Learn About Paintball Safety Gear

Video Transcript

"Hello! This is Rob Rubin and you're watching Expert Village. Yep, all armored up this time. The reason is we're talking about protection. We're talking about the safety gear that makes paintball safe. Paintball is statistically safer than bowling. It's statistically safer than sitting in your couch watching television. The reason that it's safe is because of the safety gear and because we all use the safety gear. This is a quick overview of the safety gear that you need to play the game of paintball. There are 2 important pieces of safety gear that you must have to play the game safely. This is one of them, and in fact, this is the most important. These are paintball specific goggles. You'll notice it has a hard lens, has a full face mask and lovely ear protection. You cannot use ski goggles. You can not use tank goggles. You can not use chemical goggles. You can not use fashion goggles, because they are not designed to withstand the impact of paintballs. Not to mention, they do not create a full seal around your face and around your eyes when you're playing the game of paintball. You can only use paintball approved goggles only. Accept no imitations. Always get the genuine article. This is the second most important piece of paintball equipment that you can use. This is a barrel blocking device. Specifically, a barrel sock. As you can see, it covers the mussel of the barrel. It shows everybody that absolutely nothing is coming out the end of this barrel, and if it is, it's going to be stopped by this device. You can also use those hard plastic plugs. Those are pretty safe too as long as you don't adjust them like remove stuff from them. A lot of people use the barrel socks because when you're in the game play you can just wad it up and put it in your pocket and it doesn’t get lost. Make sure that this is on when you're in the parking lot. Make sure that these are when you're on the field. You might be wondering why I'm so animated about people wearing their goggles and using barrel socks, and there's a reason for it. The best way I can show you is a quick demonstration. Remember, goggles on when you're shooting. Just for the sake of argument, this is an old paintball that I happen to find on the paintball field over here. It's been sitting here for a little while. It's about the right consistency. It's about the right size of a human eyeball. That's what happens when you leave these things sitting out. Now, let's say that this is your eye. This is a paintball gun that shoots a projectile at about 204 miles an hour. Any questions? Now, that grossed you out? Just imagine what had happen if you took your goggles off and you take that same paintball right in your eye. Look at the bright side. The other experiment that I had to prove this either had to do something with a chicken egg or a dead cow eye. Paintball is a safe game as long as you adhere to the safety policies that we've been using for years and years and years. Look, I've been doing this for almost two decades now and one thing has remained constant, the goggles. Always wear the goggles when you're playing. Then the barrel plugs and the barrel socks, always use those when you're not playing. That's what keeps the game safe."