A Year With a Pump

I did it.  And I don't regret it in the least.

I've now gone a calendar year while only playing with a pump in real games.  I've shot lots of non-pumps during that time for reviews (and just for fun), but whenever "game on" has been called, I've been on the field with a good, old-fashioned, one-shot-to-one-pump paintball gun.  I have to admit, while I was outgunned many times (there's nothing quite like taking on an Ego with a Phantom), I had a blast.  Plus, I spent considerably less on paint.

To be completely forthcoming, I didn't play in any competitions this past year and I didn't play nearly as much as I wish I could have, but I did play quite a bit and I had a blast.  There are also a few lessons I learned from the experience.

1. Pumps do save you money.  I don't know the exact numbers, but I rarely would shoot a bag of paint (500 balls) even after playing all day and shooting as much as I wanted to.  Other days I would shoot less than a hundred shots over the course of 5-6 games.  With that little paint being shot, you can afford to shoot the nicest paint out there and you'll still be saving money.
2. No matter how skilled you are, you can still be outgunned.  I like to think that a skilled tactician can outplay someone shooting a stream of paint, but that's not always the case.  While skill and movement definitely are what make the player, a faster gun definitely has its advantages in certain situations.  In speedball when I'm heading down a snake towards an opposing player, I'd definitely prefer to shoot as fast as he can.  In the woods, slow shooting is less of a disadvantage.
3. Light-weight is the way to go.  I typically played with a pump, a 50- or 100-round hopper and a 9oz CO2 tank.  You can't get much lighter than that and playing with a full hopper, 68cu tank and larger gun now seems somewhat awkward.
4. Pumps can shoot faster than most people give them credit for.  On a chronograph I'm able to regularly get 5 balls per second with my pump and I imagine I get a constant 3-4 on the field when I need to.  That rate of fire is still slower than a Tippmann, but it's faster than most people think.
5. Don't overfill your fifty-round hopper.  If you're playing with a small hopper, don't fill it all the way to the top because your paintballs will form a little bridge over the feed neck and nothing will come out.  I made this mistake more than once.
6. Pumping with your off-hand is a hard skill to learn.  After a year, I still never mastered pumping with my right hand and shooting with my left - probably because I only did it in dire circumstances.  It's an important skill to learn to shoot with your off-hand, but pumping with the wrong hand is just plain awkward.
7. Pods are a pain.  Since I never shot very much, I rarely wore a pod harness or brought extra paint on the field with me.  When I occasionally did take a harness out again, it just felt cumbersome.  (The fact that I never used the pods I carried with me probably contributed to my present distaste to lugging them around.)
8. Shooting semi-automatics (and full-automatics) is fun.  While I really enjoyed my year with the pump, I realize that there are times when I really would prefer to pull out something a little faster or I want to shoot with just one hand.

A year with a pump was great and I'll never forget it.  I'll also probably never do it again as there are so many guns out there that I'm hankering to try out in a game.  If you've never tried playing with a pump or if you haven't played with one in years, I'd highly recommend giving one a try - even for just one day.