The Joys of Taking Your Air Off-gun

 By JOracle
March 29, 2005
www.specialopspaintball.com

 Paintball guns would be a lot sexier if it weren’t for the hopper and the air tank. Like two giant tumors, they make an otherwise lean piece of equipment look bloated and unbalanced.

And, it’s not just sex appeal that gets lost. The air tank, especially, throws a paintball gun completely off-balance. After studying more than twenty actual military assault rifles and submachine guns, the SpecOps team noticed that all of them balanced just in front of the trigger. This is not an accident. Militaries and arms makers around the world know that a gun that balances correctly will aim more quickly than a gun that is off-balance.

Almost every paintball gun with the tank carried “on-gun” balances behind the grip and that’s about as out-of-balance as a gun can be. This causes many problems including poor bring-to-aim, delayed accuracy and general discomfort when carrying the paintball gun at-the-ready.

During long scenario games, an on-gun tank becomes an urgent problem. When you carry a gun in the field for an extended period, you feel every ounce of weight. Carrying the weight of a tank in your hands is enough to drive you nuts.

But, if you carry the same tank on your back, you hardly notice it. The good news is that it’s easy to “go remote.”   All it takes is a coiled remote and a vest (or pod belt) that will fit your tank. The coiled remote costs around $35 and you should be running with a paintball vest already, if you’re a committed woodsball^™ player.

Going remote is not without its prices. Some complain about the remote hose snagging on brush. Others feel tied down by the umbilical cord hanging between their gun and their vest. These complaints, though, are more a matter of becoming accustomed to the feel of a remote. If you’ve only ever played with air on-gun, then it’ll take you a game or two to get used to the remote.

Also, you can buy a remote hose that fits your gun/vest system. A shorter remote leaves less to snag on brush. You should also purchase a SpecialOps remote sheath, which cuts way down on remote hose snagging (coming soon!)

The best way to eliminate the awkwardness of a remote is to use a SpecialOps air-through buttstock It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that, by attaching the remote to the rear of your stock, there is less chance of a snag. With an air-through stock, the hose tucks nicely up under your arm and virtually wipes out any coiled remote hang-ups. Since there’s a very short distance between the air-through nipple and your remote tank you can go with a very short remote hose and still have great range of movement.

For committed scenarioball players, going remote also means that they can carry a bigger tank Refilling your air tank can be a huge interruption in a scenario game and more air means more field-time.

Going remote isn’t for every field position. Light Riflemen generally prefer to have their air on-gun so that they can make radical moves when they have to bust a bunker or take a dive into a pillbox. Tourney players, of course, are always in the middle of a close-quarters fight and they generally prefer their tanks on-gun no matter how awkward the balance. For the rest of us die-hard woodsballers – IMHO -- remote’s the way to go.