.50 Cal?

To begin I would like to refer you to an episode of Web Dog Radio from a few years ago.



Now that I've gotten your attention I'd like you to watch these videos by Painthappy over on Youtube.





Anticipate updates. Painthappy is still working on his testing of .50 cal paint performance. These are just the three episodes that he has uploaded thus far, but still vital information.

[Rant]Now please before you begin screaming how one thing is so much better than another look at the facts. This is just another attempt by greedy companies (Smart Parts and GI Milsim in particular) to squeeze more money out of poor paintball players like us. How is this you ask? Quite simple. What you would save on in paint will be dwarfed by the cost it would take to even get into the sport. If you have a .68 cal gun you'd have to buy a conversion kit (which will not be cheap) or you'll have to buy a .50 cal gun (once again not cheap). Then there's conversion kits for your electronic loaders, or if you use a shake and shoot an entirely new loader. Plus your local field will still be allowing .68 cal players to play there with you. Which will get insanely annoying for you as you get shot before you are in range or if you are in range watch all your paint bounce off the guy. As for field owners, in order for them to offer .50 cal play they'd have to relegate a large portion of their resources to buy new .50 cal rental guns and hoppers and then also buy cases of .50 cal paint. They will be trying to sell this paint alongside traditional .68 cal paint and whichever one is most popular will be bought. Meaning that the one that very few people buy will become a cost liability for fields that make the majority of their profit off of field paint sales. All in all this is one bird that got shot before it even left the nest. Despite what the Gardeners and Italia would tell you physics and the allure of money don't change. All they've told you is about the paint and most of what they told the paintball community was lies. Better range? A lie. Oh yeah and cheaper? That's a lie too. Sure the paint will be cheaper, but the 20 bucks you save per case isn't going to matter after you just sank 200, 300, or 400 dollars into either a conversion kit for your .68 or a new .50 cal gun and all the accessories necessary to play .50 cal. In the end this is just market hype so that the Gardener's and other companies who aren't making as much money as they want (even though they make exorbitant amounts of money already) can squeeze more money out of the average paintballer to line their greedy, filthy pockets with. Look at the facts, data, history of paintball, and the history of said companies with the paintball community and then make your decision, rather than believing what is fed to you by these corporations right away and becoming a slave to the idea who hates everyone who might even be slightly skeptical as to the plausibility of the proverbial "Snake Oil" you're swallowing by the bucket load. Back in the day people used to play .50 cal and it died out back then too. Good idea in theory, but the reality of it is that .50 just isn't practical or effective. Remember Y2K? Yeah this is like that. All those Y2K compatible computers that got sold back then were no different than the ones that were available before except for the stickers that said Y2K compatible. Y2K and those computers were just an excuse for companies like HP, Packard Bell, Compaq, etc. to squeeze a bunch of money out of average people. This .50 cal thing is a Y2K "Snake Oil" market hype pitch for companies to make "Mo' Money." Unfortunately that is and has been the way of paintball for a long time. The companies that make paintball equipment have always cared more about themselves and their profits than offering a quality product for the paintball playing masses. Some companies do make quality products, but for the most part these quality companies aren't well known which is unfortunate. What's wrong with paintball can't be fixed by a caliber shift. The problem with paintball has two facets. The companies and the players. We've already covered the companies, that won't be fixed until greed is destroyed (fat chance). As for the players I'm not referring to the rec ball guys. I'm talking about the people exposed to the media first. Professional tournament players, for the most part, carry themselves with a negative attitude. I want you to watch a little bit of any number of paintball movies out there and tell me what you see in the huddle before every tournament game. Not very nice is it? This is the perceived image that the American public has of paintball. Fortunately that isn't the way it is with most recballers, but a lot of that tournament attitude has trickled down into everyday play. Most notably with the speedball scene, but it is present in woodsball too. Until the negative attitude of players and the negative perception of the sport of paintball goes away the sport will remain broken. No amount of new gear, guns, or paintballs will ever change that. The gear isn't the problem. So now we come to the proverbial "If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It." The only problem with the sport of paintball is the attitudes of companies and players and the negative perception that the general public has of us. Until the day that paintball can stop fighting itself and show the nation that we are stand up individuals that play a legitimate sport, fewer and fewer new players will come in and eventually paintball with choke itself to death.[/Rant]

Comments appreciated, but lets try and keep them from going all PBNation.