High Pressure Air (paintball)

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High Pressure Air (HPA) systems are used in paintball for powering the propulsion of paintballs. Tanks are either steel, or lighter weight aluminum wrapped in carbon fiber. Steel tanks can hold up to 3000 lbf/in² (20 MPa or 200 bar), while wrapped tanks can range up to 5000 lbf/in² (34 MPa or 340 bar). Average pressure for HPA tanks used in paintballing is 31 MPa (4,500 lbf/in² or 310 bar).

Tank capacity ranges from 48 to 114 in³ (0.8 to 2 L). The 68 in³ (1.1 L) size is considered average. Smaller tanks may not last heated matches, while larger tanks are cumbersome and require mounting options that create a larger gun profile. Thus, large tanks are usually only seen in speedball back players, who do little movement but fire thousands of rounds in a game. Scenario players that fire a similar volume of paint will also utilize a large tank. 48 ci tanks are rarely seen, as a 68 is only slightly larger in form but offers a far longer play time.

High pressure systems are advantageous over systems that utilize carbon dioxide in that they contain propellant in a gas state only. Carbon dioxide tanks contain liquid, which must boil into gas for use by the gun. The delay time in boiling of liquid to gas can cause a problem during rapid fire known as shootdown. Another side effect is the variable pressure of the gas, giving a variable muzzle velocity to the projectile. In expensive HPA systems, three regulators are utilized. This stabilizes the gas pressure at the valve to an incredible degree, and in many cases, reduces the paint velocity variance to less than +/- 3 fps. A low pressure gun (~200 fps) using a three regulator HPA system can frequently set the marker velocity on the field limit, and be secure knowing that two of the three metering shots will come out as expected.

For heavy weapons scenario and speedball players, co2 causes additional problems. During prolonged high rates of fire, ice may form inside the various pneumatic firing and recocking systems of a marker. This causes a variety of failures anywhere in the range of the gun failing to recock, to a complete system freeze, where the gun valve is stuck in one state.

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