Generosity in paintball

[Lohman446]

The other day I was at the field and my mag was not shooting right (I had a piece of the on-off assembly in my smart mag backwards, I had bought an aftermarket rebuild kit so I had no faith in the o-rings, and basically replaced or turned over every piece one at at time, then undid the turn overs, until I got it right - it was a stupid error by me, but took like 20 tear downs to get right, anyways, all my stupidity and lack of knowledge, but another story now told). I was cursing this thing over and over and over again, and really wanted to play one game. A gentleman there handed me a gun and told me to try it - little did I know at the time it was "a cocker on crack" an F5? - forgive me if I got this wrong, it was some electro cocker accurate as hell and perfectly balanced (as any gun that is over $1000 should be - ok, accuracy may have come from the balancing, whatever). I played a game with this. In the dream guns thread I saw something about a main gun, a back-up gun, and a loaner gun. My point here - there is a lot of good players in paintball - those willing to hand over an expensive piece of equipment to another player (or even my 13 year old son) and let them try it. How many times have you expressed interest in a gun and not been allowed to try it? None here... or been low on paint between games and handed a refill rather than walking back to staging? What I am expressing here is an appreciation for all of the good in paintball, the patience of experienced players to teach younger, explain rules, reminders of safety - the comment "barrel plug please" is common when someone sees it, yelling is infrequent, think of the amount of people who ask for paint checks in a game, to make certain they are not cheating - think of the people who check that honestly. There is more good than bad in this sport, more generosity, more willingness to help the sport, then I have seen in almost any other sport -and I have competed heavily in martial arts with people who were great people, who exhibited sportsmanship in ways I never thought I would see again - and frankly, I have seen a degree of sportsmanship in paintball that I only wish was matched in more "mainstream" sports.

[Daroy99]

My mags nothing special, but its the only one at my field besides an X mag. The refs like like, "whats that, hes shooting a mag?" anyways, a few kids have asked me what the trigger pull was like and i let t hem shoot it, or i let them hold it. I also fixed two peoples spyders before. I'd give out paint during games but its usually me asking to borrow, and i always get some then pay them back. Not to many people loan out there gun, cept daroach, which lent it out and he hadnt said a word to me in person before.

[ASDadam]

I agree with you that Almost ALL Rec players and some tourny players display incredible amounts of generosity. There have been many games that i've played at unnamed fields where they gave the kid a horrible gun to use and it would break on him constantly and me or someone on my team would sit out a few games or ref and let the kid borrow our spyder/a5/mag/etc just so he could have a great time. And i've seen other plays Willingly pass pods around to people who ran out of paint but wanted to play just a bit longer. Sportsmanship with this sport is like you said, amazing.

[lord1234]

this is especially true i find of AO members. When i first joined AO oldsoldier came out to play with me and since i was a noob to mags helped me understand em. Also, 2 weeks ago me and him were at our local field and we ended up fixing this other guys mag for him. AO members and rec players are always nice.

[aaron_mag]

Yes martial artists are usually very good sports. It is summer lacrosse season at the moment and I'm hauling my old body around the field to get some exercise. I am amazed, however, at how much the players yell at the ref. I've gotten used to martial arts where you just don't question the ref at all. Some calls may not be perfect but you just have to deal with it.

Recball is generally really good and people get along. I have seen pushing and shoving matches between players (both tourney players that were practicing and rec players). So occasionally even we paintballers get a little too excited!

[845]

I lend my gun out because I like to let the kid with the M98 get to shoot a fast gun. Its great when they give it back (or I have to tear it from there hands) and there eyes are wide and they are like boy thats fast.