Older Lenses Do in Fact Break Easier

Recently Paul and Andrew of Luckygunner.com did a comprehensive ballistic evaluation of various lenses to determine their integrity etc. While this may initially seem to only hold merit for other situations (involving live fire etc.), parts of it are extremely relevant when it comes to paintball goggles. Here's an excerpt:

"Every pair of older eye protection absolutely failed to stop basic “threats” which were stopped by comparable eye protection of newer manufacture or less use.
The highest quality example of the “older” group was the ESS goggle, which passed all military ballistic testing and which I personally wore in Iraq for almost all of 2006. ESSgoggles and glasses were in use by nearly every Marine and Sailor in the area, and I constantly saw how effective they were.
Even so, age – and constant exposure to UV rays from sunlight – takes its toll on polycarbonate eye protection. For this reason, I would avoid using eye protection that is more than a few years old and/or has seen a lot of sunlight. Knowledgeable military sources informed me that the life cycle of military eye pro is expected to be six months."

Air Gauge Fail

So rarely does such a magnanimous design flaw such as that of the Feinwerkbau P11 Piccolo Air Pistol come along, that when it does the whole internet goes abuzz with it. Making the circulations around Facebook and now forums, this air pistolis capable of firing a .177 pellet at roughly five hundred feet per second, and is even capable of doing so right into your face while you check how much air is left in it.

MTek FAST T3C

MTek Weapon Systems is the manufacturer of mandibular ballistic protection for real world applications, but they've shown some love for milsim/airsoft and have adapted one of their offerings (the FAST G3C) into a milsim/training product named the FAST T3C. Check out a review of it by Dr. Airsoft below:

BEAT THE HEAT: Milsim Paintball Summer Loadouts, Part 3

With summer here, and temperatures sure to reach the mid-30s at some point this season (that's Celsius for you U.S. readers), knowing how to deal with and play in the heat is important for everyone heading out to play Milsim Paintball over the coming months. Grey Ops' 3-part BEAT THE HEAT series will cover some equipment and tips for proper heat management this Paintball season.

In the first part of this series, we looked at the right kind of shirts to keep you cool while playing, while protecting you from paintball hits. In the second part, we discussed how to strip down your load-bearing equipment to avoid having your core overheat. In this final installment, I'll outline some little tips that all add up to help keep you cool, comfortable, and healthy playing Milsim Paintball this summer season.

People Not Wearing Mouth Protection While Playing Paintball

I don't have a problem with people hurting themselves. If you want to look like a career long hockey player and lose all your teeth go for it. What I do care about is how the behaviour of not wearing proper face protection affects our sport. So I'll quickly outline why mouth injuries are possible in paintball, then move on to the meat of the matter.

Hope your girlfriend likes the Chris Neil look.

BEAT THE HEAT: Milsim Paintball Summer Loadouts, Part 2

With summer here, and temperatures sure to reach the mid-30s at some point this season (that's Celsius for you U.S. readers), knowing how to deal with and play in the heat is important for everyone heading out to play Milsim Paintball over the coming months. Grey Ops' 3-part BEAT THE HEAT series will cover some equipment and tips for proper heat management this Paintball season.

In the first installment of this series, we discussed how most of your body heat is radiated from your core, and what kind of shirt to wear to keep yourself cool during summer games. In this article, I'll present some options for carrying your equipment that allow your torso to ventilate and stay cool.

Shedding the vest

In the summer heat, as a Milsim Paintball player the very least you could possibly do for yourself is ditching the heavy padded plate carrier and switching to a vest with a mesh base. The mesh material will allow some of your body heat to pass through, and give you some relief.

But in some cases, even a mesh vest may not be a good idea. Case in point: This is my beloved MILSIG MOLLE Hydration Vest in its usual configuration...

BEAT THE HEAT: Milsim Paintball Summer Loadouts, Part 1

With summer here, and temperatures sure to reach the mid-30s at some point this season (that's Celsius for you U.S. readers), knowing how to deal with and play in the heat is important for everyone heading out to play Milsim Paintball over the coming months. Grey Ops' 3-part BEAT THE HEAT series will cover some equipment and tips for proper heat management this Paintball season.

Your body radiates most of its heat from your core/torso, thanks to the activity of your major organs. As you play hard, muscles also create heat, which in turn warms the blood flowing through them, which then returns to your heart. This heat buildup in your core needs to be managed, and the best way to do this is to wear thinner and better-ventilated clothing to allow heat to dissipate and be carried away by your evaporating sweat.

In this first installment of Beat The Heat, we'll review what shirts are best suited for heat management. To survive a day of Paintball and play hard in brutal summer heat, at the bare minimum you should be losing the standard BDU shirt, and wearing something purposely made for hot conditions.

Dr. Airsoft (A.K.A. Mark Vauhan, M.D.) - Gear Week

There's certainly no lack of pundits in the airsoft/paintball world, but among them very few are concerned with safety awareness, and there are exactly zero that dedicate themselves to it. That is, other than Mark Vaughan. Dr. Vaughan runs a Youtube channel that focuses on "Airsoft Medecine", and covers everything from injury prevention to protective gear reviews. While many of the masks are airsoft-specific, there are plenty of accessories that are also used in paintball (including some that shouldn't be, but unfortunately are by some groups).

Here's an example of one of his videos:

For more info on trips and falls check out Mike's post on the subject.

Woodsball Injury Prevention

Paintball is statistically one of the safest sports activities, behind even Baseball, Basketball, and Football in injury rates. Trips, sprains, and falls are now the leading causes of Paintball injuries, with strict mask enforcement at Paintball fields having almost eliminated eye and ear injuries.

But with all this emphasis on protecting the eyes and ears, what's being done about the trips, sprains, and falls? When was the last time you heard a field owner or ref at a safety briefing warn players to watch their step in muddy conditions, or to be careful around a treacherous drop near the side of the playing area?

In this article I'll go over what you can do to minimize your risk of getting injured, so that you don't get sidelined for all or part of the season. This is a must-read for field owners and staff as well, in order to reduce the chances of one of your customers getting injured, and slapping you and your insurer with a lawsuit.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Grey Ops! Have fun playing paintball/partying this weekend, and stay safe. Let's bring in No Money November with a bang!

Paintball Field Armor

I've been looking through this website for a few days now, and I still can't figure out what to think of it. Perhaps someone else will chime in and tell me what to think, as I'm at a loss.

Milsim Idiot Round 2

Click here for the first Milsim Idiot.

First, watch this:

So here's my bone to pick, and I've been seeing a lot of this lately: Paintball and airsoft M203 grenades pack a serious punch. Would you stare down the barrel of a loaded, charged and cocked paintball gun at point blank range? Well then why is everyone staring down their M203 grenades? There are no built in safety mechanisms in them, and if an o-ring fails his grenade could discharge spontaneously.

MIKE’S RANT OF THE MONTH – Commando Paintball’s [lack of] safety practices

I’m generally a pretty Zen, relaxed guy. But every once in a while, with no warning, I come across something that makes me angry...VERY angry. This conveniently happens around once a month...so why not turn it into a monthly feature on Grey Ops?

The following opinions are mine alone, and don’t necessarily represent the views of Connor or any other writer on the Grey Ops team. Please direct all wrath, angry comments, law suits, and profanity towards myself (Mike), and spare all innocent parties.
****

Commando Paintball is a large paintball field operating in Navan, Ontario (in the Ottawa area). The owner, Dave Pitts, has been involved commercially with paintball for over 25 years, and seems to know what woodsballers want. He’s crammed his fields with dozens of real scrapped trucks & boats, towers, pillboxes, bridges, and other props. His park now boasts 10 working fields, each with its own theme and setting. This is in contrast with a lot of other fields in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, which feature woods & bunkers on one field, and more woods & bunkers on another.

So one would think that with all this going for the field, that customers could expect a fun and safe paintballing experience at Commando, right?

RANT ON!

Paintball After an Injury

While playing at Sgt Splatters last January, I had the misfortune of getting injured...badly. As some kids had shot out a few of the lights in the place the night before, it was pretty dark, and with the dark sand floor I never saw the 4-foot drop in my path as I sprinted for cover. My left foot hit the ground in a weird position, and POP went my knee for a split-second!

It was a little numb at first, but by the end of the day I could barely bend it without excruciating pain. I'd suffered a sprained LCL, which was followed by a case of painful Plica Syndrome for several months. Playing Paintball was out of the question.

Thankfully, 6 months later I’m now back at it. Here are some steps I took to keep my sanity during my hiatus from the game. If the worst should happen and you get hurt playing one day, these suggestions should help keep your morale up until you heal!

Protecting the Boyz

"Protecting the boyz" is a serious consideration for anyone getting into the sport of paintball. By this I don't mean watching your teammates's backs, or providing cover fire during a game (although this is important too). What I mean is protecting your chance to have future boys (and girls) by padding your "boyz" against brutal paintball hits.

When I first played paintball years ago, I didn't give any thought to groin protection. After all, what were the odds of getting hit in that exact spot? I figured being behind cover all the time, I'd mainly be hit while running, with my moving thighs protecting my nuts from side shots. And being a first-time player, I wouldn't be running head-on towards an opponent in any bonzai charges either. I figured it was no big deal, and if by some slim chance I did get hit in the breadbasket by a paintball, I'd just walk it off like any other hit and carry on playing. Well, you can see where this is going! In the final game of the night, I got shot right in the tip of the johnson at point blank range, and I screamed like a little girl in front of all the other players watching and laughing from the observation deck of the indoor field! It was so painful that until I got to the bathroom to check, I thought the impact had split the skin. Luckily, everything was in place and functioning as it should've, but I never played paintball again without taking steps to pad that area.

Now I realize this might be a difficult topic to discuss among rough and tough Milsim players. But let's all be secure in our manhood for the next 5 minutes, and take a quick look at the options for saving our privates!

Red Paintballs

Red's a primary colour, and is seen everywhere, so why don't you see more red paintball fill? 

The obvious answer is that it resembles (to varying degrees) that other red liquid, blood. In the end, commercial paintball largely frowns upon this comparison, and subsequently red paintball fill is somewhat of a black sheep in the paintball industry.

In fitting with a milsim play style, paintball fill that looks like blood does evoke a certain sense of authenticity to any elimination. A goggle lens soaked in gooey red liquid conjures a visceral reaction from the wearer, while adding to the realism of the game. 

The three large drawbacks to red fill lie in:

1. The inability to distinguish between real blood and paintball fill.
2. The public image drawn from paintballers using fill that looks like blood.
3. It stains like crazy.

A mixture of blood and paint.

The obvious reason for the indistinguishability between blood and paint being a problem is that you can't tell when you're bleeding or seriously injured. In looking at the picture above, you might not realize that the hit is actually bleeding.

In addition, some players may overreact to being hit if the paint looks like blood. A story related to me on a forum went as follows: A player was hit on his goggle lens during a local BYOP game with a red paintball, and was unable to see out of his left eye. Thinking that he was hit through the lens and there was blood everywhere, he screamed and whipped off his mask, and was left vulnerable to potentially dangerous paintball hits. As a result of this incident, red paintballs were subsequently banned from this establishment.

Eh? What was that?

By using paintballs that look like blood, anti-paintball media is given easy cannon fodder. It only feeds uninformed and uninterested pundits that feel that paintball is some kind of juvenile hyper-realistic ultraviolence.

This isn't written with the intent of banning red fill or scaring people against using it. But if you do use it, for your sake and the sake of paintball as a whole, be smart about it.

A special thanks goes out to Jake, thanks for all your help!

"Against Unsafe Paintball" Facebook Group

Herp derp.

Dean CK Lau has started a great initiative on Facebook to expose and educate those who are taking part in unsafe paintball practices. Paintball is a growing industry in Malaysia, and it's good to see someone trying to promote the safety aspect of the game abroad. The link to the group can be found here. English readers won't be able to read everything, as a lot is in transliterated Malay. 

Urgent Warning

For those of you who have recently purchased Veritas SA-8s for recreational use:

It has come to our attention that Pepperball Technologies has released for sale to the public the SA-8 pistol which our company, Tiberius Arms manufactured for them based on their specifications. In the interest of public safety and customer satisfaction we felt it important to provide the general public with additional information about this product. First, it is important to understand that this product was never intended for any recreational activity and was not designed to fire .68 paintballs. This product was produced and sold only for use as a less than lethal weapon. It is also important to note that while this weapon appears similar to our Tiberius 8 (aka. T8, Tac 8, Tag 8) paintball pistol, internally there are numerous differences which makes their use in painball dangerous. After receiving and closely analyzing the SA-8, many of those who have purchased them have noticed that many parts are different. Many of the SA-8’s were built with a non-adjustable regulator and all were built with a fixed pressure relief valve. This means the SA-8 is missing key safety components designed for the sport of paintball. We realize that paintball player’s who purchased an SA-8 didn’t realize that what they were purchasing wasn’t suitable for paintball. Safety is of primary importance in the sport of paintball and manufacturer’s, distributor’s and player’s all have a responsibility to insure the equipment they are selling and/or using functions in a safe manner. Player’s attempting to refinish or rework an SA-8 for use in the sport of paintball are putting themselves and other player’s at risk. Tiberius Arms wants to do our part to ensure that these products are not used in the sport of paintball. Accordingly we will be working with field owners so they can recognize Tiberius manufactured less lethal products that are not suitable for use in the sport of paintball. In addition we would like to offer all of those who purchased an SA-8 Bundle with the intention of using it for paintball the opportunity to return said kit to us in exchange for a $100 Tiberius Arms gift certificate. Those with questions should contact Eric Bratten with Tiberius Arms at eric@tiberiusarms.com

Best regards,

Eric Bratten

VP Sales & Marketing

Tiberius Arms

260.478.2500 ext. 235

260.572.2210 fax

Eric@tiberiusarms.com

Tiberius Arms