This article was excerpted (to fit space requirements) from 68caliber.com and was reprinted in Paintball News.  The author has over 24 years in the sport and experience with every aspect of the industry.

When you purchase paint, what do you look for?  The brand name?  The caliber size?  The shell or fill color?  The price?  The "grade?

If you're purchasing your paint based on any of the above considerations, good luck, as none of these factors have a major impact on performance. 

Brand names can provide a general indication of quality, but let me clue you in.  More often than not, the paint in that box right now is not exactly the same formulation that was in that box last month and probably won't be the formulation in the box you buy next week.  Some brand names are protected, in the sense that the manufacturer is using the same molds, gel and fill formulation, drying and tumbling times, same quality specifications, but beyond a certain point, paint manufacturing is an art, not a science.

Just because Great Paint shot good last weekend is no guarantee that it will do the same this weekend.

The caliber size?  Hah.  EVERYONE who makes paint prints ".68 caliber" on the side of their boxes.  Going by the inserts provided by the barrel manufacturers, .68 caliber can range from .679 to .697, and most likely balls have been produced that are outside of that range as well.

Shell or fill color?  Ok.  And the fact that my gun is anodized red means that it shoots faster than everyone else's.

Price?  More expensive balls give better performance?  Cheaper balls are crap?  Well, there's actually something to be said for pricing.  In a lot of cases, price reflects grade, but as we'll see, that is most definitely not always the case.

 How about the grade?  We've got brown box, white box, rainbow, skittles, rec paint, scenario paint, tournament paint, professional paint, field paint, premium paint, private label paint, some stuff I left in my car trunk since last season paint, Chinese paint, winter paint, seconds, floor sweepings and "secret formula" paint.

What's that all about?  Well, that started early on in the industry when the few manufacturers that existed wanted to offer different products to different market segments.  They made good, basic paint for fields and then they offered a more expensive ball to picky customers, such as tournament teams. 

Once more competitors started entering the market, each of them wanted their paint to look and sound better than the other guy's, so they labeled their boxes and paint with different gradings.

A little less than two decades ago, it was true that the better sounding grade names had a fair amount to do with the higher price being asked for the paint, because it was a better grade of paint;  it was made with thicker, stickier fills, used better gelatin, more attention was paid to quality control and the formulations were tailored for the ball's use.

Today, the lines between grades have blurred to a large extent and there are plenty of private re-labelers (not to mention manufacturers) who shove any old paint into any old box, depending on how much profit they need to make this week.

Joe Schmo cobbles a few bucks together, contracts with a paint manufacturer to purchase a few million balls (cheapest grade possible), has a fancy box printed up with a name that market research indicates will have a hot response and there it is on the internet, selling for $85 a case  "Joe Schmo's Absolutely Killer Professional Grade Paintballs.  Joe spends all his money on buying off a few high-profile teams (they get someone else's tournament grade paint slipped into Joe's boxes) and on glitzy advertising campaigns and the next thing you know, hundreds of players are buying factory rejects at premium pricing.

(He gets away with this time and again because most paintballers are ignorant)

There are, in reality, only four or five real gradations and variations amongst paint formulas, and they are there for a distinct purpose.

White box or seconds are usually overruns, rejected paint, paint that didn't quite make the cut for a higher grade, paint that was not the right color, paint that is too old or paint that, for one reason or another, is not or can't be packaged as a higher grade.  Sometimes seconds shoot fantastically and, lucky you, you ended up with a great bargain.  Other times you may as well pick up a paintbrush, shove it in the box and then run screaming at your opponents for all the performance you get.  (Hey, look at the pretty colors inside my barrel and all over the inside of my hopper)

Recreational grade is usually an inexpensive ball with a relatively hard shell and a relatively thin fill.  That's because most rec players are using lower end guns that put a beating on the ball when fired;  most rec players are just 'fooling around', so fill thickness is not a major concern, and thinning it out lowers the cost of manufacture.  Sometimes rec paint is re-packaged seconds, as there really is very little difference between the expectations of the white box customer and the rec paint customer.  (Ignorance again)

Field paint usually has a pretty thick shell and a medium thick fill;  field owners do not want to be cleaning guns all day - it cuts down on their profit margin and, if the players bounce a few balls off of each other during the day, no big deal, they just might have to purchase another case to get through the day.

Premium paints are usually a medium-thick to medium-thin shell and a relatively thick fill.  Premium paint customers are usually a litter better educated than their rec counterparts;  they're looking for a straight-flying ball that breaks most of the time and leaves a mark that can be seen from a good distance.  These are players who are willing to pay a bit more for better performance.

Tournament, professional and secret formula paints are (usually) the high-end performers in the market.  These paints are made under exacting quality standards for weight, size, seam, etc., have very, very brittle shells and very, very thick and heavy fills.  People playing for money don't object to greater expense, want consistency from shot to shot, want the ball to break on target every time (they'll deal with the barrel breaks) and don't want that paint wiped off easily. 

Beyond that, it's all just marketing and advertising, so far as "branding" and box are  concerned.
So.  What all of this essentially means is that you aren't going to know anything about a paint's performance until you open up that box, load some of it up and start shooting.

And even then, you're probably going to be way off base, because there's a whole heck of a lot of other things to take into consideration first.

Number one - whenever you purchase paint, you should VISUALLY INSPECT IT.  Most times you can't do this with internet purchases, which is one of the reasons that buying paint over the web is such a crapshoot.  The vast majority of paint sold through internet stores is sold "as is"  no returns.  If soup arrives in the mail, you're shooting soup, end of story.  Some internet sites offer returns on unopened boxes of paint (but what good does that do you?) and others have better policies, so if you are ordering paint online, only deal with companies that allow you to return paint and/or only companies that you have established a good track record with.

If a retail store you walk into doesn't offer to let you inspect the paint, or insists that you are not allowed to inspect the paint - RUN - don't walk out of the store. 

Now that you've opened up that box, what are you looking for?  - continued in part 2