Paintball Mountain

Full review
Paintball is exploding all around you. Do you feel it? Paintball is now the second most popular “extreme” sport played in America with almost 10 million players and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on this sport every year. It is big and getting bigger. In the shadow of the mushroom cloud there are several enterprising small business owners setting up shop. They are ready to do battle to provide you service, get you the marker of your dreams, and ultimately get your money. There are many websites out there offering you deals on the most popular paintball product lines. Paintball Mountain is rather new to the scene but they have something to offer.

The Site
When you first come get to the page you will see that Paintball Mountain has a spokesperson greeting you. There is an animated character that tells you of the latest specials and goings on that they have to offer. She has a volume control, thank goodness.

The home page is set up well and the design is easy to figure out. Along the top of the page is the spots to click to check on your order, your account information, shipment tracking and support. There is also a wish list feature and links to other paintball websites (no other retailers of course). On the same banner Paintball Mountain has quick access tabs to click on their newest products, hottest products and their special deals. They do have links for pro players and field reviews but these pulled up blank pages every time I have visited the website.

Down the left hand side of the home page you have quick access tabs to hit the different categories of their inventory. They are split into two main sections, category (Gun, Kits, Goggles, etc) and manufacturers (Dye, Bob Long, Kingman, etc). Under the manufacturers you can also see the tabs for Paintball Mountain’s selection of air soft guns (spring powered guns that fire small yellow bb’s).

You may also find Paintball Mountain’s special promotion of the month centered on the page. Contests and any other information that they want to get you excited about is all right there.

The pages are very easy to negotiate. Click on the tab to see the choices available and then select the product you want to learn more about. You can click on any item to add it to your cart. Next to the items you will see the purchase price and some very basic information, usually just a line or two. You must click on that item to get a broader description. The information on the items is very useful and will give you almost all the needed information you may require to make an educated buying decision.

Checking out is very easy. You can pay with all of your major credit cards and PayPal. You will be required to set up an account page when placing your first order. This will add a couple of steps and a little time but you only need to do this once. It is not uncommon to have this type of check out/shipment system for an online retailer. Once you punch in all your information it will be stored securely on the site to be used the next time your purchase from Paintball Mountain.

If you do have a problem or a question during the process you can call their customer service line (the number is on the top of all the pages). When I have called they have answered quickly and politely. The customer service rep was knowledgeable about the products and shipping options.

Paintball Mountain offers standard ground and express shipments. They ship through UPS and the USPS. Any materials or products ordered are prepared for shipment onsite and packaged well for protection against damage. Orders are timely and tracking numbers are available to know where your stuff is before it gets to your doorstep. I have never had an issue with an inaccurate order but as solid as their customer service is on the phone I am sure it would get handled quickly and professionally.

I was very impressed with the website and the level of detail Paintball Mountain provided for their product descriptions. There was a few open pages waiting for information to be added but that did not take away from the over all experience to the website. All the needed information was quick to find, the pictures of the products are clear and large, and the lay out easy to navigate.

The Products
As a paintball player myself that is what brought me here in the first place. I am here after the goods. Paintball Mountain lists their products lines first by category and then by manufacturer. Each of the categories have several levels to them so there are many choices for any ability level. Budget ballers will find happiness with the PMI and Kingman products while the aspiring speed baller of your family will get giddy over the Dye and Smart Parts product line. Paintball Mountain has something for everyone!

Paintball Mountain carries a large lineup of markers and supplies for the paintballer in your family.
They carry everything you need to get started in paintball too. If you are starting out you will need a marker, hopper, air supply and safety goggles. They got those as well as upgrades like grips, jerseys, barrels, pods and packs. They even have a selection of paintballs too.

A short list of some of the manufactures that Paintball Mountain carries:
32 Degrees: Markers, apparel, and upgrades.
Bob Long (Timmys): Markers.
Diablo: Markers and apparel.
Dye: Markers, apparel, safety gear, and upgrades.
Empire: Apparel, balls, and upgrades.
Kingman (Spyders): Kits, apparel, markers, and upgrades.
WDP (Angel): Markers, apparel, and upgrades.
WGP (Worr): Markers.

Paintball Mountain carries many other makers as well. They have lots of upgrades for the markers you already have too. When I was looking around I found a lot of new products from Proto and Redz and I have not seen those at a lot of other sites.

Paintball Mountain also has several high end makers of Air Soft products including Smith and Wesson, Deseret Eagle, Kalashnikov and DPMS. They are as helpful with the Air Soft products as they are with the paintball gear. If you like Air Soft then you have lots of options at Paintball Mountain!

Personal Impressions
I have been playing paintball for almost 15 years now. I started off with a plastic Zapp gun shooting crab apples and soda cans in the backyard. I moved up to mechanical pump guns and now I play with an Autococker from WGP and an EVO by Piranha. I am teaching my son to play now. Paintball is a great sport and has some great people apart of it. That is why I was so happy to run into the people at Paintball Mountain!

I called the customer service line just to ask a few questions and on the second ring they picked up with a friendly voice. I have called many other online retailers and few sound friendly and it is a rarity for anyone to answer on the second ring, even in my own family! I was impressed from the get go! During my conversation I learned a bit about them and felt comfortable knowing that I was talking to a player not a salesman. There are those who are passionate about making money while others make money doing what they are passionate about. Paintball Mountain is the latter.

Paintball Mountain is rather new to the scene when it comes to paintball. The company itself is nestled in the mountains of north west Montana and they flipped the switch on their website this past December. They are a group of guys who have different backgrounds who play paintball together and finally decided to take their passion to the next level and open their own store. They do not have a traditional brick and mortar store, (it is more of a warehouse where buddies come over and buy stuff from) instead they opted for the medium of the modern world and went with a website.

I have visited several other online paintball stores, called many of them, and bought many items from them. I wish Paintball Mountain had been around just about a decade earlier! Their website is among the best because it is so easy to access the information you need. If you want to research something you can poke around with ease too. You can even call them and talk to someone who has played the game and isn’t reading product information out of a book.. The only thing I would improve on is some more original content in the descriptions of the products on the website. Most of the canned commentary is the same from website to website. For me and many other players, personal impressions go a long way in a purchasing decision and having original content would further improve Paintball Mountain’s site.

Let me give you an example of how easy it is to find what you are looking for; let us say you are looking for a Piranha EVO marker like mine. There are three ways to find and buy this marker on Paintball Mountain. You could either click on guns, find Piranha, then scroll through the markers till you found the one you were looking for. You could also click on Piranha under the manufactures to find what you are looking for and this would pull up everything that Piranha makes. You would just need to click on guns and then scroll to find your EVO. You can also use Paintball Mountain’s search engine located in the upper right hand corner of the home page. Any way you choose and you can find what you are looking for and more at Paintball Mountain.

An innovative idea that Paintball Mountain has is their Xtreme Club. This is a club that you can join that earns you points towards purchases on their website. You can opt for either the free gold version or their platinum version which costs $29.95 annually. The Xtreme Club allows you to receive special discounts on Paintball Mountain’s merchandise and earn points with purchases and the purchases of your friends. You are also entered into give-a-ways. With the membership into the platinum club you gain the access to free classified ads and a more generous reward program. It is pretty neat to be able to earn points towards some free paintball gear and no one else is doing this!

Paintball Mountain’s selection may not be where the big boys are quite yet but they do carry a good selection of entry level equipment as well as several great choices for the high end market too. They even carry the Dye DM5 and the Pimp from Evil (pardon the drool). As Paintball Mountain grows you should see more of everything but what they got now is already great! Having been around the sport as long as I have I know that paintballers support good paintball suppliers so I am sure that Paintball Mountain will be around for decades to come.

I strongly recommend visiting Paintball Mountain for your next or your first paintball purchase. Now go get balling!

Website: www.paintballmountain.com
Phone number: 1-800-741-0204


For other paintball related information and product reviews:
Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball for Xbox
Basic Information about the Sport of Paintball




Thanks for shooting by...
Christian921