Posted by: Dale "Head_Hunters" DuPont on July 07, 2003 at 17:48:19

Found this informative article at: http://www.worr.com/worrpaint.html "The Care and Upkeep of Paintballs": Extreme variations in temperature can adversely affect paintballs performance. So, too, can humidity. The shell of a paintball is made with a combination of gelatin and glycerin (just like a capsule of medication). The shell contains very little water and is hard. But both the gelatin and the glycerin will dissolve in water. Since the shell itself contains very little water, it will absorb water when the air is humid. Since cold air has a relatively low humidity, it will pull water from the shell. The paint is also water-soluble (mixes with or dissolves in water) and interacts with its surroundings: the shell. The paint itself does not contain water, so when the shell starts to pick up moisture from the air so does the paint inside. When things start to dry up on the outside, the water in the paint heads for the hills, as well. The whole situation is one of give and take, and handling paintballs correctly can be quite a chore. It is recommended that they be kept within a temperature range of 59-to-86 degree (F) and at 40-to-50% relative humidity. Temperatures and/or humidities beyond either of these ranges will adversely affect their performance. The longer the exposure to these extreme conditions, the less reversible are the effects. But how long is too long? In very extreme conditions, 20-to-30 minutes exposure may be too much. An exposure of 45-to-60 minutes in moderate conditions might be sufficient to change things permanently. Humidity will have less effect if they are kept in bags and securely closed by twisting the bag and tightly sealing with a twist-tie. (But remember the bags have no effect on the temperature). When winter closes in: it's important to understand how to keep paintballs in good working order in colder temperatures and drier air. Paintballs become very brittle in the cold. This, in turn, can cause higher than normal breakage in the carton, loaders, hopper, and barrel. While breakage on the target is preferred, anywhere else can be a mess. Here are a few hints: Try to keep paintballs in a warm car while playing. (Not on the floor directly under the heater fan, but on the seat where the temperature is more even.) Between games, store your butt packs, loaders, and hopper in the car. Refill your loaders just prior to heading out to the field. Keep in mind the exposure times mentioned above. Keep paintballs sealed in their bag. (If left in an open bag, they will dry out.) Choose a barrel diameter to suit the day's conditions. (If there are balls rolling out the barrel, this could be due to the ball's contraction if the balls are cold.) If you suspect the balls have been frozen, throw them out! Freezing temperatures and conditions will cause dimples to appear on paintballs. Dimples can not be removed once they are set. (Do not confuse dimples with flat spots. Flat spots are often found at the bottom of a case. If you find flat spots on paintballs throughout the case, it may be an indication of exposure to high heat or humidity.) In the heat of the summer: barrel breakage is less a problem than in the winter. However, breakage on a target could also be a problem, as paintballs get soft from heat and humidity. Now you need to work to keep the balls dry and cool. Room air conditioning may feel good on paintballs, but the air still contains 70-to-80% relative humidity. Keep your bag closed tight! If you notice a lot of bouncers, try chilling them in the fridge (not the freezer) for 30-to-60 minutes before playing with them. The air in the refrigerator is cool and dry and will condition them for use on the field. Between games, store your butt packs, loaders, and hopper in the air-conditioned car, not in the trunk. (The temp should not be set cooler than 65 degrees or so. Whatever is comfortable to you is probably comfortable for the paintballs too.) Refill your loaders just prior to heading out to the field. Keep the balls sealed in their bag. If you cannot leave the car a/c running, keep them in a cooler with a couple of cooler chill packs. (DO NOT use ice cubes or blocks! The bags may leak and damage the balls - not to mention all the moisture created!) Refill your loaders just prior to heading out to the field. Deformation of the balls can occur when they have been exposed to high heat and humidity. Oblong and odd-shaped balls will not return to their original round shape and should be discarded. In conclusion, remember that paintballs respond to the effects of temperature and humidity. They get hard and brittle in the cold, and soft and sticky in the heat. They breathe water instead of air. They are often temperamental and unpredictable. What are paintballs made of? This is a simple but somewhat misunderstood issue. Prior to the "invention" of paintball as a sport, sponge soaked balls of paint were used to mark trees for cutting and early paintballs were in fact made with some degree of paint. The composition of modern paintballs we use today is very different from the lumberjack tools of the past. The "Fill" of most modern paintballs is a mixture of Polyethylene Glycol, color dye, and occasionally a little wax. Polyethylene Glycol is used in many drug products as a filler and carrying agent. It is non-toxic, water-soluble and breaks down very quickly. The dyes in paint are commercial food coloring dyes, such as you might find on a nutritional label of your favorite cola beverage, although the concentration is rather high. Wax is added to some fills to thicken the "paint" and make it more difficult to wipe. Shells of paintballs are made of the same substance as Tylenol Gel caps, Contact, soft Vitamin pills, etc. All soft-shelled ingested pills are made of the same basic gelatin compound. Different paintball manufacturers use different mixes but it is all based on the same shell technology. All paintball encapsulating machines use this same basic technology. It is not a perfect process, paintballs are not perfectly round and they all have a seam, they are larger at the seam and smaller at the poles. Paintballs will get out of round over time, just from the weight of other paintballs in a case. That's why it is important to follow the instructions of the manufacturer. Softgel encapsulation is not an exact science hence paintballs can and do vary in size from batch to batch and even ball to ball. The shell of a paintball is water soluble, non-toxic, environmentally safe. NEVER FREEZE paintballs! It does not preserve them longer. Optimal paintball storage is 60º in a dry environment with minimal temperature variations. A dry corner of your basement works great. NEVER expose paintballs to High Temps or Humidity: This will quickly expand the paint shell and cause it to "blow" up in your marker. Even brief exposure to hot temperatures and humidity can swell paint quickly. Keep your paint sealed and in the shade whenever possible. Barrels and Paintballs: Paintball barrels have 2 functions: 1) To hold the gas (CO2 or compressed air) behind the ball so it accelerates efficiently. 2) To guide the ball as it accelerates so it will remain on target as it leaves the barrel. To accomplish these functions the barrel must have a uniform, slippery surface, and its bore must closely match the size of the paint. Barrels are usually made of polished metal because metal can be made into a uniform, slick surface of any desired diameter and length. The metals used are as follows. Brass is inexpensive and easily polished but it is heavy, soft (scratches over time) and tarnishes easily. Stainless steel is an improvement over brass as it is more durable and tarnish resistant but it is also considerably more expensive. Aluminum is popular because it is inexpensive and lightweight, but it is soft and should be anodized to harden its surface before use. In the anodizing process, low friction compounds like Teflon or Ceramics are often embedded in the surface to improve performance and durability. Also, the anodizing can be done in a wide variety of colors and patterns to suit the tastes of the player. Paint-to-Bore match is one of the most important factors in determining the accuracy of a shot. Paintballs vary widely in size, depending on brand and age. If the paint-to-bore match is too tight, you will end up breaking paint often. This will cause the gun to throw the balls wildly until the barrel is properly cleaned. Even a trace of paint residue on the bore's surface will degrade a gun's accuracy. On the other hand, if the fit is too loose, gas will blow past the paintball hurting efficiency. This may give you troubling velocity fluctuations at the chrono as well as hurting your gas economy. Additionally, you'll notice a loss in long-range accuracy as the ball will "rattle" a bit during its travel down the tube's length. On some guns, if the bore is too large for your brand of paint, the balls may roll right out the barrel causing that important first shot to be a blank. Keep in mind if you are playing in hot or high-humidity conditions, paintballs will often swell to a slightly larger size. Likewise, most paintballs swell as they age, so older paint may be slightly larger than it was fresh. In colder climates some fresh paintballs will shrink slightly and this should be accounted for when matching barrels.

Follow Ups: Post a Followup Show your name as: DefaultRealnameBothNickname E-Mail address (eg: joeschmoe@aol.com): Show your e-mail address? DefaultYesNo Your Password: Don't have a password? CLICK HERE - Forgot your password? CLICK HERE Subject: Subject:Message: : Found this informative article at: : http://www.worr.com/worrpaint.html : "The Care and Upkeep of Paintballs": : Extreme variations in temperature can adversely affect paintballs performance. So, too, can humidity. The shell of a paintball is made with a combination of gelatin and glycerin (just like a capsule of medication). The shell contains very little water and is hard. But both the gelatin and the glycerin will dissolve in water. Since the shell itself contains very little water, it will absorb water when the air is humid. Since cold air has a relatively low humidity, it will pull water from the shell. The paint is also water-soluble (mixes with or dissolves in water) and interacts with its surroundings: the shell. : The paint itself does not contain water, so when the shell starts to pick up moisture from the air so does the paint inside. When things start to dry up on the outside, the water in the paint heads for the hills, as well. The whole situation is one of give and take, and handling paintballs correctly can be quite a chore. : It is recommended that they be kept within a temperature range of 59-to-86 degree (F) and at 40-to-50% relative humidity. Temperatures and/or humidities beyond either of these ranges will adversely affect their performance. The longer the exposure to these extreme conditions, the less reversible are the effects. But how long is too long? In very extreme conditions, 20-to-30 minutes exposure may be too much. An exposure of 45-to-60 minutes in moderate conditions might be sufficient to change things permanently. Humidity will have less effect if they are kept in bags and securely closed by twisting the bag and tightly sealing with a twist-tie. (But remember the bags have no effect on the temperature). : When winter closes in: : it's important to understand how to keep paintballs in good working order in colder temperatures and drier air. Paintballs become very brittle in the cold. This, in turn, can cause higher than normal breakage in the carton, loaders, hopper, and barrel. While breakage on the target is preferred, anywhere else can be a mess. Here are a few hints: : Try to keep paintballs in a warm car while playing. (Not on the floor directly under the heater fan, but on the seat where the temperature is more even.) : Between games, store your butt packs, loaders, and hopper in the car. : Refill your loaders just prior to heading out to the field. : Keep in mind the exposure times mentioned above. : Keep paintballs sealed in their bag. (If left in an open bag, they will dry out.) : Choose a barrel diameter to suit the day's conditions. (If there are balls rolling out the barrel, this could be due to the ball's contraction if the balls are cold.) : If you suspect the balls have been frozen, throw them out! : Freezing temperatures and conditions will cause dimples to appear on paintballs. Dimples can not be removed once they are set. (Do not confuse dimples with flat spots. Flat spots are often found at the bottom of a case. If you find flat spots on paintballs throughout the case, it may be an indication of exposure to high heat or humidity.) : In the heat of the summer: : barrel breakage is less a problem than in the winter. However, breakage on a target could also be a problem, as paintballs get soft from heat and humidity. Now you need to work to keep the balls dry and cool. Room air conditioning may feel good on paintballs, but the air still contains 70-to-80% relative humidity. Keep your bag closed tight! If you notice a lot of bouncers, try chilling them in the fridge (not the freezer) for 30-to-60 minutes before playing with them. The air in the refrigerator is cool and dry and will condition them for use on the field. : Between games, store your butt packs, loaders, and hopper in the air-conditioned car, not in the trunk. (The temp should not be set cooler than 65 degrees or so. Whatever is comfortable to you is probably comfortable for the paintballs too.) : Refill your loaders just prior to heading out to the field. : Keep the balls sealed in their bag. : If you cannot leave the car a/c running, keep them in a cooler with a couple of cooler chill packs. (DO NOT use ice cubes or blocks! The bags may leak and damage the balls - not to mention all the moisture created!) : Refill your loaders just prior to heading out to the field. : Deformation of the balls can occur when they have been exposed to high heat and humidity. Oblong and odd-shaped balls will not return to their original round shape and should be discarded. In conclusion, remember that paintballs respond to the effects of temperature and humidity. They get hard and brittle in the cold, and soft and sticky in the heat. They breathe water instead of air. They are often temperamental and unpredictable. : What are paintballs made of? : This is a simple but somewhat misunderstood issue. Prior to the "invention" of paintball as a sport, sponge soaked balls of paint were used to mark trees for cutting and early paintballs were in fact made with some degree of paint. The composition of modern paintballs we use today is very different from the lumberjack tools of the past. : The "Fill" of most modern paintballs is a mixture of Polyethylene Glycol, color dye, and occasionally a little wax. Polyethylene Glycol is used in many drug products as a filler and carrying agent. It is non-toxic, water-soluble and breaks down very quickly. : The dyes in paint are commercial food coloring dyes, such as you might find on a nutritional label of your favorite cola beverage, although the concentration is rather high. Wax is added to some fills to thicken the "paint" and make it more difficult to wipe. : Shells of paintballs are made of the same substance as Tylenol Gel caps, Contact, soft Vitamin pills, etc. All soft-shelled ingested pills are made of the same basic gelatin compound. Different paintball manufacturers use different mixes but it is all based on the same shell technology. All paintball encapsulating machines use this same basic technology. It is not a perfect process, paintballs are not perfectly round and they all have a seam, they are larger at the seam and smaller at the poles. Paintballs will get out of round over time, just from the weight of other paintballs in a case. That's why it is important to follow the instructions of the manufacturer. Softgel encapsulation is not an exact science hence paintballs can and do vary in size from batch to batch and even ball to ball. The shell of a paintball is water soluble, non-toxic, environmentally safe. : NEVER FREEZE paintballs! It does not preserve them longer. Optimal paintball storage is 60º in a dry environment with minimal temperature variations. A dry corner of your basement works great. : NEVER expose paintballs to High Temps or Humidity: : This will quickly expand the paint shell and cause it to "blow" up in your marker. Even brief exposure to hot temperatures and humidity can swell paint quickly. Keep your paint sealed and in the shade whenever possible. : Barrels and Paintballs: : Paintball barrels have 2 functions: : 1) To hold the gas (CO2 or compressed air) behind the ball so it accelerates efficiently. : 2) To guide the ball as it accelerates so it will remain on target as it leaves the barrel. : To accomplish these functions the barrel must have a uniform, slippery surface, and its bore must closely match the size of the paint. Barrels are usually made of polished metal because metal can be made into a uniform, slick surface of any desired diameter and length. The metals used are as follows. Brass is inexpensive and easily polished but it is heavy, soft (scratches over time) and tarnishes easily. Stainless steel is an improvement over brass as it is more durable and tarnish resistant but it is also considerably more expensive. Aluminum is popular because it is inexpensive and lightweight, but it is soft and should be anodized to harden its surface before use. In the anodizing process, low friction compounds like Teflon or Ceramics are often embedded in the surface to improve performance and durability. Also, the anodizing can be done in a wide variety of colors and patterns to suit the tastes of the player. : Paint-to-Bore match is one of the most important factors in determining the accuracy of a shot. Paintballs vary widely in size, depending on brand and age. If the paint-to-bore match is too tight, you will end up breaking paint often. This will cause the gun to throw the balls wildly until the barrel is properly cleaned. Even a trace of paint residue on the bore's surface will degrade a gun's accuracy. On the other hand, if the fit is too loose, gas will blow past the paintball hurting efficiency. This may give you troubling velocity fluctuations at the chrono as well as hurting your gas economy. Additionally, you'll notice a loss in long-range accuracy as the ball will "rattle" a bit during its travel down the tube's length. On some guns, if the bore is too large for your brand of paint, the balls may roll right out the barrel causing that important first shot to be a blank. : Keep in mind if you are playing in hot or high-humidity conditions, paintballs will often swell to a slightly larger size. Likewise, most paintballs swell as they age, so older paint may be slightly larger than it was fresh. In colder climates some fresh paintballs will shrink slightly and this should be accounted for when matching barrels. [ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ WARPIG Tech Talk - Autococker / Minicocker ]