Paintball Pistols for Scenario and Woodsball
By Jordan Ricks

Thinking about buying a paintball pistol? Are paintball hand guns accurate and reliable enough to be effective or are they merely cool-looking thigh ornaments that are better left showcased in a holster?

When I was six or seven, my plastic five dollar water pistol (with scope) epitomized “cool”. Nowadays, the idea of running the field with a wicked-looking $200 paintball pistol seems pretty cool to me as well. (I guess there’s some truth to the old adage: The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.)

The Wild West imaginations evoked by paintball pistols are limitless, but things are a little different in the real world of competitive woodsball. If you’ve played much paintball, you’ve probably run out of air, had your marker freeze-up, or experienced some type of paintgun malfunction at one time or another. Vulnerable and isolated, you’re left stranded in the middle of a firefight with nothing to throw at the opposition except comments about their mothers.

Sooner or later, Murphy’s Law catches up with us, and we all pay our dues on that “island”. But, for the most part our markers perform on the field as expected, so we seldom worry or think about having a backup plan.

Many players who’ve been stranded on that island without a gun don’t want to run the risk of being caught there again, so they invest in a pistol as their secondary paintball marker. But some scenario paintballers claim that a paintball pistol (or paintball hand gun) is impractical while others claim that a sidearm marker is invaluable. Both sides of the argument can make valid points, but the reality is – in the right hands, paintball pistols not only have a place in woodsball, but they can sway the momentum of a battle.

One Saturday afternoon, I recently joined about 20 other paintballers at a local woods field to get my self-prescribed dose of paintball. Prior to our weekly games, I enjoy checking out the different kinds of paintball markers, configurations and accessories that the other players use. I’d seen everything from cheap, plastic ‘K-mart’ guns to exquisite, state-of-the-art Longbow Sniper paintball rifles, but this Saturday I saw something different. One of the players showed up with two paintball sidearms – a Delta 68 and an Ariakon Overlord. Since the player also happened to be a woman (with a rather striking figure), the comparisons to Lara Croft (tomb raider) were unavoidable. But the players who assumed that she was little more than a ‘cute novelty act’ before the game, quickly learned that she was a very capable paintball player once the game started. Obviously, she’d spent some time developing her skills, and it didn’t take long for her to get the respect of her opponents – some of whom were now sitting in the ‘dead’ zone.

Of course, you don’t have to be Lara Croft to be effective with a paintball pistol, but she debunked any notions of paintball pistols being very inaccurate. Typically however, most players who use a paintball sidearm in woodsball do so as a secondary marker – just in case.

Some paintball gun manufacturers produce paintball rifles that are essentially just long-barreled versions of their pistols. Factory tests have shown that most short-barreled paint pistols aren’t significantly much less accurate than their long-barreled rifle counterparts. A comprehensive short to medium range accuracy test (50-90 feet) of the Tippmann A-5 with a 3-inch barrel showed that accuracy variances were minimal when compared with shots fired using a standard 9-inch barrel. In short, unless you are typically a "long range" shooter, playing with a pistol doesn’t mess with your accuracy as dramatically as you may think.

However, if you are using a paintball pistol, you must face the realities of limited paint and limited air. What’s more, every paint pistol uses 12-gram CO2 as a propellant. CO2 is inherently less stable than compressed air and your accuracy will suffer as a result of velocity variances.

If you’ve played much scenario or woodsball, then you’ve most likely had your share of tragic moments during a game, such as running out of paint or air, having your marker freeze up, etc. Many times, when you encounter such a crisis, your opponent recognizes it and is quick to take advantage of the opportunity. Having a ready-to-fire paintball sidearm strapped to your side can mean the difference between being eliminated or being the eliminator. And it’s not that uncommon for pistol users to rack up ‘kills’ after their primary marker runs out of air. Often, when a player hears the tell-tale sign of an opponent’s marker gasping for its last breath, he’ll charge what he assumes is a defenseless enemy – only to be caught off guard by a pistol-totin’ rival. It really comes down to one basic question: Does a backup marker and cool looks of a leg-holstered paintball pistol justify the added gear weight?

Whether a paintball sidearm is right for you not only depends on your personal tastes, but on your style and position of play. If you want to reduce the chances of being eliminated because of equipment problems with your primary marker, or just increase your firepower, check out some paintball handguns. The quality of today’s paintball pistols is continually improving, but we recommend that you try one in the field before you make a purchase. But one thing is for sure, paintball pistols are a whole lot of fun for recreational play.