When it comes to playing winter paintball , especially in winters, you will work up to sweat. Many of us wait for summer to dive into the paintball game in the height of winter.
Yes, you can play paintball in winter too, but with some measures and precautions, if you do not change your playing style and gear to deal with the aspects in winter, you are in for a bad day experience.
Therefore, there should be some must-haves while playing paintball in winter.
10 Essential Playing Tips for Winter Paintballing
1) Waterproof Boots
Keep your socks dry while playing paintball in winters, as wet socks will offer you great discomfort; therefore, waterproof boots are the best option to avoid moisture in your shoes. Always keep the extra pair of socks with you in case of moisture enters your shoes.
2) Neck Protection
Neck protection is essential to keep yourself warm and safe from cold weather. So use the neck wraps, ski masks, and beanies to keep the paintballs away from splatting on cold skin and alleviate forest bites. Ski masks are the best gear to protect ears and offer warmth.
3) Hunting Gloves
The purpose of the hunting gloves is to be used in freezing temperatures. They keep your hands warm and moisture out of your hands. In the option of hunting gloves, the fleece gloves are great to use as these gloves come with a softer texture.
These gloves are not waterproof, but you can find insulted fleece gloves with little more investment.
4) Take Care of Shells in Markers
The shell of the paintball marker is made with gelatin or vegetable starch material. When the temperature goes to zero, the shells of the markers get brittle, thus leading to breakage and damage in handling or before coming out of the barrel. So to avoid this issue, keep your paint insulated and save it from cold to a possible extent.
5) Thermal Lens for Goggles
You can easily use the single lens and an anti-fog in the summer season, but in winter, you cannot use them. In winter, the interior of your glasses will get foggy, like when people’s glasses get the look of coming into a warm place from the cold and then freeze in place.
Therefore, thermal lens is the best option to avoid this.
6) Stay Hydrated
In winter, it’s not hot and humid like in summers. It does not mean that you can lay off the fluids. You make yourself hydrated like summers in winters too. It will help if you intake plenty of water the day before, in the morning and daytime, and during the gameplay. Taking in some quantity of hot team coffee cocoa is a nice belly warmer fluid between the games.
7) Avoid CO2 Tanks
The use of CO2 tanks is best to use in summers but not in summers. The pressure on CO2 tanks in markers decreases significantly in the winter season. As a result, your velocity drops off, and your markers will not properly work, leading to a cluttering sound in the mechanism.
Your marker will go to the liquid state, the gun’s body will frost, and thick white vapors will come out of the barrel. Therefore, to avoid this, you should switch to the compressed air option because the effect of cold weather on compressed air is less and overcome above all issues.
8) Buy Winter-Specific Balls
It is good to purchase winter-specific balls as their shells are thick and resistant to cold weather. Good balls come with the fill that can resist even freezing points. Best winter balls for paintball guns include Valkan Giraffe paintball and empire polar ice.
9) Modify your Markers
Winter weather affects paintballs, but putting warm paintballs into cold markers can also lead to certain issues. So there are some kinds of adjustments you can make to your paintball markers in winter.
Use the thin lubricants, as the temperature can affect oil’s viscosity. Therefore, a thin lubricant can reduce friction in the winter.
Adjusting pressure is the second alteration you can make in your marker for the winter season. The purpose is to lower the pressure and slow down the moving bolt.
Underbore of the barrel is the best way to resist your marker for winters to avoid the breakage of barrels in the marker.
10) Additional Accessories for Winter Paintballing
The most important and inexpensive suggestion is to opt for a thermal insulated bag for food, put your paintball case in it and wrap a warm cloth around the bag during your play game. This will prevent the breakage of your paintballs by keeping them warm.
How To Play Winter Paintball?
It is difficult to play paintball in winter, but it is not completely impossible. If you notice a lot of damage and breakage in your marker and see the low performance, you will get tired early in the winter.
This will probably have the effect of cold weather, and in this post, I will guide you on how to resolve these issues.
Use of poppet valve instead of the spool valve
Unluckily cold weather is not a good option to use spool valves to get the best performance as they rely greatly on air expansion. Air does not expand in the cold weather, so you can opt for a poppet valve to get a high level of performance.
Use the basic markers
A good option to play paintball in winters with the basic markers instead of mechanical paintball markers or a bump gun. When the temperature goes up to zero, you will notice some performance issues, like your eyes are not responsive like they should be.
Gentle hoppers
The hoppers should be gentle in the paintball markers, as it would be hard for you to find the tournament-grade hoppers for your paintball gun. To get the top results, you should use the common theme to keep things simple as the dye rotor is very reliable and simple; however, its components are not the softest.
Good quality winter paintballs
For the good performance in winters, you should go for the good quality paintball guns; otherwise, if you compromise on price and opt for regular grade markers, you will have issues like breaking and damage in the barrels of the gun.
Use of proper dress in winters
This is the most critical tip, as dressing up with warm clothes in many layers is essential. To avoid the risks in winter, always wear armors, waterproof jackets, and sweatshirts. Use a vest to keep your chest warm and wear warm gloves; always wear thermal under your paintball pants and a warm cap on your head.
Conclusion – Winter Paintballing
So this was all about how to play winter paintball and all essential tips regarding it, by following which you can enjoy paintball in cold weather. The essential steps you can take to play paintball in winter is to keep your markers in the weather-controlled office trailer, as when they are kept under the temperature of 70 degrees, the gun barrels become brittle.
So to avoid these issues, most paintball brands provide the paintball especially made for winters that can help withstand cold weather conditions. So the best way is to carry canisters underneath your jacket to keep them flexible. It is also advisable that you not carry as many paintballs in your canisters in winters as you can carry in the warm weather.
Ella Elizbith
