Sunday, November 4, 2012

.50 caliber vs .68 caliber


Hey everyone! 
Hope you guys had a great week and been staying warm as well! Last week I went over some practical tips for beginners that they should consider when they first start out playing. This week I’ll be over a very controversial topic that has been in the paintball community for some time now.
            Paintballs originally have a caliber of .68, it has been like that since the sport first began. The size of this round is generally considering the ‘perfect’ size. Mainly because the round isn’t too big to where it hurts extremely bad when it makes impact on a player, and nor is it too small to were the hit is barely noticeable. Around early 2010, manufactures began testing different size paintballs to find a way to make paintball more affordable and a little less abusive on the body when playing. This created the birth of .50 caliber rounds which is numerically doesn’t seem like a big difference consider its only .18 deviation. In person however, the size is dramatically smaller. A few companies have pushed to make .50 caliber rounds the new ‘standard’ size for paintballs. These smaller rounds have several different benefits over the traditional rounds. First, they make paintball more affordable because more rounds can be produced at a cheaper price. Second, it will attract more people to play the sport due to the light impact the paintball will have on the body because the round is so small. Now these benefits seem to be almost near to the ‘perfect’ idealism of what paintball should be, but there is several down falls. The traditional .68 caliber has been used for years. Markers were designed to fire these size rounds, imagine the demand to convert the entire paintball community over to .50 caliber rounds! Heck, I remember how stressed I was when this topic first came up because I had just recently bought a new marker, and conversion kits were not free either, they were almost the price of whole new marker! Also, players were no longer able to tell when they were hit! Referees had to be on their A game to make sure players got out when they were hit. This typically wasn’t the players fault because the hit felt almost identical to someone poking you!
            Now as far as the future for this issue, it has been well over 3 years since this ‘caliber evolution’ took place. Yet you still see .68 caliber rounds being used today, mainly because it was going to be a hectic change for many people. If this change were to be enforced by tournaments and companies this would probably wipe out half the population of paintball enthusiast. I know for myself it would of set me back as well, I just don’t have funds to afford a conversion or a compete new marker that would accept .50 caliber rounds. Now this doesn’t mean that .50 rounds are no longer being used. Many fields have started using these rounds with beginners because it offers a more pleasure experience for people who aren’t use to being shot by the traditional rounds. Also it makes it more affordable for people who aren’t enthusiast and are just first time beginners, or recreational players. Now, I don’t think this means we won’t see another change or a suggestion for another change in the near future. Companies, tournaments, and even players strive to make paintball a more pleasure experience for newcomers. Because all enthusiasts remember how scared or intimated they were whenever they first played. This intimidation factor is usually the number one set back that keeps paintball from becoming an extreme sport. So who knows, maybe someday they can develop paintballs that are made of a different material so it doesn’t coast as much to produce but still yields to the same caliber size?

            Well that wraps weeks post everyone! I hope you guys have learned more about paintball and see this sport in a different light! If you have any questions feel free email me or just post a comment! I’m always trying to get more and more people to at least give this sport a shot! Because without a doubt there is no other sport like it!

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