The Types of Paintball Tanks and Their Differences

Paintball is an increasingly popular sport that originated in 1976. The main idea of paintball is to shoot your opponent with a ball of paint moving at excessive speeds, thereby killing him and bringing your team closer to victory. The speed that a player’s paintballs move is very important for this sport, as slow-moving paintballs could be dodged more easily. There are two main types of propellant paintball tanks carbon dioxide and high pressure air or nitrogen.

Carbon Dioxide Paintball Tanks

Carbon dioxide tanks use liquid CO2 and expand it into a gas to propel the paintballs. After using carbon dioxide paintball tanks for an extended period of time, ice crystals can actually form on the tank. This is caused because the expansion of the liquid CO2 from a liquid into a gas takes heat energy, eventually this can cause the counter effect of the propellant tank growing very cold, and when used for long periods, the creation of ice.

When used rapidly, carbon dioxide paintball tanks can become unreliable for both accuracy and distance. This is due to the fact that the carbon dioxide needs time to expand into a gaseous form when shots are fired too rapidly the pressure may not fully form.

These tanks can also leak due to erosion of the O rings and seals, although with care this can usually be prevented. Carbon dioxide paintball tanks should not be left in direct sunlight as there is a slight risk of the gas expanding to a level that is unsafe.

High Pressure Air and Nitrogen Paintball Tanks

High pressure air and nitrogen tanks operate differently from carbon dioxide tanks because they do not have to expand a liquid into a gas to get the propellant effect the material is already in a gaseous state. This increases the accuracy and distance over carbon dioxide paintball tanks. These tanks will also grow cooler when used however the effect is far less than with carbon dioxide tanks.

Although generally preferred over carbon dioxide paintball tanks, nitrogen and high pressure air tanks do have disadvantages. Nitrogen and high pressure tanks are larger and heavier than CO2 tanks, due to the propellant already being in a gaseous form. Smaller tanks are made but will generally not last through a fairly long match. Nitrogen and high pressure air paintball tanks are also more expensive to purchase, although refilling them is much less expensive than refilling carbon dioxide tanks.

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