Shooting Techniques ...

He started in a Babe Ruth league hitting off a tee. He crawled before he walked. What happens in paintball is that players never get to play with a pump anymore. They get semi rentals then move up to their own tricked markers.

Welcome to shooting kindergarten.

The next time you play get a pump marker. The pump is a valuable training tool. When I began to play paintball, I was an indoor only guy. No outside markers were allowed and the only rentals were pumps. I look back on that year as the training for my "eagle eye". The pump trains you in two ways. First, the fact you have to pump makes you adjust your aim quickly after each shot. Every time you pump you, lose your aim. You may not realize this but that loss makes you re-aim quicker and quicker. This term in the Navy Seals is called sight acquisition. You don't just aim, you crystallize the shot in a brief milli-second. The pump forces you to do this whether you are trying or not. You do not need paint to practice this. You don't even need a marker. Get a broomstick, sit outside and take aim on something (not people) . Put the barrel side facing the ground, and then quickly bring it up to your shoulder. Watch the end of the barrel as it comes up, focus it towards your target. By the time it is at your shoulder, you should have to only make the tiniest adjustment.

Do this repeatedly. Each time you should always picture yourself pulling the trigger when you crystallize your target.

Practice making it as fluid as possible. Once you feel improvement on that, start acquiring different targets from your shoulder. This exercise is more like real paintball play. Start by picking targets that are only 3-4 inches apart. These tiny adjustments are more like real play. Your enemies are usually down field. Big swinging aim movements are very rare.

Remember aim, crystallize, and shoot. If you do this enough you will notice that your reaction time on shooting is a second faster. That second means everything.

Your next step is to hold your gun properly. The trend in paintball is to have a small gun. This makes people hold it more like a pistol than a rifle. The new markers have such small barrels that you fell weird holding it like a rifle. A rifle has a thick stock for your front hand. Tippman and Thundercat have the right idea. Their guns have a cushion, stock, or front handle. This allows the shooter to hold the gun with their hands spread apart. The new style player holds his expansion chamber for stability. The problem with this is that the expansion chamber is so close to the trigger. It makes the shooter cramped and doesn't spread the shoulders. The other problem is that the expansion chamber seems to get a lot of leaks from people that hold it. I personally have never had a leak from the x-chamber. Hmmm. My suggestion is to get a front handle for your gun. The taller you are, the further down the barrel you should place the handle. You can also get a thick piece of pipe foam at your local hardware store. Note: don't cover any holes on your barrel. This will throw off the air pressure inside the barrel and will effect the ball.

This brings me to the last aspect of a pumpgun. Most every pump has a buttplate. The buttplate helps you hold the aim with very little movement. It also makes you use a gun style hold. If a small handheld gun were truly effective, the military would not have rifles. Hmmm. Because you are shooting paintballs, does not mean that the essentials of shooting a gun are not applicable. If you are a semi user or remote-air user, you may not have a buttplate. I suggest you get one, or go back to an air buttplate system. Think of it as training wheels. Use it to improve your shot, once you have noticeably improved take it off. I tell this to a lot of people and most of them get better and a few even stick with the stock.

Look at paintball action shots. You see a ton of people holding the expansion chamber and putting the marker up to their face as if it had a buttplate. Why not just use a stock and a front handle. Your shot will get better and you feel more relaxed when aiming.

People never think that the manner in which you shoot really matters. If you have him aimed, pull and it's done. Right?

NO, paintball markers are effected by a number of different problems. You have to worry about balls not breaking. Balls breaking in barrels. In addition, your aim may be off. If you fire once, you can fire three times. This brings me to my point. Any marker can fire three rounds a second, which's all you need if you're good. If you fire once, your odds are that you hit your target. Fire twice, you double it, fire three times and you triple it. See my point? The reason for the high fire rates is for this reason. When you fire three round bursts, you can also use your paint as a tracer for your aim. (The military has special bullets that glow, called tracers. When they fire a number of rounds, they can follow the tracers. This allows them to adjust while shooting. ) Your paintballs are colored so you should be able to follow your shots. Remember to shot those three as fast as possible. You don't want to give your target any chance to follow the shots.

The most important part to shooting is hitting your target! You have to make sure you have a good shot, especially if your enemy doesn't know your position. If you think you can hit that guys shoulder 70 feet away, take the shot. If you wait a little though, your opponent will adjust and give you a great target. You learn this skill with time. Finding the "shot" is what makes the pros, pros.

Don't take shots you can not hit. This practice drives me crazy. Why draw attention to yourself? If your marker or skills are outmatched, you will get painted.

This is a touchy issue for a lot of people. Sight users get real defensive if you mention that they have a sight on their gun. I don't know why this is.

I think sights are great if you can not see your opponent normally. I have used a sight and found them a pain. I spent so much time trying to look at the sight that it affected my focus. The other problem with a sight is that they outlook your gun. If you need the sight to see your enemy, your gun can't hit them anyway. Hmmm? New players should never use a sight or scope. You must learn the basics first, Grasshopper. When you use a sight, you focus your vision. This allows opponents to sneak in your peripheral vision. Only when you are an experienced player should you even think of moving to a sight.

Even then, don't rely on it. The pros that use sights don't use the sight alone. They have played so much that regardless of the sight, they know were the ball is going.

That said, I suggest that every player have a sight rail. They are a good measure for your aim. I have recently moved my sight rail to end of my barrel. If you don't have a guide on the end of your barrel, you are missing out. Every rifle in the world has some sort of notch on the end. Why not paintball?

In the early 70s, the NBA had a player named Rick Barry. He was one of the best free-throw shooters of all time. He was laughed at because he took them granny style (between the legs). He went to his fundamentals and executed them so well he didn't care. This is a lesson in humility, which we all can learn from. If you want to be a better paintballer, then swallow a little pride and get your fundamentals down. You can look like a stud when you're holding the trophy.

By Jason "Boss" Morton

Original Article available at paintball.com