The paintball market is no exception to the extent at which technology has influenced our world. Paintball markers are faster and smarter than they’ve ever been before. Some boost setting combinations into the millions. This equates to a paintball gun set-up that will meet very specific preferences and styles of play.
After an initial cocking and air-up, a mechanical marker will shoot semi-automatic. This means the marker will fire one shot for every pull of the trigger without having to re-cock the marker. Mechanical paintball guns have traditionally been of two types. The first type is a spring loaded marker that requires cocking per trigger pull because it does not use a reserve air source like CO2. The other is a blow-back marker. Spyder Paintball Guns really pioneered the blow-back concept. Their semi-auto’s owned the market in the early 90’s through the early 2000’s. Blow-backs use a valve system that controls the airflow. Once the trigger is pulled, the gun will cycle causing the bolt to move forward to propel the paintball. It then blows back past a sear mechanism, ready to be fired again with another trigger pull. Tippmann contributed a revolutionary concept to mechanical style paintball guns with the Response Trigger. The Tippmann Response Trigger System is available pre-installed in some of their markers and an upgrade option for base models. This system uses the exhaust air from the previous shot. It shuttles the air back to a cylinder behind the trigger, resetting the trigger faster. The Tippmann Response Trigger will increase the rate of fire. You can also find a sweet spot in which holding the trigger with a certain amount of pressure causes the gun to auto-fire. All done with no electronics or batteries involved!
Electronic guns use a circuit board and solenoid to control firing. The board is programmed to accept different settings and changes in modes of fire. Some of the most popular modes are full-auto, 3 burst shot and 6 burst shot. Tournament level players use other modes during legal play that although are still considered semi-auto, will ramp the firing potential of the gun the faster the trigger is pulled. Like many others on the market, the Smart Parts markers are electro-pneumatic. The solenoid controls the airflow. The solenoid itself is controlled by the circuit board which is activated by the trigger. The firing is smooth and very fast and the boards are highly programmable. Some electronic paintball guns like the Smart Parts SP-1 can also operate at a lower pressure. This means less kick and less force on the paintball with better accuracy per shot than higher pressure guns. It used to be that many electronic guns could not be used in extremely moist conditions. Today, manufacturers use silicon and other additives to protect the boards making them water-resistant. This allows them to be used in the worst of rainy days.