This weekend at the Battlefield Blanding Charity event, I had a chance to try out a great piece of kit - the Pinokio.  Now, I’ve used just about every loader on the market, and while the scenario crowd has some different needs than the tourney crew, this is one loader that can meet the needs of both worlds.  Honestly, after using it all weekend I was psyched.  I’ll gush out some bullet points for loader shoppers out there to consider:

• Battery life.  OK, face it, battery life means very little when you’re playing 20-30 minutes total, or even if you get in a couple of hours at a local field during walk-on play, but if you want to hang with the scenario teams who stick it out for the entire game, you need a loader that’s not going to eat batteries left and right.  I’m not the gentlest player on my gear, and to further put this loader through the test, I dropped two fresh nine-volts in before game-on on Saturday then “happened” to leave the hopper in the on position all day, whether I was at dinner break, on the field, wherever.  No problems from the Pinokio - still going strong at the end of the weekend.  Their product tests claim a battery life of 37 cases of paint!  I might also mention - you can access the batteries without tools.  Simply pull open the battery drawer in back.  It’s really that easy.
• Speed.  These days, my scenario gun shoots just as fast as any capped tourney gun.  Heck, my scenario gun IS a tourney gun!  At 15 balls per second, the Pinokio kept up as I mowed some enemies in the woods around Blanding.  No skips or hesitations, except when my fingers slowed down.
• Durability.  As I stated earlier, I’m not easy on equipment.  I’ve cracked loaders, busted lids, ripped off feed necks - if there’s a way to mangle something, I’ll probably do it.  Once I locked my feedneck around the ribbed neck of the Pinokio, it stayed in place.  End of the weekend - no damage.
• Ease of operation.  Here’s all you need to know - one button.  Tap it once; it’s on.  Tap it again; it’s off.  The button is large, and even with gloves on, you’ll have no trouble clicking it.  Outside of the VL Revolution, this is the easiest motorized hopper I’ve ever used.
• Jams?  Nope.
• Pinching paint?  Nada.
• Final battle.  OK, this one is special.  I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures, but the Pinokio is the perfect final battle loader.  Normally it holds 230 balls, which is beautiful in comparison with the Halo I brought with me.  Put the nose cone on, and you’re up to 400 balls.  I waded into final battle chaos at Blanding with five pods in my pack and 400 balls in the loader - that’s a half case of paint, ready to rock.  I found the additional paint made my loader heavy when walking around with it, but when shouldered, I had no trouble at all.

Check out Pinokio Hoppers for more information.

Behind Enemy Lines has a nice little proshop stocked with some sweet woodsball guns and a few nice all-around pieces, like the Dangerous Power G3. They’re set up for 4500 air fills, and the paint they keep in stock ranges from pretty good to outright excellence. And for those of you who dread the sanitary conditions at most fields - they have real indoor restrooms, for men AND women. Women at a paintball field? If you build it, they will come.

The price is right at B.E.L. with a no-field-fee policy, but what makes this worth checking out is their woods. Designed by paintballers, the nearly seven acres of playable terrain showcases the features that veteran ‘ballers love. Their hilltop sandbag-and-trench fort dominates the woods with well-designed (and fun to attack) forts on either side of the woods. In between the cover ranges from thick brush near the creek to thick trees and more open lanes. They’ve stacked the perimeters with some nice log bunkers that make sneaky flanking moves a breeze, and the refs are open to running whatever sorts of games the players demand. On my visit we played everything from simple elimination to attack-and-defend to assimilation, protect the president, and a highlander game (you know, only head shots because “there can be only one”).

Even on a sauna-esque day, around 20 players showed up to duke it out through the heat haze, but the field owner says that when cooler weather hits, 80-100 players isn’t uncommon. The field can certainly hold that many in a game, and plans are in the works to expand further with another seven acres of woods and a netted and turfed airball field. I also got a chance to hang with a couple of hardcore scenario gunners, Tombs from Port City Militia and MGB from Team Boxer. If great squads like that hone their craft at B.E.L., it’s worth a try. Thanks to all the players and refs at Behind Enemy Lines for a great day of summer paintball.

Summer heat requires taking care of two areas – your equipment and yourself. First, humidity and direct sunlight can cause paintballs to swell if they’re not properly stored. If you’re buying from the local field or pro shop, chose a business that stocks fresh paint and stores it in a relatively cool, shaded location. Buying older, improperly stored paintballs leads to swollen balls (This is Splat after all - can’t get away from the thinly veiled sexual innuendo, even in the blogs.) that either break in the barrel or fail to break on your opponents.

Purchasing quality paint from a local field is the best bet if you can examine how they store it. Buying paint from a department store or online dealer may lead to trouble as you have no idea how they’ve handled their paint, or in the case of the department store, if they even know how to handle it. Unless you’ve had good experience buying online, I suggest supporting local ‘ball.

Also, once you have purchased your paint, do not leave it exposed to direct sunlight as this can cause the balls to clump together. Keep your paint in the shade (not your car’s trunk). My simple solution is to carry two coolers, one for my paint and one for my drinks.

If you’re using CO2 as your propellant, you should check your marker’s velocity on a regular basis - after each game or so. The cold liquid CO2 expands more rapidly when heated by the summer sun, leading to velocity spikes that could push your gun’s speed past safe limits or cause your paint to break in your barrel. Consider moving to high pressure air (HPA) as a more consistent, reliable propellant that does not fluctuate with temperature. Even if you’re using compressed air, you will still want to regularly check your velocity, although you shouldn’t find major variances.

Even properly stored paint can change sizes during the course of a day due to humidity, but the use of a barrel kit will allow you to continue to shoot the same paint with the same degree of accuracy. Basically, a barrel kit lets the user to select either an insert or an entire back piece that properly matches the paint. This increases gas efficiency, makes the velocity more consistent, and improves accuracy while giving the user the flexibility to shoot any size of paintball. Barrel kits, while more expensive than single barrels, are well worth the investment.

Taking care of yourself while playing is a matter of common sense. Keep hydrated before, during, and after playing paintball. Bring along a cooler of water or sports drinks, and take a few extra to share with your new friends at the field. Slather your exposed skin with sunscreen, and understand that your mask lens, unless it is reflective, will not keep your face from getting burned. Even if you own a high quality mask with a fog resistant lens, you may still experience problems due to sweat running down the interior. I wear a bandana rolled into a headband as both head protection and to catch perspiration, and I switch it out regularly for a dry one. Even with this precaution the foam around my lens becomes soaked, so I carry a spare mask to wear while the other one dries out. None of these tips takes much effort, but being prepared for hot weather will enable you to get in more games and have more fun, making paintball a year-round sport.

Registration opens for Battlefield Blanding on July 1st, and it’s for a great cause, so make your travel plans early and meet me in Florida in September. For an event like this, the price is right, and the chance to clear rooms with the best in the business will make the trip worth your effort.

Case in point, on the first weekend in August I’ll be attended the Mil-Sim Invitational at Command Decisions. This event will mark a new path in tactical play, and I want to be on hand to launch this new venture. Later in the month (August 16), on the other send of the state, Black River Paintball will host their first Super Game, a GI Joe vs. Cobra event that will be revolutionary, but in a different way. Get this, for $45 a player, those who attend will not only get entry, air, and a ticket for the prize raffle, but they’ll get a PCS camouflage jersey and pants! All the GI Joe players will be sporting digi camo, and all the Cobra players will have urban. And there’s more! Every player on the winning team will take home a marker. That means, if Cobra wins, and they have 300 players on their side, 300 people will take home a marker, matching jerseys and pants, and possibly other prizes - all for $45. This is unprecedented. Visit the game’s site to find out all the details, and if I’ve perfected my cloning technology by then, I’ll see you there.

Paintball comes in a variety of forms with scenario paintball standing out as one of the most fun and cost-effective ways to play the game. National scenario producers like Black Cat Paintball, MPP, or Viper travel the country bringing scenario gamers a weekend loaded with nonstop paintball action. These events begin with a storyline, which could be based on anything from science fiction to cartoons, from spy novels to horror movies. Players who register receive individual character sheets which detail the background, appearance, and secret information their character knows, but not every participant chooses to get into character. Those who only want to trade paint with other players have plenty of opportunity in the target-rich environment of the scenario game.

The fun starts on Friday night when the early arrivers set up camp. The majority of games offer free camping, and some producers also throw a complimentary dinner. Staying up late into the night swapping stories of past games is one of the allures of this type of paintball. Although the game is competitive, the losing team has just as much chance of taking home the prizes in the end, so players typically show up for the camaraderie and the fun of the sport, which makes for a friendly playing environment.

Saturday morning finds people filling out paperwork, topping off air tanks, purchasing paint for the event, and attending the players’ briefing, where the producer goes over all the game’s rules. When the scenario begins, both teams start their mad scramble to obtain props, complete missions, and advance the storyline. For instance, in a sci fi game, players might have to collect computer components to build an android or repair a mainframe that holds crucial data. In a spy game, missions might require commando teams to break into structures to capture enemy agents or collect valuable artifacts. More specialized missions could call for specific characters to interact with role-players on the field, and until you’ve done it, you can’t imagine the thrill of trying to negotiate a truce or barter for goods in the middle of a battle field!

Besides role-playing and missions, certain players will be designated as characters with abilities beyond the average player’s. Medics “heal” those who have been hit by paintballs, saving them from having to return to their starting stations to reinsert. Demolitions experts set explosives or defuse them, as the case may be. Of course these aren’t really explosive devices, but take a block of clay and stick a digital watch on it and you have a hunk of plastic explosive. When the timer on the watch goes off, the bomb eliminates all players within 40 feet, that is unless a demolitions expert manages to get to it first. What can be done in the game is only limited by the imaginations of the producer and players.

During Saturday night, both teams hit the field to play in the dark, a style of paintball that requires honor (you can’t really see if you’re hit) and promotes sneakiness. When stealthy players crawling the field bump into each other, the action heats up pretty quickly. Then Sunday’s portion of the game ends with a final battle that pulls every player into one massive shoot out. Finally, the sponsors for the game provide the prize package, which the producer gives away in a random drawing at game’s end. Sometimes these can top $10,000 worth of paintball gear – everything from markers and hoppers to airtanks and clothes.

If you’re interested in trying scenario style paintball but don’t want to commit to an entire weekend’s worth, some producers offer single day, 12 hour games. Another local option is to attend a theme day at Line-of-Fire (www.lofpb.com). These afternoon-long events, held on Saturdays, mimic the scenario format in an affordable, shorter version. When you give scenario ‘ball a try, in whatever form you choose, you’re in for 8-24 hours of pure paintball bliss.