Paintball

[Brewtt]

One of my "local" stores is PPS. The only thing disappointing is the price tags.

[Kindred]

Originally Posted by Brewtt

One of my "local" stores is PPS. The only thing disappointing is the price tags.

Not a bad shop to have local !
Just a hair under 3,000 miles for me....kinda tough to run over for a quick bottle fill before the game! (although I do have the directions mapped out just in case)

[PaintedRat]

We have a fair number of each. Maximum Paintball is an excellent shop and their people are great. There have been a few other shops pop up that I despise. The clerk should know what an A5 flatline is without having to ask someone.

As far as fields, I like Agape Playing Field just south of Fresno. RAID was family run and good people running it. TAAG in Coarsegold was run by a guy named Marty, who tried to keep everyone in line. He just moved the field, and I haven't been to the new one yet. Blackbeards Family Fun center was anything but. The refs were cocky tourney guys who didn't even want to be there, and too many of the players were "Mommy, I want the Speed, not the LED". Bleh! After that, I spent a season playing in the forrest.

[hmudd13]

I've been playing for around 20 years now and unfortunatly times they have a changed.
The last time I stepped into a paintball shop I saw the owner belittle a kid with a broken Spyder because A; he should be shooting an EGO like him and his team.
B; he didn't buy it at his store.
I felt bad for the kid. From what I could tell the problem was just a cup seal issue.
Now that kid will never go back there, and he certainly won't buy his next upgrade there.
This is the attitude of most of the shops/fields in my area.
If you're not spending $800 plus you're not worth the attention.
The only customer friendly shop in town went out of business.
Such are the shape of things to come.

So for the last 4 years I've been playing woodsball with a group called Tunka in the Boulder Co. area.
Great paintball, great people and games with up to 60 people WOOO HOOOO!!!!

[Mar]

We have one store in town run by an ex-military man and his wife. He is knowledgeable, honest and decent. We have two other stores run by guys who take parts out of the box before selling it to you, who sell you used equipment and say it's new, who let their refs sell their broken guns to newbs that come in etc...

In paintball there must be a fiduciary responsability on the seller of the goods to:

a) Treat the new customers well, ESPECIALLY the kids who are buying their first marker. They need to know about safety, barrel bags, goggles, chronographing and oil and such.

b) Field owners should not use rental groups as fodder for their teams to practice on. Whenever I hop on with a rental group, i play pump and let them get their grove on without trying to 'own' the field....

when I began playing I was taken advantage of by local stores: ONE STORE even used to take the old tippmans out of the box, sell you the gun, and offer the box (with hopper and pull through and such) for an extra $40.00!!!!!

Yes, I would say that the trend is to dissapoint: but the target audience of kids can hardly effect a change on this part of the industry, without being informed.

[Emerald Wolf]

I guess that I've always been lucky. Here in Denver fields have come and gone. I've not tried indoor ball yet, but from what I've heard Paintball Coluseum isn't too bad. I play outside at Paintball Adventures. They have a pretty good, if little ,shop in Englewood and a huge chuck of ground out toward Sedalia...The staff are all pretty good guys (even if they occaisionally miss some ramping monkey). Heck one time when I was looking for a oring for my VM the counter guy told me he thought tank orings would work and gave me a few (they did), and another time he actually made a couple of calls to help me find some Nelly parts....

The real rub with the fields, is they are all far, and on the east side of Denver. The main outlaw guys (Tunka) are way up north....Hopefully something will pop up closer....

Catchya on the Flip Side.....

Emerald Wolf -- argh...

[hmudd13]

The real rub with the fields, is they are all far, and on the east side of Denver. The main outlaw guys (Tunka) are way up north....Hopefully something will pop up closer....

Hey there Emerald Wolf, I play with Tunka all the time. Well until I ripped my quad tendon off my kneecap. Maybe November I'll be back.
1 hour to 1hour 20 mins from Lakewood.
Where are you at?
Tunka groups are real friendly and we get pretty big games. You should give them a shot.
Check the website, www.tunka.com There is a game on Sunday the 3rd, I'll be up there. If you show up, just ask for the guy with all the guns.
I got tired of playing in Sedalia with their oval paintballs and refs that don't care if you shoot someone and they run off and show up on the other side of the field clean of hits. Well that's not fair there is one real good ref there.
Don't remember his name.
P.S. From what my stepson tells me Paintball Collesium chrono once or twice a day and there usually isn't a ref in the game so the kids crank the heat up on the markers. JFYI

[Emerald Wolf]

Originally Posted by hmudd13

Tunka groups are real friendly and we get pretty big games. You should give them a shot.
Check the website, www.tunka.com There is a game on Sunday the 3rd, I'll be up there. If you show up, just ask for the guy with all the guns.
I got tired of playing in Sedalia with their oval paintballs and refs that don't care if you shoot someone and they run off and show up on the other side of the field clean of hits. Well that's not fair there is one real good ref there.
Don't remember his name.
P.S. From what my stepson tells me Paintball Collesium chrono once or twice a day and there usually isn't a ref in the game so the kids crank the heat up on the markers. JFYI

Kewl, I'll have to try Tunka then, I've been on their mailing list for some time, I've just not had the time to go (moving, job, etc.)

Like I said, I've never tried PC. I used to work with a guy that was in somewhat tight (so he said With the PC owners...He seemed to like their field. Personally I'd like to try it mainly because it's open during the week....Although, I have a feeling that since school is back in, they're not very busy during the week...<<sigh>>

As far as Sedalia, well I've had mixed but mostly good experience there. Yeah, their paint is an up and down thing (when you can empty a PGP at somebody 50-60 ft away and hit everything on the edge of a 6' circle, it's not the operator But then, I somewhat abuse the paint...(the paint I currently have is over a year old, and some has been living is pods (bad) for most of that time... Their staff, well I only have had one shaky experience that came at the hands of a punk kid with a M98 that was ramping like mad. He bunkered me and 2 other younger kids (I was lying on my back and got shot 3 times from point blank range). My borther was about the kill the kid after having "brokern skin paintball welf" on his ARM after getting shot from across the field. But the next time I went, there was a kid that kept turning up his Spyder, and it got to the point the refs were only chronying him, and told him they'd boot him if it shot hot too many more times....So yeah, good and bad, but good overall....(I suggest going on Sunday. The last time I played there, I went on Sunday. I had a blast. There were only about 10 ppl there all day. I ended up rocking and rolling (literally) all day with the PGP....Pretty kewl.)

I will try Tunka one of these days....I was considering trying to make the 23 Sept game.

Catchya on the Flip Side.....

Emerald Wolf -- might have the PGP carbine done by then...

[wolf13]

in the past few years, between a few differnt states, the amount of fields and stores I like can be counted on one hand that i have visited, and some of them are out of buisness now. Most places now seem to be run by people wanting to cash in on the only thing they know anything about rather then actually wanting to help the game or are simply looking to be the boss. While a few have seemed to genuanly care about the game but lacked the knowledge to implement it safely and efectivly; most simply want to cut what corners they can and drive opposing fields out of buisness using any tactic they can find including theft, vandalism and slander.

Some of the places and owners I have really liked over the past few years that are still around are Action Jacks in Colfax Iowa and Xtreme in Millstadt Il, as well as the shop Gforce Paintball in Fairview Heights Il. Its a shame I am no longer local for any of them.

[pillage]

I guess I'm lucky, my brother and a one of his friends opened a shop this year after getting tired of dealing with overpriced shops and crappy service that is out there. Their business has been growning due to the number of people that also get tired of dealing with some of the arrogant tools that are in this business. Treating people decently definately makes for repeat customers. Not all the shops are run by tools but there is an overly large percentage of them out there.