Play Safe!

Intro

I know you've see paintball safety articles on almost every paintball web site. And I know you get safety information with any paintball marker you buy. I'll admit that a lot of the information I have in this article is stuff you've heard before.

So why am I bothering to write my own set of safety tips? One reason is because the topic is so very important. Even though I'm repeating things that many others have written previously, it's important information that every paintballer should know and know well enough that it's second nature.

Another reason I'm writing this is because I think I can share a few tips that aren't on everyone's safety checklists. And hopefully you'll be able to make use of some of these the next time you play.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a genuine passion for paintball (and recreational paintball specifically). And they also know that I have a passion for seeing new people join the sport. And with this comes a passion for making sure new players learn to play the sport safely.

First off, I do believe paintball is a safe sport to play - otherwise I wouldn't be playing it myself. If you look at statistics, paintball is the safest of all extreme sports and statistically it is as safe as yoga!

Unfortunately paintball's gotten a bit of a bad rap due to soem sensationalized stories and the ignorant and/or irresponsible actions of a few people. There are a handful of paintballers that are either unaware of the proper safety rules or just choose to ignore them. And a lot of these are newbies that have never had anyone explain the dangers of the sport. Let's face it paintball has a bit of an image problem in large part because of the ignorant and/or irresponsible actions of a few.

As I've already mentioned, paintball is a very safe sport statiscally. However, statistics don't mean anything if you're the one that loses an eye because of a safety mistake. I recently read a story about a 13 year old boy who was target shooting with some friends. His marker jammed and he took off his goggles to get a better look at what was wrong. I think you can guess what happened next -- the gun fired and the paintball struck his eye. Now this 13 year old boy is blind in one eye - I'm sure paintball doesn't seem very safe to him or his parents now.

Ok, so what are the proper safety rules for paintball? I'll be going through the safety tips that I use personally. But before I get into the details, I want to say one thing: the information I'll be presenting below is in large part the same information you'd get at a commercial paintball field. If you've never played paintball before, or if you've played but never gotten a professional safety briefing, I STRONGLY recommend going to a commercial field.  The staff there will make sure you follow the proper safety rules and I can think of a better way of making sure you get started the "right" way.

Ok, enough preaching. Let's get on with the important stuff...

Masks

Let's just assume everyone knows a few basic things:

• You need to wear a paintball mask when playing paintball - duh!
• Shop goggles, safety glasses, and airsoft goggles ARE NOT paintball masks (they cannot withstand a 300 fps hit from a paintball) - double duh!
• Spectators as well as players must wear goggles (spectators can be hit by a stray ball as easily as the players)

So when do you need to wear your mask? Common sense seems to indicate that you should wear your goggles whenever barrel plugs are not in the marker. This actually works to a point. Where this rule starts to fall apart is when you are playing with a bunch of other people, it can be difficult to keep track of whose plug is in and whose is not.

A better approch is to decide on a specific "safe zone" where taking your mask off is allowed. Commercial fields will tell you were this is and if you're playing on your own you need to decide ahead of time where your safe zone is.

The reason a safe zone works so well is that we are all creatures of habit -- once we develop the habit of removing our masks only at a certain location we'll stick to it. Using other rules does not develeop nearly as stong of habbits.

Another important rule is to decide what to do if someone looses their goggles. At our field (and most commercial fields) this is called the "goggles rule." The important thing is that you need a very fast way of letting everyone know that someone has lost their goggles so everyone can stop shooting.

In our case we've agreed on the term "goggles" to let everyone know what's happened. Anyone that has their maks come off will immediately cover their eyes with the butt of their hands and will shout "GOGGLES." Anyone hearing "GOGGLES" will cease fire, plug their gun, and shout "GOGGLES" themselves. Only after all shooting has stopped is it safe to locate the lost goggles and put them back on.

Luckily this has only happened at our field once, but I've seen it happen at other fields as well. Unfortunately your instainct will be stand up and try to look for your goggles. In fact I saw someone do just that in the middle of a firefight a couple of years back. Luckily he was not hit in the face but since he was in the middle of about 50 people shooting at each other I'd consider him extremely lucky! The moral of the story is to keep your eyes covered when you loose your goggles.

And one last tip on the topics of goggles is to inspect your lenses before every game. The lenses in your goggles are designed to absorb the impact of a paintnball travelling 300 fps without breaking. But after time and enough wear, goggle lenses can crack. When this happens DO NOT use the lens. The common sense behind this statement ought to be obvious but in case it's not I'll spell it out -- a cracked lens that takes a direct hit may fail completely -- don't risk your eyes on a cracked lens!

Barrel Blocking Devices

Every new paintball gun is shipped with a barrel blocking device (usually a barrel plug). Despite this I'm amazed at the number of people who forget their plugs at home!

Keep in mind that while your mask is the only thing keeping your eyes safe on the field, your barrel plug is the only thing keeping your eyes safe in the safe zone. Remember that your mask is OFF but your gun is LOADED when you're in the safe zone, so you need something to stop a paintball in the event of an accidental discharge.

Another common mistake is to assume that your gun's safety is an adequate replacement for a barrel plug or condom. In theory this is true, but in reality, this doesn't work for a couple of reasons. One is that most paintball safeties are made of plastic or are electronic safeties. While the safety is a very reliable mechanism on a conventional firearm, on a paintball gun, the safety is quite simply not always reliable.

And as modern guns are tweaked to have lighter and lighter trigger pulls, the safety itself may not prevent accidental discharge if the gun is bumped or dropped. And the clincher on the safety topic is the fact that not all markers have safeties. I personally own a couple of Autocockers that do not have safeties because their aftermarket trigger frames were not equipped with them.

Speaking of accidental discharges, one really good upgrade I recommend to everyone is replacing the barrel plug that came with your marker with a barrel condom. Why? Because a condom will stay on your barrel after the first shot. A plug will stop the first ball, but the force of impact will usually pop the plug out of the barrel leaving a second accidental discarge unobstructed.

A year ago I was cleaning my goggles between games when the guy next to me accidentally pulled his trigger. His plug stopped the first shot, but unfortunately his gun was set on 3 round burst so two more shots followed the first and went right over my shoulder! After this I went out and bought a boatload of condoms and now use them exclusively on all my markers (and gave one to the guy who almost shot me too :-).

Marker

Today's markers themselves are very safe, but there are a few important points you should keep in mind. As with real guns, a paintball gun is only as safe as the person using it so here are a few things you should be doing:

• Treat paintball guns just like real guns. This means you should treat every paintball gun as if it's loaded! Even if it has no tank, some markers can hold pressure and can discharge long after the tank is removed. Even if you KNOW it's not loaded, treating it as if it is a great safety habbit.
• Keep your marker pointed in a safe direction at all times.
• Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
• Use your safety but don't rely on it (see earlier tip).

After reading these safety tips, one rule you may notice is absent (if you've ever had firearms safety training) is that you should not shoot unless you can verify your target. While this is a good safety recommendation, it just doesn't work for paintball. Given the fact that paintballs travel relatively slowly (compared to normal firearms), you often need to anticipate your shots and shoot when you expect your opponent to peek around their bunker or tree. And very often you'll find you have several paintballs in the air before your opponent actually appears. In addition, you'll find that often your only shot is an elbow or a shoe -- you won't be able to see exactly what you're shooting at.

So what does this mean? In a nutshell, it means that anyone near the playing field must be wearing goggles! DO NOT assume  that you will be able to distiguish player from non-player when you're playing the game. This point is especially important to keep in mind when you're choosing a place to play. DO NOT play anywhere that a spectator (or innocent bystander) can accidentally walk onto the playing field.

Ok, the above tips cover safety while you're playing. What other safety rules should you follow? Well, I think the most imporant thing anyone needs to remember is that you should never work on your marker when it's pressurized. Even taking the tank off may not be enough. Before working on any marker, remove the tank and then dry fire once or twice to make sure the pressure is relieved since some markers can hold pressure even after the tank is removed.

And one last thing I recommend regarding your own paintball gun in particular is to read the owner's manual. Any safety related items specific to your type of gun will be covered in there. And being familiar with your gun will help you both on the field and off.
Tank
Your tank is another important piece of equipment that has a few safety concerns all it's own. This is perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, but whether you use co2 or high pressure air, your paintball tank is essentially a mini scuba tank. Have you ever heard stories about what happens to a scuba tank if you know the valve off of it? Well, the same sort of thing can happen to your paintball tank if you're careless.

Now before anyone overreacts, I'm not suggesting it's easy to knock the valve off the paintball tank -- in fact this is nearly impossible. One thing that can happen though is that the valve can unscrew from the tank. If this happens and there's pressure inside the tank, you might as well have knocked the valve off with a hammer because there's no stopping the tank's flight at that point and there's no predicting what it will strike. In fact a year ago, people were killed in two separate instances when a tank valve was accidentally screwed out of the tank.

Sounds like a couple of fluke accidents, right? I thought so too until it almost happened to me last year!

We had just finished playing and were cleaning up. I was standing next to a good friend who was taking the co2 tank off his marker. We were just chit-chatting, swapping stories about the day's games, not really paying a lot of attention to what we were doing. I happened to look down at his tank -- the valve had already come half unscrewed from the tank!

Needless to say I caught his attention (quite rudely :-) and we screwed the valve back on and proceeded to remove the tank with a crescent wrench. To this day I'm thankful I never have witnessed what actually happens when the valve comes off a pressurized tank. I now pay a little more attention both when I'm removing my own tanks and when I'm watching someone else remove theirs.

So how does this happen? Basically the valve on your tank is just screwed into your tank. There's a special "glue" (red locktite) this is used when screwing the valve on the tank to make sure that once it's on it stays on. The problem is that loctite can wear out over time. Also, heat is what is used to break the locktite seal when a professional needs to remove a valve, so especially in hot weather you need to be careful because the locktite will be most likely to break down in those circumstances.

So what can you do about it? There are a couple of things. First, being aware of the potential problem is the first step. (A lot of paintballers don't realize that this can happen.) A good rule of thumb is if it takes more than 3 or 4 turns to remove your sant, STOP and check your valve to make sure it's not coming out of your tank.

Second, use something called the twist test before putting your tank on your gun. The twist test involves grabbing your tank in one hand and the valve in the other and twisting counter clockwise. If you can loosen the valve at all, DON'T USE THE TANK! And pay particular attention when you're removing your tank from your marker as this is when you'll encounter the problem.

And finally, mark your valves. With a marker, nail polish, white out, or even an etched line (my preference since it doesn't wear out), draw a line from the valve to the tank. Whenever you use the tank, check the line. If the line is broken it means your valve is loose so DON'T USE THE TANK!

When you get your tanks filled, the shop should be checking your tanks for loose valves, but in my experience, not all shops have the most educated staff. Don't assume "it won't happen to me" -- check your tanks yourself and make sure your equipment is safe.

If you happen to use a high pressure (HPA) tank, do not use oil in the fill nipple.  The oxygen concentrated by the high pressure air can lower the flash point of the oil to the point where your tank could ignite! This may sound a little far fetched but it has happened. So it's best to avoid using oil in your tank.

And one last think about tank safety...

While this may seem obvious to anyone that's been playing a while, for the noobs out there it might not be as obvious that you should try to keep your tanks out of the heat. Keep in mind they behave like any sealed container -- when the temperature rises, so does the pressure of the contents inside. And since most paintball tanks are black this means you should also keep them out sunlight as well. Since black absorbs heat so well this can cause you tank's temperature to rise considerably above that of the outside air temp.

All paintball tanks do have something called a "burst disk" that's designed to rupture in the event the tank pressure rises above safe level. So it's very unlikely you'll ever rupture your tank, but burst disks are still a nuissance (and cost $5 or so) to replace and the escaping air can still cause a little damage, so it's best to avoid the situation if possible.

People

Now that we've gotten the basic safety rules out of the way one thing that's often overlooked when people think about safety is the other players on the field. Simply put, a game is only as safe as its least careful (or most careless) player. All the safety in the world mean nothing if one guy is careless or is willing to cheat (and set their their velocity up to 400 fps for instance).

One thing that I think needs to be stressed here is make sure you're playing with people you can trust! I personally have a few people on my own "black list" that I won't invite to play at my field just because I don't trust them (based on previous experience with them). This may sound harsh, but it's important to keep in mind that if someone is lax or careless about the safety rules, it risks everyone's safety - not just that of the careless player.

On the topic of people, it's also important that in addition to making sure you're playign safe, you also need to be aware of the other people on or around your playing field. This is particularly true if you're playign renegade ball (since there is no professional staff to keep an eye on things), but this should apply to any time you play paintball.

On our field this means we watch each other's backs. If we see someone that's forgotten to plug their barrel we remind them. Or if someone forgets to pull their mask down when leaving the safe zone we remind them as well. Although we play renegade, we've never had a serious injury in 3 years of regular play, and we're all pretty proud of this fact. After a while it becomes part of the culture and after that safety just "happens."

Misc

Ok, almost done, whew!

I've just got a few last tips before wrapping up. These are all the things that didn't seem to fit in any sort of nice tidy category but I think they're important enough to mention anyway.

• Use a chronograph! This is very important. Masks are only designed to withstand hits at 300 fps or less. Most paintball guns are capable of shooting at over 400 fps, so don't play unless you know the guns aren't shotting hot (a paintball travelling over 300 fps is capable of breaking some of your more delicate bones like fingers). The only way to know this for sure is to have a chronograph. Decent chronographs are available for under $100, so if you play with 10 guys/gals, each of you only has to pitch in $10 to make sure you play safe. I personally use a Shooting Chrony F1 that I got from Cabella's. Mine is the type that's used for regular firearms but they also make chronographs that are designed specifically for paintball use for around the same money. Here are a few product links to quality chronographs:
• When you decide on the specific safety rules you want to follow as a group, write them down. That way you don't forget what they are the next time you play. And it's easier to enforce written rules should the need arise.
• Review the safety rules with each player each time you play. This should be done with everyone -- not just new players (even us old-timers forget things now and then :-)
• Have an agreed upon "emergency stop" signal that causes an immediate cease-fire. In the event of a true emergency this is the best way to get the game stopped in a hurry. We use a car horn as our "emergency stop."
• Don't play in any public areas where any non-players (i.e. anyone without a mask) might accidentally walk into your game.

I hope you find this information useful. I know I've been pretty extensive, but it's all important. We all know that paintball guns are not "toys", but part of the problem is that we still do "play" with them! This makes the topic of paintball safety particularly difficult and I think illustrates why it's imporant to have, to understand, and to follow a defined set of safety rules each and every time you play.

As always,
Good Luck and Happy Hunting!