Paintball: Slingshot and Wrist-Rocket Variation

Paintball has always been played with paintball “markers”. These were established originally for the marking of cattle and trees in a distance, not for shooting people. However, later, these guns were made into firing machines that were meant for playing with other people while not harming them. Paintball has since grown into a huge sport, and continues to grow on a daily basis.

With this growth, comes the fact that there are going to be new variations to the sport. There will always be new ways to save money, new ways to increase or reduce fire, get rid of air supply requirement, add parts to markers, etc.

The variation I’m going to explain is the use of Slingshots in paintball. Slingshot paintball is very uncommon, but makes quite a bit of sense to play when you get right down to it.

Paintball is expensive. I’m not going to lie. Between constantly buying paintballs and high pressure air or carbon dioxide, along with the guns and equipment, paintball really can have you wrapping some money up into it.

With the use of a wrist rocket or sling shot, there are many advantages.

No Need for Air
Since wrist rockets and slingshots use elastic potential energy as their source for firing the paintball, there is no need for air. Just the extremely low price of replacing the about once per 20 games or so. This is extremely cheap and completely eliminates the need for purchasing pressure to operate your marker with.

No Need for a Marker
Paintball typically requires a paintball marker. These are expensive and run through paint quickly. A slingshot cost about 20 dollars at most. This is great because it’s very easy to get someone into playing this sport due to the fact that it’s very cheap to get started.

There are positive and negative effects of playing both paintball and reball. There are the obvious factors, and then there are smaller factors which make one sport superior to the other, by opinion of course.

To answer this question, you really need to look at why people play paintball and reball.

To Have Fun
People play to have fun! These sports are both fun, and are about the same. As far as fun is concerned, both of the sports are truely equal.

To Win
This factor could go either way. In paintball, you are marked with paint when you are hit. In reball, you’re much more relient on the honesty system. In that, you and your enemies as well as your partners must call theirselves out when they’re struck by a reball, other than just checking for paint and then calling theirselves out.

These are just a few of the reasons why people would play paintball or reball, but there are still many factors to be considered.

Price
The prices of the two sports are somewhat high as compared to other sports. It’s going to cost much more to play paintball, than reball though. For one, paintballs cost a lot of money, and are not reusable. Reballs are usually used while playing indoors, and with the price of a field fee, you can shoot as many times as you want for no additional fee. The main price save when it comes to reball is the fact that you’re not going to be wasting five dollars a game just to fire.

Equipment
The same equipment can be used for both sports. This makes determining which to play, or when to play each much easier. You can wear all of the same gear, you can use the same gun, hopper, etc.

Locations
Reball is much harder to come across than paintball. For one, paintball can be played in just about any location. This is because there is no need to pick ammunition up off the ground, and most woods are suitable for playing because you can’t really cheat in paintball, regardless of locaiton and distances. In reball, you usually must find an indoor place which has the option to play reball. This is because the reballs must be picked up and reused over and over again. You can’t do this outside, and it wouldn’t make sense to buy expensive reballs to fire only once then leave.

Paint Usage
Paintballs are needed and used far less in the slingshot variation of paintball. This is because you can’t load very fast, and accurate, precise shots are needed to eliminate the enemy. This is extremely easy to do, because wrist rockets shoot at higher velocities and in much straighter lines than a paintball marker does.

Stealth
It’s nearly impossible to cover up the sound of a paintball gun. Slingshots are virtually impossible to hear at a distance of more than 10 feet. This is great because you can’t always tune in on every single enemy’s presence.

Overall, slingshot paintball is a great sport as far as stealth and cost goes. It may not be as intense as using markers, but definitely has its benefits.