Paintball is the fastest growing sport in the USA and Canada. Stats show that over 10 million people per year play paintball, just in the US. The sport is absolutely safe, thanks to the modern equipment which players use. The most important pieces of the equipment are the paintball gun, also known as a paintball marker, and the goggles.

But how does the paintball gun work? The principle of operation is based on the power of expanding gas which pushes out paintballs through the barrel at a speed of 91m/s. This is the speed limit, an industry standard considered as the safety barrier that manufacturers shouldn't surpass in order for the sport to remain safe. The paintballs are made to break when they hit something, releasing paint and cause very little pain, similar to a sting.

The construction of a marker consists of body, hopper, tank and a barrel. To allow a player to carry around the marker freely when funning, they body is fabricated from light materials such as aluminum or carbon fiber. The small tank holding the paintballs is called hopper.

Hoppers are divided in the following types - gravity feed, stick feed, agitating and force feed. Gravity feed is the most basic type of hopper with a limited shooting rate of to only 8 balls per second. Stick feed hoppers can contain 20 paintballs at max. Agitating hoppers are amongst the best ones, no jamming can occur, because they use propellers to agitate the paintballs. Force-feed models use a spring or a belt-fed system to proper the paintballs.

The tank is a chamber which contains the gas. The gun barrel directs the shot. It can have different style or length.

Generally, markers are classified as mechanical or electronic. The electronic ones are embedded with a microchip which regulates the release of paintballs into the barrel. They also require some type of compressed gas. The high-end models have a display showing the number of balls left in the hopper, shooting rate and game time.

The following types of paintball markers are available - stock glass, pump action, semi automatic, electropneumatic, fully automatic. Semi Automatic paintball markers require only a trigger pull to fire a paintball, but you have to pull the trigger for each and every shot. The fully automatic paintball markers will just keep firing paintballs for as long as the trigger is held down. The stock glass paintball markers are pump action pistols holding between 10-15 paintballs at a time, which need to be tilted in order to feed in the next paintball.

Perhaps the best paintball marker ever made is the RAP4. It's the first real action paintball marker, a replica of the legendary M4 rifle used by SWAT Teams. The other high-profile model is Tippmann 98. The M98 is though and dependable, because it has a simple design combined with extra-tough finishes.