Yes, you read that right.    In the hands of a veteran player the 'Tourney' guns are amazing instruments capable of astounding rates of fire and astonishing accuracy.     But you will never learn the basic skills of a great player if you are using a $$$ Race-gun as a crutch.    When I go to an organized field I see it all day long.    Groups of kids, most of them with only a year or so of playing experience toting the most impressive array of paintball firepower you can imagine.    They stand around in huge bunches showing just how fast their toy will shoot.    Often, half of the day is spent watching 'Pissing Contests' as a buddy of mine once referred to this activity.    And I watch with bored fascination as they each in turn proceed to pump half a hundred paintballs into the side of a barrel that is only ten or fifteen feet away.    I notice that they miss a lot.      

      Out on the field the story is much the same.     These kids, whose first gun is worth more money than the car I drive can do little more than 'piss paint'.     They have no movement skills, no communication, and they could not hit the broadside of a barn with less than half a case of paint.    Victory in the field goes to the team that gets the luckiest.    Usually because members of the other team broke down, ran dry, or did something else just plain stupid.    Like doing nothing at all.    Often, time simply runs out.     In a game of speedball everyone is crouched down behind his or her barricade just streaming paintballs at one another.    Maybe they'll win, maybe they will lose.     Certainly they will shoot a lot of paint.     When it's all over the losers, and that's what they are, glare at their $$$ paintball guns.    They hang their heads and fiddle about with the various adjustments.    They pump a few dozen more shots into the target barrel.     Maybe they even hand the gun to the field's airsmith.     Because something must be wrong.   Why else would they have lost?    Maybe they should have spent a few extra bucks on that deluxe model with all the chrome and 3 splashed colors?   Maybe they should get an electro with the 'turbo mode'?

      I'm out there with my pump-gun.    I'm the furthest person forward on my team.    I've got one of the opposing players, who is sporting an 'RT' on HPA, pinned behind a wire spool and checking himself for paint.     I've fired less than a half dozen shots.    I'm not some 'Paintball God', I'm not on some ego trip here.    I consider myself, at best, 'above average'.    Put me on a field with 'Real' pro's and I would get spanked like a red headed step child.    But I've got enough skill to know that what I'm seeing is utterly pathetic.    These kids, who teethed on low end semi-autos and graduated to tournament markers before they had even broken in their Spyders and Model 98's have no skills.    And it's not because I have some huge natural talent.     I'm sure I was just as poor my first years of play.    But it's not simply the amount of experience I have either because that just doesn't amount to much.    Some of these kids have spent more days playing in their couple of years than I have since '84.    Some of them play every single saturday and sunday all summer long!     Their mistake is that they have used technology as a crutch.    And the problem with using a crutch is that you never learn to walk on your own.

      There is more to paintball than just who can shoot the most paint.    Sure, if you play the odds then the person who shoots the most paint stands the best chance of winning.    That is presuming that no one else does anything to improve their odds.    The fastest shooting marker in the world will do little more than run you out of paint quickest if you cannot hit your target.    The most accurate marker in the world is not enough if you don't know how to maneuver yourself into position for a shot.     These are skills that must come from you.     No paintball gun comes with them.    And this is especially true of the Tourney guns.    Do you really think a shiny new 'RT' Mag is going to help you out when the best shot you've got is that exposed hopper fifty feet away.    But you can't hold it steady because it's too heavy from all the extra's you've got on it and you never learned good marksmanship skills anyway.     Do you think that 12 balls per second is going to make much of a difference when you can't keep two of them in an area the size of a tire at that range let alone the nose of that hopper?     Fat Chance.    At 12 BPS you will just need to reload sooner.    Here's my advice to anyone deciding what paintball gun to buy.     Let your first gun be a pump.     Spend at least a year playing with it before you ever buy a semi.     If possible, buy a pump-gun that physically resembles the semi-auto you want to buy.     That is, a Sniper 2 pump if you want an Autococker.    The closer the match the better.    This will give you familiarity with your marker.     Use the pump-gun for nearly all of your recreational games.     Switch to your semi-auto only for the final practice game before a tourney and of course for the tourney itself.