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The few times I'd played paintball, what made it not-so-fun were the large-capacity hoppers we all had on our guns. Isolated from the rest of my team, I spent a good ten minutes pinned down, as the virtually unlimited firepower each gun possesses means your opponent can lay down suppressing fire indefinitely; it's not like in the movies where you can wait for him to reload while you sprint to a better position. (On the flip side, when I finally succeeded in flanking someone, I admit I kind of spazzed out and put a few more rounds onto them than was decent.)
The Airow Gun Combo would make things more interesting. Combining a Diamond Archery compound bow with a paintball-firing barrel, the Airow is a CO2-free way to launch paintballs at 260 to 300 feet per second. And even though the gravity tube up top looks like it'll hold a dozen rounds or so, at least your opponent will have to draw for each shot, giving you a fighting chance of getting out of trouble.
If you've already got a compound bow, you can buy just the paintball-firing portion and knock it all together.
What they ought to make next: A crossbow version for Walking Dead fans with Daryl aspirations.
Comments
I would invite you to check out MagFedPB.com
It's a website that caters to a new 'style' of paintball called 'magfed', which requires that players use magazines that hold 7-20 rounds in their various guns.
The goal of magfed is that it forces each player to reload more frequently and gets rid of the large, obtrusive hoppers. It helps players focus more on those tactics and less on their trigger fingers. It also saves money, as a magfed player goes through a fraction of the paint as someone playing 'tournament' style.
Plus the guns tend to be heavy duty and tactically-minded in their design; so it's a bit more practical than using the airow gun.
You should look into pump guns.
As an archer this scares me quite a bit. When playing paintball you usually do a good bit of running and shooting on the fly. If you try to do that with a bow, and you don't really know what you are doing, it can result in a bow failure. Not the best video but it shows what can happen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJoxJJjcQFU
It all depends on the style of play you prefer. Hoppers came about as soon as someone realized they'd have a major advantage if they didn't have to reload every time their 10-shot tube ran dry. In modern tournament paintball the goal of back players IS to shoot the entire game to suppress opponents so the front players can advance while the players opposite them are tucked behind their bunker. For recreational play I agree that a never ending barrage of paint is not conducive to fun and it indeed hinders the ability of new players to make moves and take risks. While pumps definitely restrict the ROF, they have their own set of problems and require a certain amount of mechanical aptitude many don't possess. Our solution was to offer a special mode on our electro-pneumatic markers that field owners and players could select when they wanted to. The marker still operated with the simple pull of a trigger but it only allowed 1 shot every 2 seconds. We were amazed at how much more players moved around the field knowing that they weren't going to get lit up or that they had a short window of opportunity to eliminate their opponent after they shot. There is definitely a trend toward magfed play over the last several years which I am glad to see. I think this is partially due to the development of new paintball rounds that mimic a more traditional bullet shape. They have drastically increased range and accuracy over regular paintballs. As for the obtrusive nature of the hopper, people have been attempting to solve that problem since they arrived on the scene.
"First Strike" Rounds: http://www.tiberiusarms.com/first-strike-paintball/
Hopper Alternatives
Warp Feed: http://www.airgundesignsusa.com/Images/bluefade1-480.jpg
Strike Loader: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RNH_fOoXqsw/Tix6HFfyomI/AAAAAAAAAds/c2v9_qo0vkA/s1600/strike-loader.jpg
I've only been paintballing once, I was quite disappointed by it, the hopper full of ammo does ruin it a bit as everyone just hunkers down and sprays the opposite team as fast as they can fire.
I have just taken up archery and I hear that you need to practice a LOT, I would love something like this if it could realistically simulate the experience, and using a 'real' bow sounds like a very good start; the point being that I can't practice archery in my garden (obviously), even with enough space, but a sort of neutered version that still requires the same movements and encourages good form would be great.
probably quite a limited application that, but still..