As much as they like their $1600 Pball guns, when I pull out the M249, heads be turning.

And ya, I don't want to play paintball with 13 year olds.

It was priceless to see all the paintballers jaws hit the ground at FR in october when 7 Fully Kitted out WW2 Reenactors walked by.

I am a speedballer. In the past, nearly every time I see one of these threads I type up a thoughtful, mature, fair and usually lengthy reply only to delete it and not post due to the tone of the thread towards paintball. This thread seems better than those others.

Kalnaren, you hit the head on the nail (?) with your post, except the following.

Yes, speedballers do shoot a lot, but unless they're said 16 (or 14, or 12 etc) year old kids it usually has a point. If you ever see a player standing at his bunker and shooting at what is essentially nothing, he is probably shooting what we call a lane. He's probably shooting the entrance to a key position, to keep opposing players out of it. The reason for shooting fast is to keep a steady stream on the lane so if someone tries to run through it you have a higher chance of hitting him. He could also be doing this to keep a player from looking out of their bunker so one of his team mates can move up. Once again, shooting fast here is for the intimidation factor, so the player doesn't get brave and try popping out. It's the same kind of fire-and-maneuver done in airsoft.
If anyone has any THOUGHTFUL questions about speedball chances are I will be able to answer them, just post them here and I'll check back.

I think the term is "nail on the head" ;)
We do that too in airsoft -it's called supressing fire. In airsoft it's usually done by support gunners or assault riflemen and has the objective of making the enemy keep his/her head down, either to slow their advance or make it easier for your teammates to flank them. When doing this your objective isn't to get kills.

What I was referring to is completely different. I was talking about the paintball playing style of seeing your target and firing as much paint as possible in their general direction trying to get a hit. From what I've seen that seems to be the preferred way of playing speedball. Paintballers that try and play airsoft like that generally get hosed real fast because quick, controlled bursts from an airsoft gun are very accurate (compared to what they're used to), and because it pisses everyone else off when they do it lol.

Can't argue that.

Also been said before, but got to say it again:

Don't knock it until you try it. And the real-looking guns take the cake for me.

Plus you don't have to worry about messing up your gear with paint.

Or wearing a large helmet that often can restrict your perception of your surroundings.

Go to a game, and meet some guys, see some guns, get hooked, etc....

The first thing to do is to forget what anyone says to you and do what you enjoy most if you are doing it to fit into a crowd u are doing it for the wrong reasons. I have the pleasure of working in the paintball industry and have been playing the game for almost 25 yrs now and have seen it at its best and at its worst, the "AGG" players are idiots and real paintballers both speed and bush can't stand them. That being said I have recently started playing airsoft and I love it very addicting. Maybe its just me but i see airsoft, paintball both speed and bush all to be diffrent aspects of the same game and I enjoy them all, theres no reason someone cant play both and also no reason for people to hate on each other because they play one or the other.

As someone who enjoys both airsoft and paintball i think the biggest problem for the most part across the 3 aspects is the lack of understanding of how the other games work. 99% of the people who have seen a speedball game have seen kids who think they are playing speedball I invite any of you to attend and spectate a pro level event such as the cxbl and you will see its not the spray and pray game u might think it is especially not when your on the field. And adversly being lucky enough to work at a paintball field that has recently added airsoft to our schedule there are at least 3 of us who are hooked already and quite a few more who defintly want to try it out that is what we need more of. The paintball airsoft debate is like the holy wars it shall never end but try and be one of the few that realizes there was no point in it in the first place.

There are a couple reasons why airsoft is invariably better than paintball in my eyes, 1) you don't have to wash your clothes after every match unless you sweat buckets, 2) the weapons are cheaper, 3) pistols.

Airsoft: 2000 rounds - $10

Paintball: 500 - $45

pistols do exsist in paintball

Yea, but their not nearly as nice