Keep your gun clean. After each game make sure that it is free from any paint or mud:

• A burst paintball in the barrel will result in really poor accuracy and can even prevent your gun firing.
• Your gun hopper contains the paintballs and feeds them into the gun breach – it must be clean and dry inside. If you have been leaping around (or fallen over) you may have cracked a paintballs inside your hopper. The remaining paintballs will be covered with paint making them stick together and lead to misfeeds and gun blockages. After each game, have a quick look inside your hopper – if there is paint inside, take the hopper off your gun and take it into the Neutral Zone (the hopper not the gun). Grab some tissue and clean up all the paintballs and the inside of the hopper.
• If your gun becomes muddy, it can be difficult to grip onto and may also stop the gun from working. If it’s muddy wipe it down after the game.

Don’t pick up paintballs from the ground

It’s always tempting to re-use paintballs that have been fired already or that have been dropped. These look like free paintballs but they will usually result in a jammed gun. The paintballs have a gelatine shell. This absorbs water really quickly and leads to soft paintballs (they will just bounce off) and the paintballs will start to swell (they become larger and won’t fall through the hopper or they wont fit into the gun barrel).

If you dropped a few paintballs when you were loading your gun and they are still dry and clean, then they will be fine to use – if they dropped into a puddle or mud then leave them.

Don’t run out of Air

The most common way to play paintball is with compressed air. Each gun is fitted with a tank that will give you enough air to shoot anywhere from 500 to 1500 paintballs in some cases. When the air starts to run out, the paintballs will start to fall short and loose velocity. You'll have to break and run to your staging area of most fields and fill up your tank to continue playing.

The  shots per tank applies to every time the trigger is pulled, not every paintball that is fired. A common problem is people dry firing the gun (firing the gun without paintballs) when they are walking back from a game / by the target range. If you dry fire the gun 50 times after each game you are likely to run out of air at some stage – if this is half way through a game it’s really frustrating as you can’t shoot anyone.

Rapid Fire

Many modern guns can fire between 5 and 15 shots per second – in the heat of battle however most players will only manage 5 a second. 

Unless you are used to rapidly squeezing a trigger it is hard to get you timing right. The following tips may be useful:

• One shot that hits the target is better than ten shots that miss. Rapid firing is not essential – it may intimidate the opponents (and look cool to your mates), but the game is about shooting the opponent.
• If you are struggling to fire the gun quickly, try using your middle finger instead of your index finger. It tends to be stronger and faster. (Applicable on Semi Auto Mechanical guns - used as rentals by most fields.)
• Make sure the paintballs are feeding into the gun. Gravity is required to allow the paintballs to flow down from the hopper and into the gun breach unless you're using a powered loader. If you are leaning around a barricade, with the gun on its side, the paintballs aren’t going to run uphill – the gun will make a noise (dry firing) but no paintballs will come out. Always hold the gun upright.

Aiming

Unless you aim the gun you are unlikely to hit anything. Firing from the hip may look good in a film but in reality your paintballs will fly all over the place.

The air bottle on the gun forms an ideal gun stock that fits into your shoulder and stabilises the gun unless yoou're running a remote cable. Look along the top of the barrel and this will give you a good idea where the paintballs will go. Fire a shot and watch where it goes. If it drops short of the target aim a bit higher, if it’s to the left aim to the right.

This process of “walking” your paintballs onto the target is the most effective technique. You can get two or more paintballs in the air at a time, watch where they are going and adjust your aim accordingly.

Paintball Goggle Advice

Your goggles are the most important piece of kit you will be using. The following advice WILL help you.

Keep them clean and mist free

Before EVERY game, make sure your goggles are cleaned (remove paint splatters and condensation) and a good film of anti-mist solution has been applied.

The best time to do this is when you return from every game. Spend a few minutes cleaning the goggles (using tissue supplied) and spray on a good layer of anti-mist. Wipe the fluid around the inside of the lens and leave a layer to dry for a few minutes.

Don’t wear your goggles on the top of your head between games – you are sweating into them all the time and they will steam up straight away. Hold then or rest them on a bench / table to let them dry out.

If you get a lens shot make sure you give the goggles a really good clean otherwise the lens will be left greasy and your vision will be impaired.

How Tight?

Goggles should be fairly tight. You don’t want them falling down when you are running around. You should be able to shake your head from side to side without the goggles moving.

Hat or Not?

If you wear a hat, your head will sweat more and you increase the chance of your goggles misting up. Hats protect the back of your head from being shot (usually painful).  The following pointers may be use:

• Thick woollen hats tend to cause misting problems and make it difficult to put your goggles on.
• Baseball caps have to be worn back-to-front due to the peak at the front on the goggles. They tend to be fairly light and comfortable to wear, but they don’t offer much protection at the back of the head.
• Bandanas – the coolest headwear out there, but they don’t offer much protection.
• Hoodies have become the most popular way to protect the back of your head whilst playing paintball. The hood can be pulled up over your head when your goggles are on and flipped down again if you get too warm. Make sure it’s a dark colour (black / green / brown) otherwise you will be easy to spot.