Paintball on Ice
by Tony Sasso, Columnist
Winter usually means cold, snow, and everything miserable for C02 players.
But winter ball is just a little different than any other time of the year.
With winter just around the corner, here are some tips on how to prepare
yourself and your equipment for the cold season. Winter is closing
in, and the paintball season is coming to an end. That means that
it is time for winter play. Load up your gun with Polar Ice and breakout
the thermal lenses.
Your Gun
The first and for most thing you need to worry about, is your gun.
When playing in cold weather your gun will tend to act up more, especially
if you are using CO2. If you are, then you will probably want two things:
an anti-siphon system on your tank, and an expansion chamber. Now
you may ask what are these things and what do they do? An anti-siphon
system makes it so that your gun will not siphon, or drain out, solid CO2.
This means that it will make it more difficult to have your gun to go solid,
(meaning that solid CO2 gets into your gun valve and freezes it causing
it to malfunction). An anit-siphon kit places a small tube in the
tank that points up and away from the resting solid C02 in the tank.
Usually, anti-siphon kits need to be custom fit and installed by an airsmith.
An expansion chamber will help in the fight against solid C02.
What an expansion chamber does is allow any solid CO2 to expand into a
gas before entering the gun. This usually happens by a spiral insert
or separated chambers inside the expansion to allow the liquid to change
state. You can also accomplish this by using a spiral remote system.
You can then wear the tank on you back, in your harness. Any solid
C02 will have to travel through to hose into the gun giving it a chance
to expand. Also never heat you tank. Placing a tank near a heat source
or providing a heater for your tank when it is cold will cause it to maybe
crack, warp, or have the CO2 expand increasing pressure, which can cause
the burst disc to blow (goes under the little lug on the side of your C02
tank). This is usually a bad thing (unless you carry extra burst
discs around, which I recommend). When you start playing, try to
avoid freezing the gun or allowing it to feed solid C02; stay off of the
trigger if you see it clouding up. Fire only three or four round
bursts at most. Using a pump will help you with the trigger problem.
Your Gear
Simply put, what are you going to wear? First make sure you dress
in layers for two reasons. One, it is cold and you want to stay warm.
If you get hot you can take something off. Two, when it is cold paint
doesn't break as easily. It will tend to sting more and seem to hit
harder (ouch more welts). Now when it comes to your mask you need
to have thermal lenses to prevent fogging up instantly. If your mask
doesn't have thermal lenses you can either buy some from the people that
manufacture it (such as JT, Scott, Vents, etc.) or you can buy a thermal
insert (such as Combat Vision, etc.). Most inserts like the JT No-Fog
insert aren't thermal they are just a piece of plastic with a anti-fog
treatment on them. The best thermal insert around is made by Combat
Vision. All you do is stick the sealed thermal insert on your lenses
and you are ready to rock. Another item that realy helps in the area
of anti-fog is a goggle fan such as the fan produced by JT. The constant
flow of air will eliminate any remaining fog in your goggles.
Your Paint
When it comes to paintballs it is usually hard to keep them from freezing.
This is usually the biggest problem with paint in cold weather. When you
play in cold enough weather that your balls freeze (paint and otherwise),
you might consider finding an indoor field around your area. If you
insist on playing outside, R.P Scherer has Polar Ice paintballs.
This paint is designed for use in weather under 50 degrees F. Give
them a whirl. A great idea for your paint is to keep it in a cooler
for the opposite effect to keep the cold out. You might ask why but a cooler
is insulated and will help to keep your paint from freezing. This also
works in the summer when you don't want your paint to get to hot. A simple
Igloo cooler might just save that expensive case of All Star you
bought.
Tony Sasso
MPN Columnist
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