Wear layers. lol

 

How cool. Have fun and get us some pictures

 

I took my kid to the paintball field for five years, when he was 12-17 years old. Helped keep him out of weekend trouble, he later told me. Almost all dads dropped their teenagers off at the field, one out of 50 might actually put on the mask and head into the field. We had many adventures, heros many times, surrounded and desperate, many good memories together. He went from hiding in a hollow log during his first trip, to winning paintball battles by himself. Paintball teaches marksmanship, stealth in the woods, comraderie, team-work, dependability, and ignoring pain and discomfort. We used to take our shirts off at the end of the day, and count the bruises all over us. We had one heck of a paintball field, the biggest in the East, with 100 acres of thick oak forest with trails and big forts, and also a 20-acre village with many huts. We kept our cost way down by going on free Sundays, and picking up tons of spent paintballs on the ground, which is okay with the owners if you have your own gun. Those paintballs were used the following week. We had cheap, $100 Spyder guns with short aluminum barrels, but if you actually mix with the bad guys, get behind them and shoot from 30 feet away, you can't miss...met lots of nice people, but unfortunately occasional bad ones, usually skinheads with an attitude. Rock and rollers with one foot in the grave, as they say. Another bummer was dealing with guys who had $1,000 laser paintball guns that shot perfect and flat. We did mess up some of those guys, by wearing good camo and getting behind them. Young Joseph pretty much wiped out the entire ATO fraternity, one day. Those guys were city slickers and in the woods, had tunnel vision. They'd walk right past you. You'd feel sorry for them and shoot them in the shoe, so it wouldn't hurt. Of course most paintball courses don't have thick woods and trails. There are a few hazards like poison ivy, getting shot at pointblank range by one of your own guys, or getting hit in the nads or kidneys. Been there, done that.

 

I currently have 15 marks/bruises from our last trip with my 15 year old and his buddies. Planning another trip on the 15th.

 

I miss playing paintball.

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Dang, you need to move quicker, 15 hits is about as bad a day as I ever had. Or stay in the backfield and try to direct things. The kids will listen when a guy 30 years older yells at them to hold the line. Or has some sort of coherent plan. "Never let them see you run," as Robert E. Lee would say to his troops. That ain't easy, when there are enough balls flying past your cover, you could hold up your hat and fill it.

 

Had a great time even though I was breathing hard most of the time. Ended up with a couple of red marks and 1 nice round bruise on my inner thigh. 10 of us went together and fought against another group from Beaumont twice and then had it all to ourselves after it started raining and turned cold. I was last man standing twice - almost hated to shot my granddaughter, but that's war. We had 5 battles. I didn't want to stop but the young sissys out voted me.

 

Last time I went I wore shorts and a tshirt. Rental gun hits were tolerable the 1000 dollar gun hits drew blood. Kind of irritated me.

 

I bet you had a blast! X2 on the breathing hard part, when your adrenaline gets pumping and you are running around that is how it is.

We use to play all the time with friends who had their own guns on private woods.

I have a Tippman A-5 with a redline barrel. That is like the AK 47 of paintball guns. Very durable and reliable.

 

I have an A-5 with a response trigger and a flatline barrel.

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Those paintball guns are supposed to be calibrated with radar at 270 feet per second, on the fields I've been on. One time this dude set his at 420 fps and shot my hand three times, right on the knuckles, from 50 feet away. (After he was already hit in the belly). My knuckles were bleeding slightly and the hand was shaking, which was weird. The ref took his gun away, checked the velocity, and ejected him. We could here his big pickup truck roaring down the highway, 1/4 mile away. The ref said: "This isn't Nam, there are rules." You have to watch those private get-togethers, the safety factor can be somewhat lacking. I know a cop whose buddies only wore sunglasses, and shot frozen paintballs in the woods. One of them peeled his cheek open. They will put out an eye real quick. One day we found a smallish raccoon staggering around in the woods, his eye was blown out, and white paint coming out of the hole. Some kid probably shot him. The ref stopped the game, found a shovel and put the **** out of his misery, then buried him. Then the game resumed.

 

I have only played once or twice, but my BIL used to play a lot and he said guys would go through the field check then dial up their FPS afterwords.

Never heard of freezing the paintballs though, that sounds painful.

 

I thought that, if I was 20 or so, I'd like to do it in shorts and t-shirt. That would be brutal enough. Frozen paintballs is just plain stupid.

 

Used to play tournament ball back in the day. I still have 3 of my guns, and plan on getting back into it. I really enjoyed it. My buddies and I would drum up games with the private groups by offering a 3 on 10 or 15 game. Its a lot easier to win when the entire group is on one side of the field and cant all fit behind something.

 

My son and I love it. He just got a lower end gun for his birthday to get him started. Check out Groupon. They have 3 or 4 paintball deals going pretty much any time.

 

I played for many years around Houston. One way to offset the costs of playing was to referee at local fields. When I would, I would get my greens fee waved, and get half price paint. It helped a lot, and at times was more fun than actually playing.
While refereeing large corporate parties, us refs would tell our teams about a secret path or the best strategy for a certain coarse. It would result in either a 2 minute blitz, or a half hour of guys running around the woods in a circle. Just depended on our mood at the time...