The correct term for a paintball gun is “paintball marker”.
The first paintball guns were never intended to be used on people. In fact, they were used to mark trees and cattle–hence the term, “paintball marker”. Cattlemen use paintball markers to mark cattle within a herd. They might mark a cow that appears to be pregnant or injured so they can remove them from the herd later. Loggers and foresters use paintball markers to mark trees. It’s much more efficient that walking up to a tree and marking it with a can of paint.
The outer shell of a paintball is made from gelatin.
You may be surprised to find paintballs are made of gelatin, the same stuff in Jello. There are a few reasons for it. First, the machines that produce paintballs were originally designed to make pills. Gelatin is easily digestible, which makes it a perfect way to encapsulate medication. Another advantage of making paintballs with gelatin is that gelatin is biodegradable. In fact, paintballs are made entirely of food-grade ingredients. Unfortunately they taste terrible!
Check out this video to find out more about how paintballs are made.
You can’t freeze paintballs in your freezer.
One of the things we sometimes hear from new players is how they know somebody who froze paintballs before playing. Fortunately paintball manufactures are aware of this myth and have been putting an eco-friendly anti-freeze in their paintballs. Paintballs actually become brittle in cold weather, which is why most fields switch to a winterized paintball when the weather turns cold.
The first fully automatic paintball gun came out in 1989.
The first fully automatic paintball gun was made by Tippmann Pnuematics in Ft. Wayne, IN. It was called the SMG-60. Paintballs were loaded into clips and the magazine held 18 rounds. The gun was such an advantage over the other paintball guns of the time that it was banned from most tournaments.