Paintball Safety Advice and Tips

Paintball Safety – Follow these basic tips and stay safe

Paintball is generally considered as a safe sport but you should understand and follow some basic safety advice whilst playing as otherwise you could find yourself getting hurt, hurting others and also being ejected from a venue.

As you would imagine, in a sport that uses guns, there is an increased potential risk of getting injured. Although if you want the answer to the burning question of is paintball safe? You will be happy to know that worldwide research has concluded that paintballing is a relatively safe sport. However, there is a caveat and that will be covered in this safety tips article, you will need to use some common sense, obey the paintball rules, and think carefully about what you are doing whilst playing and give regard to other peoples safety around you.

The safety rules are general to all paintball play but you should ask your specific venue for a list of their conditions to study and follow.

Our 6 most important paintball safety guidelines:

1) Always wear Goggles and Face Masks during game play

You must wear goggles or a mask AT ALL TIMES during game play – In normal circumstances players will gather within an area called a NEUTRAL ZONE or DEAD ZONE. The field marshals (referees) will normally make clear that wearing goggles or masks is going to be mandatory in the live playing field and/or if you need to continue wearing them in the Neutral or Dead Zone, depending on the proximity to the live play.

You can take a look at goggles and face masks in our gear guide.

2) You must not be intoxicated by drink or drugs

If you are found to be intoxicated, and under the influence, of drink and/or drugs then you will find yourself being ejected from the paintballing venue and probably also get banned from using their facility in the immediate future. This is common sense to most people and staying coherent and being alert will increase your enjoyment and safety whilst playing.

3) Gun velocity is on or below 280 FPS (feet per second)

A paintball gun, typically called a marker, has the ability to fire paint capsules from the barrel at very fast speeds and as they are gel capsules they will generally break on impact. It is important for safety that if you bring your own gun to a venue that it has been checked to fire at a capped firing velocity of under 300 to 280 FPS which is a speed that is known for the impacting gel capsule to only sting rather than breaking your skin and causing injury.

You can check your own paintball gun with something called a chronograph which will measure the speed of firing and allow you to decrease or increase the FPS setting as required.

4) Blind and random fire is not acceptable

You should always be in control of your gun or marker at all times and for obvious reasons it is not acceptable just to start firing randomly and blind fire in the hope that you will either hit or distract your opponents. If you do blind fire then there is a high risk that you will hit a marshal or a player who may just be walking back to the neutral zone.

5) Call for a ‘Surrender’ rather than shooting at close range

If you shoot someone at close range or point blank then you will probably cause them some avoidable pain. You should always whenever possible ask them to surrender and at least give them the opportunity to leave the field rather than shoot them. It is considered normal to ask a player to surrender when you are within a range of about 20 feet of that player and you have them in your sight whilst being ready to shoot.

6) Wear the correct paintball protective gear

Wearing the correct clothing and protective gear will help you avoid nasty stings from paintball balls whilst wearing baggy tops and trousers may result in fewer hits actually counting against you as kill shots.

Paintball like any other gun sports has the potential for nasty accidents but by just following some simple safety guidelines and using a bit of common sense then you can avoid injury. You should not look down the barrel of a gun, you should use a barrel cover or barrel sock whilst the gun is not in use, you should not fire it on someone else’s private property unless you have permission, and keep it in a safe and secure place at your own home.

If you have a spark of genius and ponder to yourself, what if I did this with my gun? Then our advice is JUST DON’T and avoid yourself a world of pain.

TAGGED WITH: Paintball Safety, Paintball Safety Rules, Is Paintball Safe, Paintball Safety Tips