Paintball Hand Grenades

I was head-to-head against one of the best paintball players I’d ever gone up against and he had the better position. From behind his bunker, he could rain paint down on me anytime I so much as poked a finger out of the brush.

I slithered back through the undergrowth, propped myself up on my knees and pondered my predicament. That’s when I remembered the grenade in my upper vest pocket.

Paintball hand grenades were notoriously unreliable in those days, but what did I have to lose? I would never shoot my way past this guy. So, I pulled the pin and made my best trajectory estimate and let the Squadbuster grenade fly.

Since paintball grenades are nearly silent, I would never have known if it had gone off except for my opponent’s shouts of "Hit! Dead man!"

As he walked out, I could see that he was covered from head-to-toe with tiny paint speckles.

"Guess the grenade worked this time," I observed as we passed each other on the trail.

"It didn’t even come close," he snorted. "It went off on the outside the bunker and I still got painted."

And that’s the way it is with paintball hand grenades – when they work. The good news is that a new breed of paintball hand grenades is on the market and they work much better than the old-timer grenades. Grenades such as the Special Ops Paintball "F-bomb" are more reliable and go off almost every throw.

The Special Ops series of paintball hand grenades include the F-Bomb Big Boy, the F-Bomb Little Betty, and the F-Bomb Pod Rocket. The Big Boy is a massive paintball hand grenade with ten full ounces of paint. Instead of using a BB as a trigger, the Big Boy utilizes an ingenious top-knot trigger that never sticks because of stale paint. When the Big Boy goes off, you really have to stop and admire the pure, havoc-wreaking power of a paintball hand grenade.

One size down from the Big Boy is the Little Betty paintball hand grenade. This medium-size grenade is under extreme pressure and once the pin is pulled, watch out. All the F-Bomb line of paintball hand grenades are guaranteed to work 99% of the time due to the super-high pressure paint packed into the rubber body.

You need to watch the Little Betty if you decide to clip it to your vest. If a branch pulls the pin for you, the next time you flop on the ground could get exciting.

The smallest of the Special Ops grenade line is the Pod Rocket. Three Pod Rockets fit into a standard 140 round paint pod making these the most convenient paintball hand grenade to carry around. Also, the Pod Rockets aren’t as susceptible to premature blast due to grabby branches.

The earliest paintball hand grenades were actually explosive devices that used a charge to blast paint in every direction. Obviously, safety and insurance considerations (not to mention risk of wildfires) put a quick end to these pyrotechnic play toys.

Soon thereafter, in 1989, Tippmann Pneumatics patented a paintball hand grenade that would be standard issue for more than a decade. The "Squadbuster" grenade uses a doubled-over piece of surgical rubber tubing, filled to bursting with paint, as the primary grenade body. When a pin is pulled, two loose ends of the tubing spring open and the Squadbuster grenade is ready to toss. Once you yank the pin, the only thing keeping the paint from spurting out are two plastic balls wedged in the throat of the tubing. When the grenade strikes terra firma at the business end of your toss, the balls pop out of the tubing and paint blasts everywhere.

Hypothetically, that is.

Tippmann Squadbusters are plagued with several problems. The main cause of paintball grenade failure is that the grenade often lands too softly, either because the thrower doesn’t give the grenade enough loft or because the grenade hits branches, leaves and other squishy material before coming to rest. If the Squadbuster grenade doesn’t hit hard ground, it will often fail to pop its BBs and then become a weapon in the hands of your opponent. When Squadbuster paintball grenades have had time to "set up" (the paint separates and congeals over time,) they fail half the time or more.

Since almost all paintball grenades have been, more or less, patterned after the Squadbuster, many have the same difficulties. Adding to these weaknesses is the fact that you can never really get a full toss with a grenade. In most woodsball™ scenarios where a grenade would be used, you’re forced throw from a crouched or prone position. Rarely can you stand up tall and take a full throw without getting your facemask blasted with paint at the same time. Rather, you typically have no option but to toss the paintball grenade from some tortured position. Because of this, paintball grenades usually fly short or fly shallow. The unfortunate result is that the grenade either misses completely or doesn’t go off.

While the SpecialOps line of paintball hand grenades works much, much better than the paintball grenades of the past, it’s still a good idea to maneuver yourself into a good throwing position before launching a paintball hand grenade. It’s often worth it to fall back a little to gain a better view and a better throw.

If you take the time to learn a good grenade game (and use the best grenades,) you can be the key to unlocking those boring stalemates that often come up in paintball when one bunker hammers endlessly at another bunker.

Whip out your Big Boy paintball hand grenade and give ‘em hell. It’ll take several washings before your opponents will finally get the sweet, orange-scented smell of defeat out of his cammies.

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