How Paintballs Are Made
Do you ever wonder what that sticky goop is when a paintball busts on your mask? Ever wonder what a paintball tastes like? Ever think about how they make each paintball, and what kind of work goes into making all the millions of paintballs being fired around the world? Here I will outline how paintballs are manufactured and exactly what they are made of.
What's In These Things...?
You've probably caught yourself saying - What if I eat one? Will I die? Does it taste like chicken? Not to worry, paintballs are non-toxic and biodegradable - but they don't taste like chicken so I don't advise you to eat them! Here are some of the raw ingredients that go into paintballs...
- Mineral Oils
- Polyethylene glycol
- Iodine
- Calcium
- Food coloring
- Sorbitol
- Gelatin
- Various other food ingredients/sweetners
The Manufacturing Process
The Shell
The first thing they do at the factory is make the hollow shell. In order to make the paintball shell they have to pour water into a massive heating bowl where the workers add sorbitol and sweeteners. They also apparently add a secret ingredient that the public isn't allowed to know about (maybe chicken?). Next, they transform the hollow shell so that it has a round shape. They do this by adding the key ingredient: gelatin. Gelatin is the same substance used in soft candies and the outer shells of Advil gel caps and liquid vitamins. Once the ingredients are all together they melt and mix them for around 30 to 40 minutes.
Once 40 minutes is up, they line up a machine for what they call the "dropping." This is a process that refers to the transfer of ingredients from a mixer to a heated vat they call the "gel tote." Workers are careful to take out any inconsistencies in the mix or any solids that didn't melt in the process. Once the mix is in the gel tote, they lower in a blender-type machine that blends the gel for 15-20 minutes. Voila! You have the hollow shell! Now it's time to load that sucker up with the good stuff.
The Fill
The second thing they do at the factory is make the fill. The fill is what goes inside the hollow shell, and it's made up of polyethylene glycol. Polyethylene glycol is the same idle liquid you find in basic cough syrups at your local pharmacy.
Next comes the "feed room" where the vats of gel and fill feed into what's called a "capsulation machine." This capsulation machine is the same kind that makes gel cap medicines that the majority of us take when our kids are bouncing off the walls! First, the machine spreads out the gel on to a cool drum. What this ends up doing is creating a 'continuous' sheet of thin gel - this is referred to as a 'gel ribbon.'
When it cools it cures the gelatin to the point where it can be molded into a hollow shell of the ball. The machine then presses the gel ribbon into a dye with half circle pockets, each forming 1 half of a ball shell - the machine does the next 3 steps in one shot. It aligns the two half shells together to form a hollow ball, then injects the filling and seals the two half shells together. Pretty slick process I say!
Now To Dry The Paintballs
As they finish the fill process, the paintballs are now warm and soft. Now they need to be cooled down so they can harden. They put the paintballs in what they call a "tumbling machine." This machine essentially shakes, dries, and keeps the paintballs looking round. Once the paintballs are done in the tumbling machine, they are put onto shelves and left to dry.
Quality Matters
Once the paintballs are dried out, depending on what factory or company it is, they will either feed the paintballs through a counting machine or have workers fill cases by weight. Workers do visual checks on the majority of the paintballs and they look for the obvious flaws, such as not being round, broken or too soft. Before the paintballs get shipped out to store owners and field operators, the paintballs are test fired (the fun part!). Once all these small tests and observations are complete, the paintballs are ready to be used by the general public (to be smeared all over your friends and co-workers).
Non-Toxic and Biodegradable
What would happen if paintballs weren't made to be biodegradable? Well, you would have one big environmental hazard that's what. The paint would never go away, and whole regions of forests would be ruined. But no worries, they're biodegradable and the paint and gelatin are meant to dissolve in water. So when it rains, it cleans up the mess - and no one would ever know an epic battle took place... until the next game of course.
Now you know how Paintballs are made, and what they're made of... So I guess the question is then - are you going to eat them raw, or with ketchup?
About The Author
Niko Brain is a freelance writer and offers sound advice on the sport of Paintball. He runs his own personal paintball site and enjoys writing reviews on Paintball Guns and
Paintball Gear. He's your "average Joe" paintball player and is an up and coming industry resource that loves to help newcomers to the sport.
Labels: cheap, games, how it's made, markers, packages, paintball, Paintball Guns, paintballs, spyder, tippmann
