If you have been playing paintball for a while now, once in a while you might have heard about frozen paintballs. Each player has their own story to tell about frozen paintballs. Does a frozen paintball hurt? Upon testing, we found the truth behind this myth.
So basically we all know that a regular paintballs hit does hurt and the level of pain varies from person to person. But what about the frozen ones? Many players love to get creative and make things more interesting. We too were curious about it and decided to find out.
The short answer is NO! Not a bit; frozen paintballs don’t hurt at all. But these sure do affect other aspects of paintball like shooting and paintball markers.
In this blog post we will uncover things like do frozen paintballs hurt, Can you even freeze paintballs, and What other paintball things are affected by frozen paintballs in depth. So shall we start?
Do frozen paintballs hurt? A Myth or A Fact?
I have heard quite a few stories myself from fellow paintball players about how their mischievous cousins and friends have shot them with frozen paintballs and stuff, how it was dangerous and hurtful.
This made me wonder if frozen paintballs hurt more than non frozen paintballs. But before we could test that out we faced another challenge. Our paintballs didn’t freeze from within even in the deep freezer.
Since paintballs have a dye mixture of water and oil. The balls did get cold but not ice rock hard. That is why these frozen paintballs didn’t hurt at all!
The only dangerous thing about frozen paintball is if it breaks inside the paintball marker!
Here is visual evidence from a lone wolf that frozen paintballs don’t hurt at all. They even joked around that if you want to keep yourself safe from paintballs freeze them.
But why use frozen paintballs? They are ineffective, less accurate, and break down easily thus damaging your paintball marker with a risk of replacement or repair.
To freeze paintballs like ice rock hard, you might need liquid nitrogen to cool them off. Which is rather expensive and time consuming and to be honest is not worth the time.
Can you freeze Paintballs?
You can freeze paintballs like ice hard only with liquid nitrogen. Other than that paintballs will just get cold but not into solid ice.
Paintballs get deformed due to the mixture of water dye and oil within. The low temperature affects the inside air bubble in the paintball which helps keep the ball in a round sphere shape.
Your paintballs would either get misshaped or have a dent/dimple in them. And every pro paintball player knows that dimple shaped paintballs won’t fly straight thus affecting your accuracy.
By freezing paintballs not only would they misshapen but would also get more brittle. More brittle means more easily porn to break. And trust us you don’t want a paintball burst into your paintball marker. It is messy and NOT GOOD!!!
What happens when you freeze Paintballs?
Paintballs are water-soluble, biodegradable, and nontoxic balls. Their structure is made in a way that it would only break on impact. You will even find some frost resistant paintballs on the market.
So what happens when you try to freeze them:
- Paintballs will misshapen.
- There will be a visible dimple or dent on them. This will affect the accuracy and range of the shots.
- The outer shell will become more brittle. The paintballs will break even before they leave the paintball marker barrel.
What happens if you shoot a frozen paintball?
The only thing that is going to happen is:
- you end up with a messy paintball marker.
- Sticky brittle paintball rounds pack which would no longer be useful in any paintball match.
First of all, there is not a single realistic way to manage to use a properly frozen paintball on the paintball field. Unless you take paintballs out straight from the freezer and into the marker which is not possible on the playing ground now is it?!
Secondly, there are high chances of a frozen paintball breaking inside the paintball gun before leaving the barrel.
If that paintball marker is an electric one then it’s game over or if it semi-automatic one then you might have to do A LOT of deep cleaning.
Upon testing, frozen paintballs don’t even fly straight. These have worse or should we write rubbish shot accuracy and range?
How to Store Paintball Rounds?
If you end up buying paintball rounds in bulk then they should be properly stored away for best usage and performance.
Since paintballs are Biodegradable products they need proper care otherwise they will go bad and your money will be wasted down the drain.
Preserving paintballs by freezing them is not a reliable method for successful storage. These are a few practices that we use for properly storing paintballs for later use:
Store them at room temperature
Not too cold or too hot, try to avoid humid places as well. Too cold will make paintballs’ shells brittle and they will easily break in the barrels or even in the hands.
Too hot and they will melt down and stick to each other. Humid weather makes the paintballs either bouncy or makes them swelled. Meaning they will bounce off instead of breaking on the impact or won’t be able to fit in the barrel.
Avoid place like
Try to avoid storing paintballs in places like
- The trunk of a car
- In an air conditioned closet
- Near radiators
“A good dry and cool place will do like in the garage. Try to store paintballs in a zip lock bag.”
Different Expiration Dates
Paintballs do age, this means they all have a certain period. After that duration paintballs will go bad or lose their shape and other properties and will no longer be suitable for use.
Before you bulk buy, check the expiration dates of the paintballs from the manufacturer and also consult with your local paintball fields whether they allow outside ammo or not. Because many paintball fields enforce the law of “only field paintballs”.
The reason behind this law is to make the environment fair for each paintball player and to do something related to the cleaning field process.
Always Read Manufacturer Guide
Each brand has its own set of instructions regarding how to store its paintballs. You will find these guidelines under the description of the product.
These sure help a lot in storing paintballs away for future use. I always end up with some leftover paintballs after my paintball marathon. With proper care, I use them later for future paintball matches instead of buying more.
If you don’t find any instructions in the paintballs product description. Ask away by emailing the manufacturer on how to take care of them. They will guide you through a few pointers for sure.
Conclusion
Do frozen paintballs hurt more than regular paintballs? By far it is proven that NO, frozen paintballs don’t hurt much. And it is just a paintball MYTH.
By freezing paintballs, they lose their functionality and properties. So even if luckily you manage to shoot one frozen paintball it will likely not fly straight or disintegrate after being fired.
Although by this experimentation we learned quite new things about paintballs.
- You can’t freeze a paintball in a regular freezer or fridge.
- Liquid nitrogen is the only thing that will freeze Paintballs. (Not worth the money or time)
- Frozen paintballs are less accurate and break easily.
- The only damage frozen paintballs can do is to your wallet.
- They will ruin your paintball marker.
- After freezing paintballs, you will end up with a sticky watery pack of rounds
So just smile and move on if you do happen to hear someone say frozen paintballs hurt more than regular ones. It’s just a myth. Frozen paintballs damage the paintball marker and have the worst accuracy and range is a FACT.
Now you also know what happens to paintballs if you do manage to freeze them. The above mentioned storing ways of paintballs surely proved helpful for us and it will too for you as well. Stay safe and have fun paintballing!
