OPTICS PART I: A Few Good Reasons Not to Buy One

An ACOG Sight

       The new player at Kamloops Paintball Games I was telling you about earlier sent me a second part to his vest question, this one did not pertain to vests but instead to a specific gun accessory: an optic. The optic he was asking about in particular was a sub 100$ Trijicon ACOG look alike on the Milsig.ca store site and he wanted to know if I thought this was a good buy for an A5 he hopes to build.

       I don't recommend getting that sight or any sight for that matter. The best course of action is to get used to shouldering your marker and moving it with you as you turn, getting accustomed to the feel and weight of it. Odds are if you've been playing with your own marker for a while now you already do this, so why add extra weight to the equation and mess with reflexes you're already developing by trying to rely on a sight? For the entirety of last summer, when I used a milsim gun, that gun had a Milsig Sniper Stock on it, and eventually I became accustomed to it sitting against my shoulder in a particular way that helped me know when I had a good shot lined up. Every speedballer in the world has to get used to doing something like this: they practice with a comfortable set up and learn to swivel about, take aim, and shoot based on familiar feelings of the tank cradled in their shoulder and position of their barrel relative to their target as a visual reference. In milsim we have to do the same sort of thing but with a stock in lieu of a tank cradled in our shoulder; we rely on this doubly so because we cannot fire the same kind of volley of balls as speedballers. Additionally, if you do come to rely on your sight, what happens when you need to make a reflex shot and don't have time to line up the target? Bet you wish you had those reflexes then, eh?

       “But Kris, I see your guns with sights all the time!” This is true, however it's almost entirely for gun portrait sake. I like to play dress-up with my guns and pull different looks out of the hat! I also like to make them look absolutely bad-ass on days I'm reffing and want to show case some milsim stuff between games and get new players psyched about the sport and when someone won't stop drawing comparisons to airsoft and “how much better airsoft is,” sometimes the Milsig Paradigm with a nice site on top makes for a good means to an end for that grousing. Another thing is my paintball optics are startlingly inexpensive. I don't buy them unless they are sub 30$ and usually have some additional discount on top of that and I'll explain why in the paragraph after next.

Picatinny Offset Mount

       Most sights are really expensive. The one on the Milsig site my friend wanted was at least 80$ (more than both my scope and red dot combined, multiplied by 2!) and that's a hefty chunk of change. Good ones are heavy because they have some amazing high quality glass in them, and then there is the small issue of mounting it. If your marker lacks a picatinny rail on top then you need to buy a mount, then you need to look down it to make sure you can see through it with a mask on and if that's in the way you need to purchase a riser for extra clearance. Additionally, you may need a hopper offset or a site offset mount if your paint feeding system is on top of the marker and interfering with a site being placed on top. This equipment is an additional 50-100$ so you see it's not always as easy as declaring you want a site and buying one. This is also at least an extra pound of metal on the gun too. Yet another problem arises with the hopper offsetting gear should you choose that course of action. Weight is now heavily skewed to the right hand side where most hoppers are located, making your marker much less easy to hold when it has 200 rounds loaded.

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       I'm also going to mention that from my experience and the experiences I've watched others go through that the sites in paintball stores and websites are largely seem to be of 'disposable' quality. Please, go to a military supply website or even a hunting supply site right now and look at gun optics there that are the real deal. Eotech Holosites over 500$, authentic Trijicon ACOGs at1100$. That last one is almost twice as much as I paid for my Paradigm! There's a reason these one's cost more: they're built to take extreme punishment, huge amounts of shaking, immersion in water, constant humidity, fine dust trying to sneak in the seams, and they have to be the best given their true purpose: assisting in killing things with ease. Something that amazes me is Bullet Ant Ballistic Goggles. These aren't optics but are eye protection solutions that are capable of taking a hit from a .22 bullet fired from a few feet away and not shatter. There are covers for, and elements inside real steel optics that are made of very similar stuff and I will let you know now, your sub 100$ paintball optic will never be able to take a hit from a .22 or a paintball for that matter. I've heard stories from a lucky few whose sights have taken a couple balls before breaking, but every sight I've seen take a direct hit to the lens in person has broken and there are countless more “Site shot, broken :(“ threads on milsim forums online. It's only a matter of time before your 100$ (ball park) paintball optic goes bye bye, and that's not a chunk of money you want to put out on a regular basis. Sorry to be so doom and gloom!

       Let's recap, a couple good reasons not to buy a sight for a paintball gun? Using one can compromise reflexes you'd have using iron sights or getting used the feeling of your stock. Additional weight of mounting gear and cost of that gear, plus any draw backs of shifting the weight about. And inferior construction, paintball gun optics might as well have expiration dates stamped on them. So like I.N.G. Direct's guy with the accent says: Save your money.