Tough Guys.

We haven’t done a lot of advertising of our Low Impact (50 cal) games yet, but the odd thing is that the two paying groups we’ve had so far were both stags.  I was expecting tweens and teens to be asking for this, but apparently it’s the tough twenty and thirty something males interested in low impact paintball.  Who would have thunk it?

I Don't Get it!

Does anyone else think it's weird that the Sandana's Owner's Club is one of the busiest sub-forums on PBNATION?  http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=3988217

Our First Low Impact Paintball Game

We played our first Low Impact Game (50 caliber game) at TNT Paintball today.  Since I knew it was going to be a learning experience for us, I didn’t feel right subjecting paying customers to our little experiment, so we held a little competition through Facebook with the winners receiving a free paintball outing for themselves and three friends.  The outing included field fees, rentals, lunch, and free paintballs (250 for an afternoon session).  The players didn’t have to spend a penny, assuming they could hold themselves to the 250 paintballs.  Most couldn’t, which didn’t surprise me.  Not because I don’t think that players could play with 250 paintball during that time span, but because the whole thing was free, so spending an extra $20 or so wasn’t going to seem like a big deal, and that seems to be what most did.

But I didn’t feel too bad about it.  Usually, shooting 500 paintballs in a half day session of “regular” paintball is a little too much for the “average” player.  But with the Low Impact Paintball games, shooting 500 paintballs  in a half day didn’t seem as bad.

We had players that have played quite a lot of paintball, some that have played a few times in their life and a few who had never played.  Everyone in the game used exactly the same gear (we are using the Kingmann Opus for the time being) regardless of experience.

I watched some of the games and even jumped in on a few to experience firsthand what playing with the smaller balls would be like.  I have to say, for recreational paintball, I really didn’t feel a lot of difference other than when I got hit, it hurt less.  When hit on bare skin, it was not without any discomfort, it was just a lot less discomfort.  Everyone in the group seemed to have a good time with most of them voicing it quite enthusiastically.  One player commented that he would be able to go to work tomorrow and not have to worry about being sore.  There were a lot of comments about how this was going to be a good thing for those that were worried about the pain associated with paintball.

The only disappointing part of the day was the “no shows”.  Although in the contest I made it clear that the prize could only be used today between 12 and 4 and that if they didn’t think they could make it, they shouldn’t enter, almost half that won the prize, didn’t show up.  That once again demonstrated to me that it’s not the cost of paintball that is keeping people away.  I think for new people it is mostly fear and then in general, it’s the fact that there are just a lot of choice today in our society.  There are so many things people can choose to spend their time on, paintball is just one of many choices and gets lost among everything else.

50 Caliber Conversion Kits

So in the comment section of my last entry “Holding Back 50 Caliber Evolution” -  http://reiner-schafer.blogspot.ca/2013/02/holding-back-50-caliber-evolution.html#comment-form ) , I hinted that there was something coming down the pike that might be noteworthy; a marker providing the reliability of something like a Tippmann 98 for the 50 caliber market.  Something currently not available, but being sought by many field owners.

Well, I’ve been given permission to provide a little more info, although at this point the manufacturer has asked to remain anonymous until the official launch hopefully happening in a few short weeks.  Being released shortly will be a 50 caliber modification for 68 caliber markers including the Tippmann’s 98,the FT12 and I believe some other markers as well (the Tippmann’s are the only ones I have 100% confirmation for at this point).

It is not a typical conversion kit that requires a breach adaptor, bolt and barrel to work, rather 1 piece that adapts the gun to 50 cal.  It apparently does not even need a separate 50 caliber barrel, the stock barrel can be screwed back on after the conversion is done.  The conversion can also be reversed.  In the case of the FT12, to convert from 68 to 50 caliber, or from 50 back to 68 caliber can be done in less than a minute.  The 98 takes longer due to having to separate the clamshell body halves to get at the internals.  The price has not been confirmed, but is indicated to be much less than a separate new rental marker like the Spyder Opus.  If the modification does not affect the reliability of the Tippmann marker, we may have a winner on our hands.

 The obvious advantage from a field owner’s perspective (especially a relatively small operation field owner) is that he/she does not need to have two complete sets of guns to be able to cater to both the 50 caliber and 68 caliber market.  For someone like myself, that is still in the “trial” stages of offering 50 caliber games, I don’t have to invest nearly as much as I thought I would have to invest to give it a try, and hopefully I will have something that is more reliable than the Spyder.

I am hoping to get a prototype in my hands sometime in the next week or two and then will hopefully have a little more info.

Holding Back 50 Caliber Evolution

Communicating lately with various field owners, some who are already offering 50 caliber as part of their services and some who would like to but have not taken the leap yet, I’m hearing more and more complaints about the lack of a decent mechanical semi-auto that is reliable enough for rental use.  Most seem to be using Kingmann’s Spyder Opus as it seems to be the best of the bad.  The biggest complaint, like most Spyders, is that when a ball breaks, the gun will stop functioning to the point where it will not fire without being torn apart, cleaned and then reassembled.  If a ball breaks in a Tippmann for instance, at least it will still fire and the renter can finish the game.  Thirty seconds of cleaning and it’s usually good to for the rest of the day.  After the day is over, if sufficiently dirty, it will need to be stripped and cleaned properly, but at least that can be done during a time when it’s not keeping a customer from playing a game.

There seems to be a clear Demand for a reliable 50 caliber rental, but at this time, there is no Supply available.  Have the manufacturers forgotten about the basic rules of economics.  Would it not be easier to fulfill a Demand that already exists and is not being Supplied than trying to add another bell or whistle onto markers that there are already more than enough choices of out there?  The market is flooded with mid-high end electros.  The market is bare of simple, reliable, mechanical, rental worthy 50 caliber markers.

It’s in the best interest of manufacturers to expand paintball’s attraction to a wider demographic.  Here’s an ideal way to do so, yet everyone seems to be asleep at the switch.  Let’s get on it.

Evolution versus Revolution

Merriam-Webster has several definitions for the word “revolution”, but the one that applies to the forthcoming discussion is this; “a changeover in use or preference especially in technology”.  A couple of examples of this would be the computer revolution and the foreign car revolution.

In 2009, Richmond Italia re-entered the paintball industry with a new company (GI Milsim).  He also came back with a revolutionary idea (well, he proposed it as being revolutionary); that being that 50 caliber paintballs would find a big place in the paintball market.  He basically told us that 50 caliber was better (and cheaper) than 68 caliber, and a switch should take place.  At least, that’s the way most people interpreted his marketing.

It didn’t take long for a counter-revolution to rise, with many self proclaimed experts in the player’s ranks, doing tests that demonstrated that 50 caliber was in fact inferior, rather than superior to 68 caliber paintball.  The counter-revolution was so massive and widespread that the 50 caliber revolution was squashed.  Italia stopped publicly marketing the 50 caliber revolution.  50 caliber was dead, or so most thought.

But GI Milsim never stopped making 50 caliber products.  Nor did other companies like Kingmann.  Other companies that were thinking of getting into the 50 caliber market did stop though, for the most part.  50 caliber was a viable option apparently in some parts of the world, where restrictions based on the energy of a projectile leaving the muzzle of a “gun”.  In some parts of the world, 68 caliber didn’t comply, 50 caliber did.  So there was still a market, albeit not as big as the lucrative North American market.

Three years later in 2012, JT entered the 50 caliber market with the JT Splatmaster; a 50 caliber spring powered paintball marker aimed at the young player market (8 years and up).  Surprisingly, this was met with a lot of good reviews from current players.  The difference?  Current players weren’t threatened.  JT wasn’t telling them that their new product was going to take over the paintball world.  JT wasn’t telling people that they would eventually have to change to JT Splatmasters and 50 caliber paintballs.  And so 50 caliber had started to find its niche in the paintball market.

But the evolution (not revolution) of 50 caliber paintball had started long before JT introduced the JT Splatmaster.  There were paintball fields all over North America that incorporated 50 caliber paintball as part of their offerings.  Although 50 caliber paintball was in some ways inferior to 68 caliber paintball, it’s big advantage lay in the fact that 50 caliber paintballs, when shot at the same velocity, carry much less energy.  Less energy translates into less pain when it hits a person.  Since paintball is all about hitting people with paintballs, this fact was not lost on those whose potential customers are concerned with the pain associated with paintball.

I’ve mentioned it on my blog before, that change almost always happens due to economic pressures, unless mandated by a governing entity.  The demand for less painful paintball is an economic reality.  Field owners know this (well most of them anyway).  Those that have previously read my blog, know that I have often talked about extreme/intense and less extreme/intense paintball.  You also know that I feel that the two versions attract different types of people.  Mostly I’ve related this to Rate of Fire (the number of paintballs shot divided by some measurement of time).  I’ve also mentioned that the drop in price of paintballs has majorly contributed to the increase in Rate of Fire.  The problem lies in the fact that field owners feel the need to sell larger volumes of paintballs to meet expenses (low volume sales with low prices doesn’t work out so well).  This is where the 50 caliber paintball comes in.  But 50 caliber paintballs aren’t priced all that much different than their 68 caliber cousins.  So how does this help the field owner?

With 50 caliber paintballs, field owners can still supply the easier to use semi-auto markers that make new players feel like Rambo, can still sell 50 caliber paintballs as cheap or even cheaper than 68 caliber, meaning the same or even higher volumes will be shot, but people playing the game will still have a less extreme experience due to less pain associated with hits.  This attracts a different demographic of customers; a demographic that wouldn’t play the 68 caliber version.  And so the 50 caliber Evolution is slowly taking place, even though the 50 caliber Revolution was squashed years ago.

Will 50 caliber replace 68 caliber paintball?  No, I doubt that will ever happen (unless mandated).  But 50 caliber paintball will grow and that’s a good thing.  It’s still paintball and it attracts people to paintball fields; more people.  I, for one, am not going to complain about that.