead (field owner owns the land, which was his family's farmland) and the fact that the owner has a full time job and military retirement so he's not trying to make his living off of it.

Edit: Should mention that I, and most of the regulars, tend to buy our paint at the field anyway. Until they stopped producing paint regularly, Nelson was the paint supplier. Now we get Nelson occasionally if there are leftovers from someone else's custom order production run, but otherwise we've mostly been getting G.I. Custom for low grade and Empire Evil for high grade.

[Jonnydread]

This sounds very cool, definitely atypical of my experience. Next time I’m down south I’ll have to take a trip

[Chappy]

Slight mcb tangent but you mentioned player refs. I used to love this concept until I was pretty much assaulted by one. Defending the western worrs castle up at EMR, I helped someone move a barrel. Going back to get my gun and this dude from the other team runs in the door and grabs my arm yelling about crack shooting not being allowed. He tried to drag me out of the castle waving his player ref card around, several guys on my team who I didn’t even know were standing up for me and we had to get an actual ref to step in. Guy was insisting I was sticking my barrel through a crack and shooting while everyone inside the castle saw me moving the barrel with no gun in my hand. Refs walked him off the field and that was the last time I recall seeing a player ref at emr.

[Drunkscriblerian]

At my home field (Doodlebug Sportz in Everett WA), they allow players to use their own but there's a fee of I think $20. The field is reasonably well run but their paint quality really varies - sometimes it shoots fine, other times it's terrible. Since it's the same brand (GI Sportz) not sure what the variables is there.

[Drunkscriblerian]

Yeah, that all would make sense. It was strange to me that the quality would vary from bag to bag out of the same box, but I guess nothing about paintball quality should surprise us anymore.

[bassninja]

DBS just announced that they are now field paint only. I haven't played in about a year but I was a regular before

[Drunkscriblerian]

Huh, thanks for the heads up. I know there are a couple of Magfed players who show up there on occasion, and since DBS doesn't sell FS rounds this development won't make them too happy.