Winter weather is here for most of us and there are some steps you can take to make sure you have the most fun possible during your day of paintball. Paintballs themselves are a perishable product. They react to temperature and humidity changes, and with that, they perform differently. Here are Sneaky Pete’s 5 steps to keep your paint in top shape.
- Remember that cold and/or dry conditions make the shell of paintballs more brittle and more likely to break in your hopper and markers. The opposite is also true, that hot and/or humid conditions will make your paintballs softer and bouncier.
- Keep your paintballs warm during your day of play. There are several ways to do this including splitting a bag or case with a friend and buying more during the day instead of all at once. You can also keep your paintballs in your car and even turn the heater on between rounds.
- Rotate the pods of paint in your pack. Most of us have a dominant side and will typically keep the marker in that hand while trying to reload with your other hand. This can result with you using the same one or two pods repeatedly and the other pods continuing to get colder and colder which translates into more brittle.
- Buy quality winter formula paintballs or good mid-grade “non tournament” style paint. Winter formula is made to be more resilient to the cold, but you should still follow the above recommendations.
- Understand the type of marker you have. Low pressure (tournament style) markers are softer on paint which means that the bolt hits the paintball softer, so it can shoot brittle paint better. Entry level markers are usually high pressure and are a little harder on the paintball. Also, in very cold weather you need to consider the type of loader you are using. Some of the more expensive loaders can feed very fast, which means they must spin very fast. This can cause problems if your paintballs get too cold. If you can adjust the force or speed of the loader you should slow it down or use an agitator style loader like a JT Revolution.
