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How do you know if Paint is "Old"

smartecosse

5.5.20.22.19
Dec 29, 2001
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land of the picts
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load up your hopper with paint and proceed to the field.

at game on fire as much paint down your lane as possible.

if the person to walk into that lane gets knocked off their feet then the paint is old(or u are using marbles by mistake) :D
 

Mark

UK Cougars
Jul 9, 2001
1,403
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England
www.ukcougars.co.uk
As said by Sparklie and obviously overlooked by everyone else, all the paint we get in this country (UK) is old anywhere up to 3 months. The last Skyball I played in the paint was a custom made batch with a green fill and a black shell...(less than 5 days old when I fired it) the leftovers turned up in the UK 3 months later (well they had to sell it) think of the route paint has to go...

Paintball plant - warehouse - freight company - warehouse - road or rail to warehouse by the docks - onto ship - cross atlantic - warehouse - road or rail to freight company - warehouse- deliver to distributer - warehouse - rotate stock - to freight company - to paintball store/site - user

That was an ideal world route do the sums that is at least 6 weeks if no storage takes place. The americans have no concept of the age of paint (that they use) 'cos it nearly always "fresh". We over in europe get the ****ty end of the stick but that ain't gonna change.

I do realise that there ARE a few manufacturing plants for paintballs within europe but none in the UK so similar delays are still gonna happen even with paint made at these plants.

If the companies were to put a "born on" (ala Budwiser) then their sales would fall like a stone as the customer would refuse to purchase "old" paint ;) there are coding nubers on certain brands but they can only be translated by the makers themselves :D
 

jahlad

Emortal
Feb 11, 2002
3,980
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Planet, 0161
ive kept a case of paint for well over 9 months and used it without breaking a single ball in my marker once...was blaze i think

as a general rule i go along the lines of what sparkie said, if the paint 'shines' nice its usually ok. look for dimples or flat spots on the balls and avoid any paint that 'grips' or sticks together.
bounce test wise i was told years ago (8 maybe 9) that if you drop a ball from shoulder hight it should bounce back to waist hight....ish
old paint dont bounce!

another simple test is to fill a hopper and rapid fire say 50-60 shots if your paint is knackered then it will be flying every bloody where but in a stright line (this test does NOT work when shooting an angel :p :D ;) ) or you will have broken at least one in the marker

storage wise, keep paint at comfortable room temp, away from radiators and windows...ive got a nice corner on a shelf thats just right....behind the sofa is prob ok in most houses, as long as there is no radiator behind there