Paintball

[Donut SD]

Originally Posted by heinous

maybe it's a challenge. maybe we SHOULD shoot a case a day...

Challenge accepted. Paintball is for the wealthy. I've been able to play this long. I must be wealthy.

[Orpackrat]

I got a friend who plays airsoft and it can be far more expensive than paintball. With airsoft, you are expected to look the part and have all your gear and gun fit the era the game is set for. Unless you play the same game all the time everytime, your going to have multiple sets of camo, vests, guns, and everthing else. In addition, 8.4V batteries are the toss aways, 9.6v and lipo batteries are the trend as well as having several batteries on hand plus car chargers. There are upgrades and things that get upgraded all the time, barrrels, hop-up, batteries, magazines (cause you can't use hi-cap all the time), visiting some mid sized airsoft events, the players spend less on the ammo but I see them spending far more on each setup.

For filling Co2 tanks, not sure how it is for everyone else but its only a $5 charge for all day fills here and if you get the premium tank being HPA, free refills at the fields. Plus with HPA, getting a fill is far easier than having to wait for a charge or swapping batteries. If your serious into airsoft, your probably going to burn up a few batteries.

For cleaning, if the player is using an A5, I would say maintenance is roughly 5hrs a year tops unless you are ocd. For me, I can spend less than 5hrs a year cleaning 6+ tippmanns and that's just to clean the paint off them.

[JJohnson]

I do agree that airsoft is cheaper than paintball, but the figures are a little off in my opinion. For one, I don't know a single person that spends an hour cleaning their A5 after a day of play; hell, most A5s are lucky if they get throughly cleaned even once a year. And the amount of paint shot, 88 cases is sure a lot for an A5. Even half that much is still high end estimate.

[tjd10684]

I can shoot a case a day but I have to change what pack I am wearing from a 3 pod to a 5 and make a point to shoot a hopper and 2 pods per game. I can do it but their is very little movement by me cause I'm too busy shooting I used to do this all the time and did not get a lot of people out. Since I have went to carrying less paint (3 pods and a hopper) and playing mech or pump I have gotten quite a bit better with my KD ratio

[ta2maki]

Originally Posted by heinous

maybe it's a challenge. maybe we SHOULD shoot a case a day...

Playing stockclass.

[esperto96]

4000 rounds per day? My wife and I combined could barely manage that much paint in a 2 day scenario event, together! 1000 rounds per player per day played with hundreds of target players to shoot at. On a typical Rec day of play, I might use up to 500 rounds of paint... if I'm playing semi.

Still, airsoft has a lower cost of entry. You can buy a crappy springer and a container of BBs for dirt cheap. Of course, the quality stinks but if you and your buddies all have the same crappy gear, no problem right? Once the upgrade arms race begins, it's no different than paintball.

It was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

[B-17]

My figures are more like 5-7 cases a year playing stock class. I've got it down to where the main cost is driving to the field.

Half the time I play some renters just hand over their extra paint, usually ranging from a pod to a bag.
It's ridiculous how nice people are that play this game, given you have positive attitude.

Most people probably spend less on this game than the average smoker would on cigarettes. Keep on shooting my friends.

[SilentNuke]

Originally Posted by senghing27

So we all know that paintball is a luxury sport and in order to play, you have to have some financial means.

That's pretty much a given for our sport of choice.

So I made it to Buffalo, NY and I decided to google paintball and see if there are any stores nearby that I can browse around inside.

Anywho, one of the nearest "paintball" related results kicked out an airsoft store.

Now, we can say whatever we want about airsoft, but it gave a pretty interesting breakdown of the cost of paintball and the costs of airsoft.

So from the website:
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Long-term costs to play: Airsoft vs. Paintball

Okay... let's do a long-term comparison of the costs to play both airsoft and paintball.

Our demonstration player:We're going to create a fictional player that plays both sports. Our imaginary player (we'll call him "Harry") lives in the Northeast US and will play from March through October of the year. He has good equipment for both sports; not low-end, but not top-of-the-line either. Solid, brand-name gear, firmly in the middle of the price spectrum. He does know enough to use premium ammo in his guns, and will be diligent about maintenance on his weaponry.

Playing habits:Harry is an active player who plays every weekend throughout the season. He attends a skirmish or scrimmage three times a month, and one tournament or operation per month. Harry is a front-line player, who positions himself in the thick of the action, and as a good teammate, lays down good cover fire for his fellow players. On average, Harry will fire 4000 shots during a day-long skirmish, and 10000 shots during a weekend-long tournament.

Equipment purchases:Harry needs to get geared up first before starting to play. He's going to buy his paintball equipment from Tippmann, and his airsoft equipment from The War Store. Harry is going to stick with solid, "bread-and-butter" guns; proven performers in a mid-priced, affordable range.

We will not consider shipping charges or sales tax during this discussion.

He goes to Tippmann's website and looks for a Tippmann A-5 Flatline package that includes the gun, hopper and 20 oz. air tank. The Tippmann A-5 Basic Package #002 has those components, and costs $360. He will also shoot top-quality paint and chooses PMI Marballizer paintballs priced at $55 for one case of 2000 shots to use throughout the season.

Harry stops into The War Store for his airsoft needs. He chooses a G&G GR16 A3 Carbine (M4 with a full stock) for $260. It comes with one 450-round magazine. He purchases an 8.4V 3800mah rechargeable battery for $38 and a smart fast charger for $30. Harry will shoot top-quality BB's and chooses G&G premium seamless polished ammo priced at $16 for one bag of 5000 rounds to use through out the season.

Both sports will require eye/face protection and uniforms, but the costs for those items for either sport are about the same.

Maintenance:Paintball guns require a fair amount of maintenance and cleaning. Harry will spend about one hour after each game cleaning and lubing his paintball gun. Airsoft guns require far less maintenance. Roughly 10 minutes of cleaning and lubing after each game, and a once-per-year inspection of the internals of the gearbox which takes about two hours.

Harry will play a total of 32 games in each sport throughout the season.

CO2 vs. battery costs:I called several places in my area and filling a 20 oz. CO2 tank averaged $4. Shots per tank vary depending on firing habits and outside temperature, but for our purposes we'll figure a high estimate of 1000 shots per full 20 oz. tank.

A rechargeable 8.4V 3800mah NiMH battery requires 3.8 amps of electricity to charge. 3.8 amps times 120V (standard wall outlet power) equals 456 Watts of power. Residential electricity rates in New York State are the third highest in the nation. Electricity costs about 14 cents per kilowatt hour. The cost to charge our airsoft battery each time will be 6.38 cents. Shots per charge will vary with firing habits, but for our purposes we'll figure a high estimate of 7500 shots per fully charged battery.

Total ammo usage:22000 shots per month times 8 months equals 176,000 total rounds. That's (88) 2000 count cases of paintballs at $55 each, or (35.2) 5000 count bags of BB's at $16 each.

(Remember, this is assuming that you could play paintball at a field that allows you to bring your own paint; unfortunately, this is rarely the case. Field paint typically costs 1.5 to 2 times what store-bought paintballs do.)

CO2 fills vs. battery recharges: 176,000 rounds will require Harry's CO2 tank to be refilled 176 times at $4 each. Harry's airsoft battery will need to be recharged 23.46 times at 6.38 cents each.

At this point, I think we have enough information to tabulate the annual costs of both airsoft and paintball. Let's make a chart and see how much it cost Harry to purchase his gear, and play each sport for eight months.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...ghing/cost.jpg

Summary:

Paintballs cost 8.59 times more than airsoft BB's.

CO2 propellant is 472.48 times more expensive than the electricity needed to charge an airsoft battery.

Overall, paintball financially costs 6.61 times more than airsoft to play.

Paintball requires 4.36 times more labor than airsoft in equipment maintenance.

=======================================

I found that writeup to be very interesting and a bit more eye opening for a somewhat outside look into paintball.

Paintball sure costs a ton, but have do we truly spent that "much" in comparison to other hobbies/sports/entertainment?

Getting away for a day or two with your buddies, having a blast, enjoying comradeory, creating memories, priceless!

[Mootho]

Sure it might be cheaper, but you're comparing two different activities. I have never played Airsoft, so I am not really qualified to make much of a comment but from what I have seen, Airsoft seems to focus much more on Military Simulation. Of course, there is a segment of the paintball market that does the same thing, but there are still a lot of paintball players who don't necessarily want to look like they are in the Army. I don't want my marker to look like an M-16 or a variant thereof... Sure, I may wear camo in the woods, but that's because it makes sense to be able to hide better. And I specifically wear tiger stripe to avoid appearing like I am in some kind of uniform. (Yes, yes, US and ARVN forces wore tiger stripe in Viet-Nam. But it was never an officially adopted pattern like MARPAT, or ACU...) Paintball is more based on old fashioned games like tag and hide-and-seek, with the shoot-your-buddy element thrown in for fun. I only surmise that Airsoft is similar, but with more of a focus on re-enactment. I don't want to re-enact anything. I just want to hunt my friends down in the woods and shoot them. Any semblance between that activity and, say, US Army small unit tactics is coincidental. Both me playing paintball, and Rangers hunting Taliban (for example,) are still hunting, and use the same (or at least similar)tactics. But I don't necessarily want to pretend that I am in some military unit. Airsofters, it seems to me, like that much more that paintballers tend to.

[Curt]

I spend $20 a weekend. How many people still use CO2? This was probably written by a airsoft player/retailer. People will do anything for sales.