Recreational Paintball VS Tournament Paintball

In the paintball industry, there are two very distinct types of paintball. Both types have the same basic aspects, such as shooting little paint-filled, semi-hard gelatin balls across the field in an attempt to mark your opponent; however, the differences are abundantly obvious between the two forms of the sport. Tournament players’ “uniforms,” for instance, will generally consist of a brightly colored jersey, an electronic gun that, for the most part, does not even resemble a modern firearm, and a fancy, colorful, flexible mask. A recreational player, however, will generally opt for a mechanical gun that is a mockup of one of today’s current firearms, camouflage clothing, and a black or olive drab mask that is more rigid and protective.

Looks do not make the player, though. Despite the fact that the tournament scene is becoming increasingly more about what you wear; somewhat akin to a movie star worried about what brand they wear when they walk the red carpet, a player’s choice of uniform does not make him faster or more accurate with his shooting. Recreational players, for the most part, truly could not care less about how they look; however, the noted appearance fad born in the tournament scene is starting to trickle down to the recreational players as well.

The rules are different in the two forms as well. Recreational paintball uses the same basic rules, but they are generally far more forgiving than any set of tournament rules to date. Recreational rules generally allow for the use of non- semi automatic firing modes, such as fully automatic and three and six round burst modes. All formal tournament rules disallow the use of anything that gives two or more shots per one pull of the trigger. Some tournaments will even disqualify the team from the event without refund for one gun found with a ramping chip (a ramping chip is a computer chip used in an electric paintball marker to make a marker’s rate of fire jump up to a certain predetermined about of balls per second being fired, this is triggered by hitting a much lower rate of fire first.) Trigger bounce (trigger bounce is when a trigger is pulled once, but continues to move and fire the marker without having to be actually pulled again, or even touched) will also get a team disqualified the same way the use of a ramping chip will. Some of the other things allowed in recreational paintball are multiple layers of clothing, since a paintball bouncing off an opponent is not as big of a problem as in tournament ball, use of multiple markers per person on the field at the same time, and bunkering (shooting someone point blank) is often not allowed.

Tournament paintball rules often impose stricter penalties, such as pulling multiple players from a team if he wipes a hit (removes a legal hit from his person after being marked), monetary fines, and disqualification from current and future tournaments even for more serious offenses. Recreational paintball usually allows players much more freedom when it comes to being reprimanded for breaking the rules, mostly due to field owners’ wanting their customers to be happy and coming back to their field repeatedly. Recreational players are most often simply scolded by a referee or owner of the field if the offence is serious enough. Recreational rules are also very flexible depending on the participants at the time. Some changes might include allowing bunkering to occur and how the game starts.

Game play is also very different between tournament players and recreational players. Tournament players are far more aggressive and fast paced in their style of play; their body form is often straighter and looks much better over all. Tournament players believe attitude and style is everything. Recreational players often all hang around in the back of the field acting scared; they generally lack form and style, and it shows in how they perform on the field.

In conclusion, recreational players and tournament players, while playing the same basic game, are two very different groups of people who love the sport of paintball; however, both enjoy playing it in two very different ways.