How to Aim a Paintball Gun

Video Transcript

"Hello! This is Rob Rubin and you're watching Expert Village. When they pick up a paintball marker the new guys usually ask 2 questions; how do you shoot this thing and it's closely followed by how do you aim this thing. A lot of people expect when they pick one of these up that it's going to handle pretty much like an M16 or a riffle or handgun or something like that. The problem is it's not the paintball marker itself, it's what we're shooting out of it. These are liquid filled round projectiles going out of a smooth barrel and it's a projectile shell that can be affected by the weather. It's got dimples and dents in it. There's a seam down the middle. Yeah, not exactly the most ballistic thing on the planet here. As far as aiming these things go, sometimes you just kind of have to wait for the correct lunar alignment in order to get the ball to go where you want it to go. That being said, here's a couple cool tricks you can do. Your normal shootouts are going to take place between 50 and 75 feet. So, the key of accuracy is to learn what 50-75 looks like and then practice, practice, practice your 50-75 foot shots. What I tell people to do a lot of times is what I call zen aiming, which is when I put a finger parallel to the barrel and my middle finger on the trigger and I shoot at targets while pointing with my index finger. Once you get the technique down, then you just bring your index finger and you make sure the paintball marker is just merely an extension of your hand. I know it all sound mystical, but you do pick it up after a while. The big key is learning what 50-75 feet looks like, practicing your shot at that range, and then consistently shooting people within that range. Another way that you aim a paintball marker is just sighting down that line. Basically, you're going to look down the top end of the paintball marker and look out. If you have a center feed paintball marker, you can actually do the same thing among the side, but the idea is that you're just kind of lining up point to the back to a point in the front and hoping that the ball goes where you want it to. Another way that you can practice your shooting is building your own target range. If you go to a paintball field that has a target range, utilize it. If you got any paint leftover at the end of the day, shoot it on the target range, and don't just shoot at random targets either. Find a target, point it out in your mind, put a paintball on it. move targets, hit it again, move targets, hit it again. What you're doing is you're training yourself just by doing the same task over and over again. It's the same way you learn any skill."