Desert Splat: Paintball in the Mojave

GeoCities.us » Baja » Dunes

DESERT
SPLAT!

PAINTBALL IN THE MOJAVE
Home of the Dust Devils · Barstow, California

WHAT'S UP!! I'm Shon, but everybody calls me Dozer, because that's what I drive all week. I'm a heavy equipment operator, mostly dozer and loader, mostly on road jobs, mostly in the heat. On the weekend I put on a mask, grab my marker and go get shot at in the heat instead. My mom says this makes no sense. My mom has never captured a flag.

I'm 26 and I've been playing paintball since 1994, when a buddy took me out to a field on his birthday and I got lit up eleven times in the first game and couldn't stop grinning. These days I captain a five-man team called the Dust Devils. We play at a field in a dry wash out east of town just about every weekend it's under 105.

This page has the team, the field and its rules, our gear, a report from the best day of paintball I ever had, and how YOU can come try it. Read the safety rules before you come out. I mean it. I'm loud about a lot of things on this page but I'm loudest about that.

THE TEAM

Five guys who work all week and meet at the field gate Saturday morning with coffee. We play rec games together and we go to the big scenario games as a team. We're not a tournament team and we don't want to be. We're the team that shows up early, helps Keith fix the bunkers, and stays to sweep the staging area.

PLAYER	PLAYS	SHOOTS	THE STORY
Shon "Dozer" captain	middle	Autococker on compressed air	That's me. Calls the plays and yells a lot. Playing since '94.
Jose "Sarge"	back	Tippmann on CO2	Army, stationed out at Fort Irwin, got out and stayed in Barstow. Anchors the back and sees everything. When Sarge says move, you move.
Mel "Snooze"	back / middle	Spyder on CO2	Works nights at the rail yard and sleeps in his truck between games. Deadliest shot on the team once he's awake.
Nathan "Rabbit"	front	Spyder on CO2	The fastest guy I have ever seen run in sand. Works at the auto parts store. Gets shot the most and doesn't care.
Jon "Tumbleweed"	front / wherever	Tippmann on CO2	Our rookie, joined in March. Tripped on his first day and rolled all the way down the side of the wash. Got up, kept playing. Name stuck.

THE FIELD & ITS RULES

We play at a field out east of town, down a dirt road off the highway, in a big dry wash with creosote bushes and rocks the size of cars. A guy named Keith runs it. He built it from nothing about six years ago and he runs it tight, which is why we play there. There are three fields:

The Wash: the main field, the dry creek bed itself. Banks on both sides, brush, boulders, a couple of old washed-out culverts. Capture the flag lives here.
The Hill: a plywood fort on a rise at the north end, with a long open slope in front of it. Great for attack-and-defend. Ask me about the Hill. Actually, don't. Read the game report.
The Pit: a small flat field with cable spools and stacked tires for quick elimination games when it's too hot to go walking.

Open Saturday and Sunday from 8 in the morning, and in summer Keith quits at noon because of the heat, except for the scenario games. The short version of the rules:

Masks on the whole time you're on a field. No exceptions, not for a second, not to wipe your face, not to fix your fog.
Barrel plug in every time you step off the field.
Chrono every marker before every game. Nothing over 300 feet per second.
If a ball breaks on you, you're hit. Yell "HIT!", get your marker up over your head, and walk off.
The ref is always right, even when he's wrong.

The full list is on its own page: Safety Rules at Our Field.

OUR MARKERS & GEAR

First thing: we call them markers, not guns. Partly because that's what they are, and partly because when you're explaining to a new guy's mom what her son is doing on Saturday, "marker" goes over a lot better.

The markers on our team:

Tippmann (Sarge and Tumbleweed). Semi-auto, built like a tank, and you can drop it in the sand, kick it, and keep playing. It's what Keith rents out, and that tells you something. The best first marker there is, if you ask me.
Spyder (Snooze and Rabbit). Semi-auto, light, doesn't cost a fortune. Lots of guys start with one and never see a reason to quit.
Autococker (me). Smooth and accurate, and it rewards a guy who likes to tinker, which is good because it needs a guy who likes to tinker. I spend about as much time with mine on the kitchen table as I do on the field. Don't tell my girlfriend I said "about."

Paint. Paintballs are .68 caliber: a thin gelatin shell with colored fill inside that washes out of your clothes (mostly). In the desert you have to baby it. Keep your paint in a cooler, out of the sun. Paint that sits in a hot truck gets soft and out of round, and then it breaks in your barrel instead of on the other guy. Carry a squeegee to clean out your barrel when it does.

CO2 or compressed air? This is the big argument out here:

CO2	COMPRESSED AIR
Cheap, and you can get a fill almost anywhere that sells paintball stuff, even some sporting goods stores. Most of us run a 20-ounce tank. But the pressure goes up and down with the temperature. Cold desert morning, you shoot low. Hot afternoon, you shoot hot, and you'd better re-chrono. And if you shoot fast, liquid CO2 can get into the marker and your shots go wild.	Compressed air or nitrogen, which work the same way in your marker. Steady pressure all day, hot or cold, so your shots go where you aim. But the tank costs a lot more, and you need a fill station that can do high pressure. Keith has one at the field, which is the only reason I made the switch.

The rest of the gear:

Mask. The most important thing you'll buy. Get one made for paintball, one that fits, and one that doesn't fog. Spend money here before you spend it anywhere else.
Hopper on top of the marker to feed the balls, and a pack with tubes to carry extra paint.
Barrel plug. Always. More about that on the safety page.
Long sleeves, gloves, and old jeans. It's hot, I know. Getting hit on bare skin is hotter.
Boots with ankle support. The wash is all rocks and holes. Ask Tumbleweed.
Water. A gallon a man. I'm not kidding. I'll say it again in the game report.

GAME REPORT: WE HELD THE HILL

Operation Dust Bowl · all-day scenario game · Saturday, August 21, 1999

Once a month Keith runs an all-day scenario game. Two big sides, a story, missions you get handed during the day, and points for everything: flags captured, supplies delivered, and every hour you hold certain spots. About ninety players came out for this one, some from as far as Victorville and Las Vegas. The Dust Devils were on the South side. Our mission: take the plywood fort on the Hill, and keep it. The Hill was worth 100 points for every hour your side held it.

5:30 a.m.	Gate opens. Still dark. Already 80 degrees. Snooze asleep in his truck.
6:30	Safety talk and chrono line. Keith checked every single marker. That's ninety markers. That's why we start this early.
7:00	Game on. We come up the wash from the south end with nine other South players.
8:00	WE TAKE THE HILL. Rabbit ran up the right side of the slope when everybody inside the fort was watching Sarge and me on the left. Rabbit is not the smartest man on the team, but he might be the fastest man in San Bernardino County.
9:15	First big push from the North. Twenty guys up the slope. We held. Tumbleweed got hit four times in one game and called every one.
11:00	Second push. Held again. Supply runner from our side brings paint and water up the back side. We love that guy.
12:00	104 degrees on Keith's thermometer. Snooze got dizzy and shaky, and a ref walked him down to the shade for an hour with a jug of water. He was fine. He was also the smartest guy on the hill that day, because he spoke up while he could still walk down on his own.
12:30	Third push, the big one. Thirty North players, everything they had left. It came down to me and Sarge behind the front wall and Rabbit on the right side. We held it. I don't totally know how.
2:00 p.m.	Final horn. We still have the Hill. Six hours.

Final score: South 1,350, North 1,050. The Hill was 600 of our points. Keith says nobody has held it that long since he built it. We went through about nine cases of paint between the five of us, and I don't even want to know how many gallons of water. We all had welts for a week, and we all have the same grin in the picture, which I'll put up as soon as I get it back from the drugstore.

Big thanks to the North side for playing clean all day, to the refs who stood out in that sun with no shade, and to Keith for running the best field in the high desert. Next scenario game is in October, when it's cooler. Come out!

HOW TO TRY IT

Never played? Good. Everybody was new once. Here's what to do:

Come out on a Saturday morning. Keith rents a package: a Tippmann, a mask, a full CO2 tank and 200 balls for $25. More paint is extra.
You have to be 10 or older, and if you're under 18, a parent has to sign the waiver at the field.
Wear old clothes with long sleeves, and boots or high-tops. Bring a hat, sunscreen and water. Did I mention water?
Listen to the safety talk. All of it. Even if you've played before.
Does it hurt? It stings, like a hard snap with a rubber band. It leaves a welt sometimes. Then it's over and you're laughing. Long sleeves help a lot.
Your first game: stay low, stick with a buddy, don't stand up behind a bush (bushes don't stop paint), and when you're hit, call it right away and walk off. Nobody likes a guy who wipes.
Find us. The Dust Devils are the guys at the picnic table under the shade tarp by the chrono line. Come say hi. If you want, one of us will play on your side your first game and show you the field.

Want to get on a team, or have a question about markers? E-mail me. I answer everything, usually at night, usually with sand still in my ears.

YOU ARE SPLAT NUMBER

since June 1998

E-mail the captain: [email protected]

More from Barstow on GeoCities: the Desert Rats Off-Road Club, a family off-road club with trip reports, a trail etiquette guide and a calendar.

Safety Rules at Our Field »

Last updated Sunday, September 12, 1999