Do you THINK

[custar]

For a short answer, much in paintball is as it is because we live in a capitalistic society. Anyone who has he capital can start a new league, impose a set of rules, and just start it, correct? The players can vote with their feet on whether they want to play in that league or not. The only real regulation is that of economic survival; if the rules are unsafe or unfair enough, players will go elsewhere. Markers are produced to make a profit and to avoid a personal injury or products liability lawsuit, and some are produced even below the later standard. Think about the slams SP has taken on the ROF cap on their low end Ion derivatives. In my experience, field owners permit the highest ROF allowed on their insurance policy, and that limit isn't policed consistently or accurately. You get the point by now.

So, if we have a true problem here, how can it be fixed?

custar

[Hilltop Customs]

I think were stupid because we let players(kids and adults) use HPA and oil side by side without ever educating them.


I dont really see a problem with marco line....if it fails it whips around and crap, but its not like the reg blowing off a tank as it is being filled(especially considering how crowded fill areas are sometimes and how close the person filling the tank is) Id say about the worst thing that could happen if macroline fails is the loss of an eye, thats compared to death from a tank explosion. Tank explosions also have many different ways to hurt you....the fire of the explosion, the percussion could do some serious hearing damage, and all the projectiles(pieces of the reg, tank and marker) flying around. I actually think the HPA tanks are very safe(they have to be, imagine the fill/explosion ratio) it is the uninformed users who create the danger. To completely negate that danger we could have stuck with nitrogen fills, but those are more expensive........$ matters more than safety.

As for the governing body, thats a tough one. Paintball has been evolving over the ~20 years it has been around, it may just be too difficult to keep up with the changes. Or you could say it all stems from money, a governing body costs money to run and its rules cost money to enforce, wheres the money going to come from? I'm sure players dont want to pay dues, and field owners sure dont want to share profits....tournaments ran by the governing body could be a likely source, but now your talking about creating a governing body and scheduling/running tournaments.....who wants to take on that responsibility. And finally the true downfall, how are you going to assimilate all the different leagues under your one governing body?

[punkncat]

...the fire of the explosion....

Where is the fire coming from? It's an HPA tank.

[questionful]

Where is the fire coming from? It's an HPA tank.

oil burning under extreme pressure.

[punkncat]

oil burning under extreme pressure.

Well we are considering ways the tank could explode, even though oil should not have been in there in the first place.....

[Hilltop Customs]

thats why the first line of my post was "I think were stupid because we let players(kids and adults) use HPA and oil side by side without ever educating them."

there was a tank explosion awhile back, and the guy involved got his hands burnt to all hell and there were pictures posted up showing his burns. There was also talk of tanks with plastic liners that exploded, but I think they couldnt figure out what exactly had happened. does anyone have any examples of a HPA tank failure that does not come back to oil? I havent seen any....these tanks are not brittle, they can take a pounding and the only thing that will fail is a visual tank inspection. HPA tanks are strapped to the backs of scuba divers(ok those are not all fiber wrapped) and firemen...if they had a likely chance of failure other than from misuse I dont think people would be willing to strap them to their back.

Its our practice of flash filling, and the use of oil side by side with HPA that is dangerous....not the tanks themselves, or even our physical abuse of the tanks.

I remember people being scared about the ego's and their "crash frames" because the frame could possibly snap in half and the separation could break the marcoline causing the tank and lower part of the frame to become a "projectile". Well if the frame breaks and so does the marco....the tank would lay there on the ground hissing like crazy out the marco, but it wont go flying....for the tank to go flying you need a LARGE hole for air to escape very quickly....like when a reg blows off.

[punkncat]

Missed that part. I stand corrected. Very true.

[Hilltop Customs]

my stupid use of grammer, and not proofreading what I wrote probably didnt help lol

[B-Pow]

paintball as a whole is...contradictory.

We play a game with honor and whiper slides.

We assert rules on marker capibilities (ASTM bps cap) and promptly break them...in mass produced consumer products.

we look at insurance mandated bps caps [15bps usually] at a fields that rent ions [that are 'naturally' capped at 17, and almost never adjusted down to 15]

if you mention to a suba shop owner what a flash fill is (and how that is the usual way to fill a paintball air tank)...or what your 4500psi fiber wrapped tank goes through in a day...they are supprized you are still alive.

Most of our "professionals" barely get paid, if at all, and believe they are kings of the world.

Most of our "professionals" behave in a manner unfitting of an athlete or role model, and we allow this behavior to continue...in fact the curent tourney scene we encurage poor behavior.

We allow the compaines to tell us what we want instead of the market being consumer driven.

------------------

There is a reason I do not call paintball a sport, it is a hobby...it may become a sport in my eyes when it begins to act like one.

When it's all said and done; I go out to the middle of nowhere to fling glorified gelitan balls at my friends, aquentces, and strangers. And I'm going to keep doing that, because I find it fun.

[Beemer]

As was said before....the group that constitutes paintball as a whole, players and industry as well need to get together, set up some rules...update and agree on the current ones, and put in place some real oversight before the federal govn't is forced to.

You would think. But then again that would be SMART. That wont happen because the GROUP and Paint Ball as I can prove got STUPID. How many of the smart ones have left now?

Half the blame falls on the companies and field for providing this crap, but the other half falls on the players who keep shelling out money for unsafe products and to play at unsafe fields. Doing stuff right can be expensive, and it certainly is with regard to safety. Still, it has to be done, and you can bet it'll cost a lot more WHEN the government has to step in and regulate it for us.

Well if they dont know no better and arent informed or educated what did you think would happen? Fixed a word in there.

So, if we have a true problem here, how can it be fixed?

custar

How can it, more like how will it.

I think were stupid because..........

Well you dont have to tell me. That is all I been hearing the last three years from the smart folks I talk with. It is a sad thing when you talk with a head engineer at the CPSC and express your concerns, then hear him say, ya thats pretty STUPID stuff.

paintball as a whole is...contradictory.
if you mention to a suba shop owner what a flash fill is (and how that is the usual way to fill a paintball air tank)...or what your 4500psi fiber wrapped tank goes through in a day...they are supprized you are still alive.

We allow the compaines to tell us what we want instead of the market being consumer driven.

Paint Ball as a whole is stupid. When I talk to the scuba guys the first thing I hear is, man you guys are stupid, someone is going to get killed. I dont mention two people already have and that was with CO2 tanks at one quarter the pressure of HPA.

Edit....This is the Paint ball field calling. We regret to inform you, two loved ones are dead because paint ball got stupid.

[ThePixelGuru]

Well if they dont know no better and arent informed or educated what did you think would happen? Fixed a word in there.

Your fix isn't really off base. I think it's unfortunate but true that your average paintballer isn't going to follow any real safety standards without someone twisting his arm, and the only one in a position to do that is Big Brother. If paintballers were willing to police themselves, we wouldn't have abandoned ASTM standards in the first place. Even after several deaths and life-changing injuries, people still don't get it. There are too many dumb people out there with the "it won't happen to me" mentality.

Granted, injuries and even deaths happen in most (if not all) sports, but the paintball industry as a whole isn't doing nearly as much as it could to prevent it.