In the early days of paintball, the answer to that question would have been industrial paint and it was both toxic and not good for people or the environment. Paintball has come a long, long way in a very short period of time and the paintballs used in present day play are made to be both animal and people friendly and they simply disintegrate when left on a playing field and exposed to the elements as they are now made to be biodegradable.

A paintball is just a round ball that is made with a gelatin skin and filled with liquid dye. When a paintball hits a target going at a high enough rate of velocity, it will break and it leaves a mark on the target. The dye that is used within a paintball is the same type of dye that is used to color candies and ice creams but there are no artificial flavors so the taste is in the realm of being very nasty if you happen to get spattered in the chest area and the paint goes upwards and hits your mouth through the opening in the bottom of your paintball mask, you'll know first hand.

If you drop a paintball, leave it to degrade into the soil or throw it away. Once a paintball has hit the ground, the gelatin skin will attract and collect microscopic bits of dirt and debris that will adhere to the paintball. If you attempt to use a paintball that has been dropped in the dirt, the dirt on the gelatin skin will prevent the paintball from traveling freely when fired from a paintball fun and will either burst inside the paintball gun barrel or will exit but with a diminished velocity and will most likely bounce off your target instead of marking it.

Because of the gelatinous nature of the paintballs, they warp when exposed to extremes of temperature or humidity. So keep your paintballs ( whether in their packs and pods or not), stored in a cool and dry place and they'll always be ready to play when you are!

If you like to play paintball on a frequent basis, buying your paintballs in bulk is the most cost effective way to play, however you will be faced with the problem of storing your paintballs correctly when you're not on the field and they must be stored properly or they simply won't work for your next game.

A paintball is a gelatin ball that is filled with paint and it is actually very susceptible to extremes of hot and cold. Your paintballs must be stored in a cool and dry environment and they must also be protected from dust and debris. The gelatinous nature of a paintball means when there is dirt and debris around it, it will attract it and any foreign matter like dust will adhere quite easily to the gelatin surface of the paintball. The next time you go to use these improperly stored paintballs, they will most likely either burst within your paintball gun barrel or they will leave with a diminished velocity and merely bounce off your intended targets.

When you are storing your paintballs, look for three factors in your storage area:
1-No extreme changes of temperature
2-Low to no humidity
3-No dirt or dust

A lot of paintball players use large plastic storage boxes that seal airtight to put their paintballs, loaders and hoppers in between games and then they store in a closet or room in their house. This is an easy way to keep your paintballs at the proper temperature and keep them dust and dirt free.

One thing you will learn quickly when you play paintball is that all paintballs are not created equally. All paintballs are available in various size calibers, though the difference is virtually impossible to tell by simply looking at one paintball compared to another.

However, the caliber of the paintball does indeed make a big difference once the ball is loaded in your marker or paint gun. Even when you know you are using the correct sized paintball for your paintball gun, paintballs can become warped due to heat or cold exposure and other improper storage techniques.

There is an easy test to see if the paintball is the correct size for the barrel on your paintball gun. Take your barrel off your paintball gun and gently put a paintball in one end of the barrel or the other. Hold the barrel up and tip it vertically, if the paintball simply rolls out of falls out, you have a paintball that is too small for your paintball gun barrel. If the paintball stays in the barrel and you blow on one end of the barrel and you can't get the paintball out through creating manual air pressure, then your paintballs are too large and they will probably burst inside your barrel during play. If your paintball does not roll out of the barrel but you can blow air through your barrel and get the paintball to come out - congratulations you have perfectly fitting paintballs.

If you are in the middle of a game and you discover this, switch out your barrel to one that will fit your paintballs and continue playing, this is why it is a good idea to always pack along an extra barrel or two in your field kit.

Summertime temperature extremes can really affect the performance of your paintballs. The heat can cause your paintballs to warp and break inside your paintball gun barrel pre-shot or slow their velocity down so they not only don't travel far enough to reach your target, they are not going fast enough to break on impact. Humid conditions are not a friend of the paintball player either as humidity can cause your paintballs to become too soft and merely bounce off the target instead of breaking open and marking the target.

Your goal is to always keep your paintballs dry and cool. If you're playing paintball in the summer and you notice a lot of bounces happening instead of breakage and marking of your targets, try putting your paintballs in the refrigerator (not the freezer section) for about 30 minutes and you should notice a marked improvement in your hit and mark ration. The reason this works is that the air within the average refrigerator is not only cool, it is dry and your paintballs will not have any problems such as bouncing off targets.

If you're out playing paintball, between games you can store your pod packs, loaders and hopper in an air-conditioned car or a large cooler chest with a dry ice pack (the kind that comes in plastic) within. Don't use the same cooler you store your drinks in with loose ice. This will keep your paintballs ready to go on those long hot summer days.

If you go to load your hopper and you notice oddly shaped or oblong paintballs, these have been warped and will not return to their previous round shape. Discard any paintballs that are deformed due to heat or humidity otherwise you'll wind up with broken paintballs in your paintball gun barrel.

Make storing your paintballs correctly a priority and they will return the favor by always retaining their shape and being ready to play when you are!

If you're new to paintball, this one will happen more often than you think. You're in the middle of a hot and heavy game of bunkerball or woodsball when all of a sudden your hopper opens on accident and your paintballs hit the ground.

There are a couple of things you can do; you can either leave your paintballs there. They are water soluble and non-toxic; or you can throw the dirty paintballs away. You should never use a paintball that has hit the ground in your gun because it will have microscopic bits of dirt and debris on it that will cause it to lag inside your paintball gun barrel possibly causing breakage and degraded performance.

Washing your paintballs off is not an option either. If you run water over your paintballs, and it doesn't matter if it is hot or cold water, they have an excellent chance of warping and this will make them either break inside the barrel of your paintball gun pre-shot or they will have diminished ability to travel any distance at all once shot (this is if they don't break which is the most likely scenario). Either way, your day of playing paintball will be effectively over unless you have backup ammo.

Always carry extra paintballs. No matter how careful you are, accidents can happen and it's no fun to finish out a game with no ammo and even less fun to sit out the rest of the games because you didn't bring extras. Having extra ammo around will ensure you get to have a full day of participating your favorite paintball games with your friends, just follow general storage rules for the season and keep them cool and dry and they'll be conditioned and ready to go when you are.