What’s the deal?
Many of you may have noticed the on going debate about what, if any should be an acceptable rate of fire.
Some of the guns that have been produced in the last few years are capable of almost inconceivable rates of fire, as high as 40 balls in a second.
At the same time the paintball industry has seen a decline in people coming into and staying in the sport.
While the rate of fire escalating is in itself not the sole reason, it is not a coincidence either.
Our opinion is that rate of fire has driven people away, not a few, a lot of people.
Rate of Fire the cons:
A.) Restricts movement:
The amount of paint that you have to move into, thru and around is coming so fast that only the smallest, fastest of us have a chance.
While that may be a version of the law of the jungle (survival of the fittest) It’s probably not the way the average participant wants to spend Saturday or Sunday enjoying paintball with their family or friends.
B.) Intimidation:
One person shooting at you at 20 balls per second is tough to deal with. fifteen people per team in a walk on game, doing that is putting 600 paintballs per second in the air.
In just 5 seconds that walk on game has shot 3000 paintballs.
We’ve seen it time and time again people did not sign up for that. They do not want to get hit 20, 30 or even 5 times to be eliminated when 1 will do. So they hide, stay out of and away from the action. Where is the fun in that?
C.) Cost:
Its easy math. The more you shoot the more your day just cost. With people hiding in their spots as we already pointed out you shoot even more. Also its fun to shoot fast, you get caught up in the heat of battle before you know it, you shot up that $50.00 you had allotted for your day of paintball so now it just became 3 hours of paintball and your done.
D.) The mom factor:
With more young people playing paintball than ever before, mom’s need to be taken into account. An 11 year old child coming home from a birthday party at a paintball field covered in bruises is not good. Word of mouth is a very powerful influential testimonial positive or negative, especially when its coming from mom. Paintball is a great sport and it attracts a large amount of young people, we need to keep them involved & excited and their families glad they are.
E.) Mini Arms Race:
Its cost us all, not just in the amount of paint you need to purchase and shoot but the marker itself. Manufactures now pack more & more technology into their guns. While the price has come down significantly for medium level gun it still takes even simple repairs out of the hands of the owners. Very reputable manufactures routinely run out of repair parts and there is no way to get around it, and get the guns back up and working with out them. High end guns on the other hand, while very advanced cost a lot of money, You should not feel as though you must spend more than you can afford just to play a game and be competitive, unless you are entering tournaments, Then the gloves can come off.
There’s more and we’d love to hear your take on things. A good friend of ours Mike Ratko summed it up best when he said “The fear has overcome the fun”. He’s very right, all you have to do is look at the faces of the first timers when a team player kicks his DM9 or Ego into high gear. They all ask the same thing “do we have to play against those” not the player…. the gun.
So that’s why we believe in a lowering of the rate of fire. If you feel different lets hear it, who knows you may be the reason we have to write part II.
