Does the prevailing design philosophy in paintball guns make anyone else really mad?

Ok, so I went paintballing the other day, and it was great, but it reminded me to something. I HATE pantball gun design. Look at this.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...jTHAy1SYu_U2JF

Why.

Is.

The.

Air.

Tank.

There.


This is the basic design of a paintball gun. And it gives me conniptions. The placement of the tank is pretty much the WORST POSSIBLE PLACE, short of it sticking out diagonally from the tip of the barrel. The balance of the gun is hilariously bad as a result. The proper place (in my mind) to put the tank would be under the forward grip, or perhaps above the back of the barrel. Or heck, even on the side of the body, parallel. But this is just crazy.

My guess is it's either a safety thing (too easy to accidentally unscrew the air tank if it were under the grip) or an ease of manufacture thing. Putting the tank behind the barrel would make it pretty much impossible to aim down it, I'd have thought?

As I understand it, it's for safety reasons.

Air tanks when used quickly get very cold, very quickly to the point of exposed skin sticking to metal and potential frostbite. Since the airtank is aligned along the forearm, plus most paintballers participate with with long sleeves, there's reduced risk of accidental contact and any potential damage (losing a couple layers of skin off your forearm hurts a lot less compared to the same off your fingertips), compared to anywhere else on the gun.

Balance...
I know you said you don't like the balance, but how are you holding and aiming it? It's not a hunting or assault rifle. If anything, it's typically carried and fired like a sub machine gun or pistol. They are not accurate enough to worry about sighting (though if you look at the expensive "sniper" class paintball guns, notice they have a different layout).

Look at your design, the two heaviest parts, the hopper and the air tank. Notice what is right in between them? The handle/trigger. The hopper is where it is because, you know, gravity feed. So it can't move. Now, if you put the airtank under the barrel like you suggest, then all the weight would be forward of the handle, necessitating it being carried with two hands. Yet most people running around the paintball field don't want to carry it two handed. After all, they are not trained in firearms.

In short, if you don't like the balance and layout of the cheap mass market paintball guns that are designed for general/amateur use, spend money buying one that is specialized for the way you want them to feel. Or, if you only play every few years, just ignore it and use it like it is intended to be used, not like you would use a different firearm.

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Originally Posted by LordEntrails

Balance...
how are you holding and aiming it? It's not a hunting or assault rifle. If anything, it's typically carried and fired like a sub machine gun or pistol. They are not accurate enough to worry about sighting (though if you look at the expensive "sniper" class paintball guns, notice they have a different layout).

Yet most people running around the paintball field don't want to carry it two handed. After all, they are not trained in firearms.

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I hold it like, uh, a carbine? Or...something. Somewhere in between rifle and straight hipfire, but pretty far from the latter. The placement of the tank makes it almost impossible to not treat it as a stock, but doing that at a proper height for your eyes places the tank underneath your arm, where it's useless and heavy.

Yeah, they're hardly sniper rifles, but even in my limited experience I found them not that inaccurate. It's mostly the wind that affects the shot (I think). I at least want the option of trying to aim.

You know what else the paintball gun has? A forward grip. It's like, right there. It's like super intuitive to use both hands here, not sure where you're getting that from. I've never seen anyone wave them around one-handed. The things are way too heavy to maneuver quickly like that, unless you're using something lighter than normal. Genuinely confused.

You know that submachine guns overwhelmingly have forward grips, right? And that they're usually supposed to be two-handed as well? Not an expert or anything, but I get the feeling pistols are supposed to be two-handed too, though I can see not doing that sometimes since they're light.

Yeah, that's the whole point of shifting the tank forward. To put the weight closer to the forward grip, where it's supposed to be.

I don't disagree that the layout is unusual. Or that their are better designs from a user perspective.

But there is a reason (or many) for the designs the way they are. Let's see if we can figure them out from a design engineer point of view.

What are the design requirements? The casual player wants something that resembles a firearm, is durable, works easily enough, and is cheap (because the arena is just going to pass the cost to the renters.)

To function the gun needs; a chamber, trigger, barrel, ammo supply and propellant. The ammo supply (hopper) needs to be gravity fed, and hence above the chamber with adequate height for the feed mechanism. The chamber and trigger should be close together so that you have fewer parts and less material, resulting in lower cost and better reliability. The barrel need to be connected to the chamber and "point" forward. So everything so far is pretty much mandated where it goes right? All that is left is the propellant tank that is required. And, one other thing that might be nice is a "stock" so that it looks something like a rifle.

So that leaves one component you can place just about anywhere you want. And one nice to have (a stock). So how about solving both with one item? Use the tank as a stock. Fewer parts, lower cost, better reliability. But, as mentioned by another, the propellant tank can get cold, so placing it like a rifle stock where it might be used as a cheek rest is a "bad idea".

But, you can still use it like a stock, and if you place it low and opposite the hopper relative to where the primary hand is you get a balance around that hand. Wa la! Hence the design you don't like.

Look, if you think the companies that make the guns aren't aware of the issues and advantages to what you are proposing, and that your proposed design does not have financial setbacks. Then you've got a product you can sell.

There was a British paintball show called X-Fire (pronounced Crossfire iirc) that had a different design. Can’t look it up now, but thought it deserved mentioning.

I used to play paintball (before I turned to Airsoft) and it never felt odd to me. The tank goes under you arm and you pop off shots like its a sub machine gun, pointing it vaguely at the target and firing off three shots or so. Also, that one has a foregrip, its right in front of the trigger guard and its where the air hose connects. You can grab that.

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Originally Posted by Maquise

There was a British paintball show called X-Fire (pronounced Crossfire iirc)

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They must be using an archaic pronunciation, like when they say "ask" instead of "aks."