Event: Siberian 5 (4th Annual)

Ottawa's annual 5 man tactical tournament returns for 2012! Saturday November 17th, Marked Paintball will once again test players' limited capacity mettle with Siberian 5. You've got months to prep, so start getting your teams together and practising! Here's the Facebook event so you can reserv'er'up (that's what RSVP means right?).

Limited capacity games may only now be starting to gain a foothold in the States, but it's nice to see that we've been playing paintball properly since 2009 (any perceived sense of moral paintball superiority in this sentence is purely coincidental and totally valid).

Ottawa Deal: Marked A-5 + Membership for $200

Marked Paintball still has an awesome deal on right now, for anyone interested in picking up a used A-5 and a 2012 (disregard the 2011) membership to their great field in Ottawa's West End. Get it while it's hot.

Featured Field - Marked Paintball

Here at Grey Ops, we try not to make a habit of reviewing individual Paintball fields. Of course if we review or report on a specific Paintball event, naturally we'll take a quick look at the field it's held at, and feature that in the review.

Another exception is if the field itself is exceptional. In a world of pallet bunkers, trees, blue coveralls, and rental 98s, it's refreshing to see something designed to be different and fun. Like if someone converts a mothballed military base into a Paintball facility, or designs a Paintball park around a historic scenario with real dedication to detail, it deserves to be featured here. But generally we'd rather not give free publicity to fields, which would lead to bitching and moaning from others who don't get featured (or get bad reviews). There's enough drama in the Paintball world as it is.

Another exception is when a field is active in supporting a good cause, or helps out in the community. As an example, we featured JT's Frontline Paintball last year when they hosted a charity event for cancer research. This time around, I'd like to review Marked Paintball, an Ottawa-area field that's very active in their community, and which we've only mentioned occasionally in passing on Grey Ops until now.

Siberian 5 - Round 2

 A video from last year's Siberian 5. I'm in there, if you know what to look for.

Marked Paintball's Siberian 5 tournament is running again this year, registration is now open and the game will be held on November 27th. Full details here. For those of you that are on the fence or are getting into paintball, take note that rentals (Tippmann A5s) are free for this event, with a limited number available.

Marked on the Rocks

A recent Ottawa Citizen article describes the legal battle Marked Paintball is fighting for its survival.

Although a lot of details are left out (including the time one of the neighbours in the article followed Allie up the road on foot, screaming at her and threatening to kill her), it gives an idea of the gist of the battle: Rural dwellers upset at the intrusion of a paintball field and its customers into their living area, trying to use the power of the city to bully the owners into closing. With day jobs, and with the field being a weekends-only operation, the owners have had to sink over $30,000 of their own cash into their legal defence so far, with no end in sight. Also, their huge Milsim field under construction (including towers, trails, and a swamp) has been put on hold until the issues are settled.

However one has to wonder, with all of the money the Militkys have paid in legal fees so far, how much has the City of Ottawa spent on this debacle? And are the taxpayer funds being spent to placate a few complainants worth the trouble?

The comments section of the article is particularly revealing, as some of the comments posted demonstrate the ignorance of the average citizen when it comes to paintball, or running a business in general.

Regardless of the outcome of this conflict, as players at any field we have certain responsibilities. First, respect the boundaries of the field you're at, and don't trespass on adjoining properties, or shoot paintballs over the property line. Consider yourself a guest at any paintball field, and as a guest don't litter the area or be disrespectful towards your host's neighbours. This means keeping the music in your car down on the way to the field and back, and not tearing up and down the street that leads to the field. Most importantly of all, be friendly and polite with the local residents, and be an ambassador for the sport. Despite paintball's growing popularity, a lot of people still view us as weirdos in camo running around the woods preparing to overthrow the government. Show them that this isn't the case, by being personable and approachable.

Stay tuned to Grey Ops for the latest news on this story in the coming weeks and months!

RAP4 GOLF Paintball Review: Shooting

So I finally managed to make it out to the local field to shoot some of RAP4's GOLF Paintballs using my Milsig K-Series. I went through about fifty rounds and have formulated a few impressions.



I noticed a definite change in average trajectory between normal paintballs and the GOLF rounds. I verified this by filling a Milsig magazine with an equal amount of interspersed GOLF rounds and paintball rounds. The GOLF rounds seemed to have a flatter average trajectory... when they didn't go crazy. Many of the GOLF rounds seemed to dance through the air when fired. If you've ever thrown a wiffle ball you may know what I'm talking about.

As for getting hit by the GOLF paintballs, two of the four shots broke on me, one hitting my right wrist and one hitting my left forearm. One shot that bounced hit me square in the stomache. The first shot missed. All three shots felt equivalent to getting hit by a paintball at the same temperature (-19 degrees Celsius outside at the time). The powder left a distinct mark on my jeans and sweater. While it wasn't super easy to wipe off, it came off easily using a small amount of water and didn't stain.

I thought I would never say this, but luckily I had break while I was shooting the GOLF paintballs.

This is what my magazine feed neck looked like when a round broke in the receiver:

And here's what my receiver looked like inside:

I found the fill relatively easy to clean from my receiver (have yet to clean my magazine). However, the question that came into my mind when I looked at this was, "Would firing while there was GOLF fill in your marker cause some abrasion on internal parts?"

For my next shooting test for the GOLF rounds, I hope to procure a cheap mask (if you're in Canada and would like to send me one of your old beaters, I'd love to have it), shoot some GOLF paintballs at the lense and see what happens.

Siberian 5 Tournament Media

Sorry for the inconsistent updates as of late, I'm right in the middle of exam season.

Here is some media from the aforementioned Siberian 5 Tournament. All pictures and videos courtesy of Marked Paintball.

Marked's staging area.

Spy Versus Spy course.

Onion Rock Valley.

Patrick (bottom) and myself (top) during daylight.

Patrick (bottom) and myself (top) at dusk.

Easy Company (L-R: Patrick, Jordon, Dippy, Nick, Connor) - First Place

Play on Onion Rock Valley. You can see me reloading at the very start, and some good shots of Patrick around 45 seconds in.

Breakout on Spy Versus Spy.

Ottawa Event - Siberian5

5 man tournament event at Marked Paintball in Ottawa, November 28th 2009. The sign-up deadline is November 21st (that's two weeks from today!). All the details can be found here. I will be attending, as will Patrick. Hope to see you there!