Best Beginner Gun?

Starting paintball it is confusing on which gun to get, there are so many and you probably don't understand half of the terms they use to describe the gun.

Before you buy a gun, you need to decide how serious you are about playing. If you are only going to play a few times a year, you won't need as good a gun as if you played every weekend. It also depends on if you are planning on playing speedball or woodsball.

Lets start with discussing woodsball guns. If you are planning on playing a few times a year, I would go with a Tippmann 98 Custom. They are one of the oldest and most reliable guns and are still selling today. You can make them electronic, or responsive trigger also. If you are serious about woodsball, then I would upgrade a 98 custom, or really any tippmann gun. The X7 is a pretty good gun, and comes semi, responsive, and electronic.

Okay speedball guns. There is a lot to cover on this . One thing with speedball is that if you buy a cheap gun and don't read into it much, then you WILL be upgrading sometime in the near future to a mid to high level gun.

If you plan to play speedball a few times, maybe just in your backyard on some obstacles you set up, then you can get a pretty decent electronic Spyder for around 130 bucks. Okay, a big thing is with people who don't play much don't want to spend a lot of money on a compressed air tank, so if you plan to use co2, the spyder to get is the VS1, it's a pretty good electronic gun and can shoot around 10 to 15 BPS (balls per second).

Okay so you are going to play speedball and you don't know where to start. Let me help you and say, get a Air tank, good hopper, and a good gun. If you buy a spyder, although they are decent guns if you barly play, you won't want to use it every weekend with people who have higher end guns. Spend a extra 50 or 100 dollars and get a mid end gun that can keep up with better players. Smart Part Ions are very popular starting guns, BUT, don't buy one new, so many people are selling them fully upgraded that you can get a amazing used ION for around 200 dollars. Proto also makes a good starting gun, called the Proto Rail. It can shoot VERY fast, over 25 BPS if set right, and is very upgradable. If you want a very light and small gun, the Invert Mini is popular and shoots at 20 bps stock. My personal favorite gun is the Dangerous Power Fusion 07. The 07 fusion is almost the same thing as the 08 fusion except 200 dollars cheaper. It need virtually no upgrades, the stock barrel is a two peice, 6.90 bore, and shoots pretty consistently. The only thing about them is that they are getting very hard to find.

PRICES ( Taken from Actionvillage.com )
- Tippmann 98 Custom - $139
- Spyder VS1 - $149
- Spyder VS2 - $129
- Smart Parts Ion - $160
- Proto Rail - $275
- Invert Mini - $325
- Dangerous Power Fusion 07 - $250 (Around there, depending on if it's LE or not)


Okay, those are the new guns that would suit a new player pretty well, but look around and do more research and find a gun that really fits you. Go to a pro shop if you can and hold the gun and ask to test fire it.

Also, if you really want a high end gun for cheap, get older versions of the best guns out there. Look on ebay for 05/06 Ego, or 04/05/06 dm (dm4, dm5 dm6, ect.)