Winter Paint Suggestions

Friday December 7th, 2007 -- By: Morgan the Terrible
I’ve had a lot of customers asking me this week about what paint they should be using in the winter months. The thing about the winter in the northwest is that not only is it cold, but can also have the tendency to be wet (go figure). At any rate choosing an actual ball formulated for winter play is going to be an obvious wise decision, however, if winter paint cannot be acquired, choosing a paint that normally has a thicker shell would be a better choice than a paint with a more brittle shell. The reason being is that the cold makes a shell more brittle. Ultra is a word to fear during the winter. By the way if you freeze a paintball it wont kill somebody, it might not even hurt at all, because the ball becomes super brittle.

When sizing your balls (minds out of the gutter please), make sure to keep in mind that the temperature and humidity will affect the bore size in which you are trying to match. For example on a cold dry day, your balls will shrink (again, gutter), however on a cold humid day your balls will grow in size by a small amount. As a rule of thumb always match your paint at the field if you can, as the temperature of your playing environment is going to be different than your staging area in most cases.

Some examples of good non winter paintballs that are decent in colder weather are going to be Draxxus Rec-Sport and Midnight, Spyder Red and Black Label, RPS Marballizer and Premium. Most paint manufacturers will also switch their formula to perform better in colder weather. At the time of purchase if you can, request a drop test. This is just what is sounds like. Dropping paint on the ground to test the brittleness. For winter play, you should be looking for about a 4 foot plus drop test. This means that the paint should be breaking at about a 4 foot free fall or above.

So again just remember, cold equals brittle. Hard is good. Happy hunting.