How To Aim a Paintball Gun
Aiming a paintball gun is potentially the most important part of playing paintball–if you can’t hit the broadside of a barn, then you could be more of a liability than an asset for your team. However, when it comes to aiming your paintball gun, how you hold your gun, where you stand, and your ability to shoot the gun with both hands all play a role in your accuracy and effectiveness. Here are some tips on how to best shoot your paintball gun for maximum accuracy and effectiveness.
How to Hold the Paintball Gun
The first thing to think about when aiming your paintball gun is how you hold the paintball gun. The first thing is deciding where you want to put the air tank. Some players tuck the tank into their shoulders while other players tuck the tanks below their arms in their armpits. Some newer players rest the tank on top of their shoulders; however, this is generally not a great strategy. We recommend experimenting with putting the tank in your shoulder or below your arm, to begin with.
The reason that we recommend this placement is to help minimize the target that you present to the players on the opposite team. In the same vein as minimizing the target, wherever you decide to put the air tank, you should keep your elbow tucked down and in as much as possible. This may put your wrist and shooting hand at an awkward angle.
However, you will still be able to shoot while minimizing the area of your body that can be hit by an opponent’s paintball. Some newbies, in the interest of eliminating the entire target, will try and shoot the paintball gun sideways. This will work for a shot or two, however after that, the paintball gun will fail to load since almost all paintball guns are gravity-fed.
When it comes to actually shooting, you may have to train with both your right and left hand. Most people are right-hand dominant, which works when you’re shooting from the right side of the bunker. However, when you’re shooting from the left side of the bunker, you’ll need to switch shoulders and hands so that you don’t present 70% of your body to the other team.
This same principle applies on the opposite side for left-hand dominant players. It can be awkward to try and shoot with your non-dominant side, however, with enough practice you’ll become proficient and this will drastically reduce your chances of getting hit.
How to Find Cover and Cut Angles
A discussion about how to aim your paintball gun would be incomplete without touching on how to stay covered and cut angles. Many newbie players will jump out from behind the bunker and expose their entire bodies. This is a great way to get hit by a player who’s waiting for you to make just this sort of mistake.
To keep as much of your body covered as possible, you’ll want to try and cut angles by presenting the tip of your marker first and hiding the rest of your body behind the bunker (legs included) to reduce the likelihood of getting marked. To do this, slowly advance around the edge of the bunker, making sure that you keep your legs covered and only reveal your marker and the outer edge of your goggles. This will still allow you to see opponents and shoot at them while minimizing the target.
How to Aim Your Paintball Gun
Finally, now that we’ve discussed movement, cover, and cutting angles, we can discuss how to actually aim your paintball gun. The first thing that you’ll notice about your paintball gun is that there are no optics or iron sights for you to use when aiming your paintball gun. You will also notice that your line of sight when looking along the top of the paintball gun is obstructed by the feedneck.
When shooting your paintball gun, in the absence of any aiming mechanism, you’ll want to make sure that the back of the barrel is parallel with the front of the barrel. This means that you should be able to see down the entire barrel as if it were a flat plane. The muzzle shouldn’t be elevated or your shots will go high. In the same way, the muzzle shouldn’t be below the rest of the barrel or your shots will go low. Anyone who has fired a shotgun with a bead sight will find that very similar principles apply when shooting a paintball gun.
Next, instead of looking down the top part of the barrel, you will need to look down the side of the barrel given that the loader’s feedneck is in the way. If you’re shooting a right-hand dominant stance, you’ll want to be looking down the barrel at approximately a 2 o’clock position. If you’re shooting in a left-hand dominant position, you will want to be looking down the barrel at approximately the 10 o’clock position.
Final Thoughts
Aiming a paintball gun takes a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to perfect. The best way to learn as quickly and effectively as possible is to get on the paintball field and start throwing paint down range. For the best selection of paintball equipment, head over to our online paintball store and send us a quick message if you have any questions about which equipment is best for you. Happy paintballing!