Is It Dangerous to Leave Air In Your Paintball Tank? 

is it dangerous to leave air tank on paintball gun
Hello there! Some of the links in this post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

It’s a common practice to fill up your air tank before leaving the paintball field at the end of the day. This way you can practice with your marker at home and maybe run a few drills to improve your game. You can also use the air to participate in a little backyard target practice for the sole sake of having fun.

After all, if you’re going to spend a bunch of money on a paintball gun, you shouldn’t limit yourself to only using it at the paintball field. But how long should you allow the air to remain in the air tank before you think about having it depressurized? Or is it not dangerous to leave air in a paintball tank?

No, it’s not dangerous to leave air in a paintball tank for an extended period of time. In fact, it’s actually recommended to leave a small amount of pressurized air (1,000+ PSI is preferred) in the tank at all times. Doing so will actually be better for the health of your regulator and bottle. 

Continue reading below if you want to learn more about paintball air tanks and what safety concerns you should be aware of. 

Common Paintball Tank Questions

Listed below are some of the most popular questions related to paintball tanks and their safety. In order to help you with your air tank problems, I’ve gone ahead and answered every single one of these questions below.

Should You Leave Air Tank Attached to Paintball Gun?

Unless your paintball gun comes with an On/Off ASA assembly then it’s not a good idea to leave an HPA or Co2 tank attached to your marker for an extended amount of time. The reason being is that the compressed air or Co2 will slowly wear down the internals over time. 

This could lead to unnecessary damage that could be prevented by depressurizing and removing the tank from the ASA. If you want to maintain the air tank on your paintball marker then you will need to purchase an On/Off ASA assembly such as this one (Affiliate Link to Amazon.com).

Is It Dangerous to Leave Air In Your Paintball Tank?

No, it’s not dangerous to leave compressed air or Co2 in a paintball tank for an extended amount of time. Paintball tanks are actually designed to withstand the internal pressure caused by Co2 or HPA. In fact, some internal pressure is actually good for the health of the tank.

Whereas if there’s no internal pressure then it’s possible for moisture or other contaminants to seep their way into your paintball tank. However, unless you actively try to force a liquid (such as water or oil) into the fill nipple of your paintball tank, it’s highly unlikely it will ever happen.

Can a Paintball Tank Explode?

Yes, it’s possible for a paintball tank to explode. Fortunately, this is only likely to happen if oil is inside your tank while you’re airing it up. This means you would’ve either had to add the oil there yourself or obtain access to a paintball tank that someone has placed oil inside since its last usage. 

It’s not easy to get oil inside of an HPA tank either. You have to actively force oil into the fill nipple of the paintball tank to get it to go inside. 

This means you don’t have to worry about any oil from your ASA assembly getting inside of your paintball tank. Pressure is relieved out of the end of the regulator, not put in. That’s what the fill nipple is for.

But wait, can’t a paintball tank explode if it’s overfilled with air? 

Not really…

All paintball tanks come with two burst disks that are designed to “burst” when the pressure going inside or outside the tank is higher than the maximum pressure permitted by the burst disk. 

The first burst disk that’s responsible for the pressure going out of the tank is always rated at 1800 PSI. This prevents unnecessary damage from happening to your paintball gun. If too much pressure goes into your paintball gun at one time it can easily damage (or break) the internals of your marker. 

The second burst disk is typically rated at either 5000 or 7500 PSI. The 5000 burst disk is for tanks rated at 3000 PSI, and the 7500 burst disk is for tanks rated at 4500 PSI. This burst disk is responsible for preventing the overall pressure inside the paintball tank to exceed the pressure permitted by the burst disk.

How to Replace Burst Disk On Paintball Tank

How to Connect Air Tank to Paintball Gun?

Connecting an air tank to a paintball gun is extremely simple. 

All you have to do is stick the regulator on your air tank into the ASA on the back of your paintball gun (or wherever your ASA is located) and rotate the tank clockwise until it can no longer rotate. Make sure the threads on your tank’s regulator line up correctly with the threads on your paintball gun’s ASA to ensure nothing gets unnecessarily stripped.

There’s no need to overtighten the regulator when screwing it into the ASA either. Just rotate the air tank counterclockwise until you can no longer turn it anymore and that will be enough 

How to Disconnect Air Tank From Paintball Gun?

Unfortunately, the process of disconnecting your air tank from your paintball gun tends to be a little more complicated. The reason being is you can accidentally damage the O-ring(s) on your paintball tank if you incorrectly disconnect the regulator from your paintball gun.

So what’s the proper way to disconnect an air tank from a paintball gun?

Here’s what I recommend to do.

  1. Empty your loader and attach a barrel sleeve on the end of your barrel.
  2. Rotate the tank half a turn counterclockwise.
  3. Begin continuously pulling the trigger while you slowly rotate the tank counterclockwise.
  4. Once the paintball gun is no longer pressurized you can completely remove the tank from the ASA.

Following these 4 steps listed above will help you avoid damaging the O-ring(s) on your paintball gun and save you some money over time. Double win!                                                                                                                                                                             

How to Tell If Paintball Co2 Tank Is Empty

The best way to tell if a Co2 tank is empty is to connect the tank to a paintball gun and see if it pressurizes the marker. If you connect the Co2 tank to a paintball gun and it makes that notable hissing sound that Co2 tanks make then the tank is not empty. 

You could also press in the pin on top of the regulator and see if anything comes out. If white foam comes out of the regulator then you know the tank is once again not empty.  

Weighing the tank is another option you can use to tell if the Co2 tank is empty or not, but this seems like too much work to me. 

How to Release Air From Paintball Tank

There are a few different ways to degas a paintball tank. Here are the three methods I recommend most. 

  1. Shoot your paintball gun until you run out of air. You can do this even with no paintballs in your loader — this is known as dryfiring. 
  2. Press down the valve pin on the regulator with an allen key or flathead screwdriver until all of the air bleeds out. Just be careful not to leave fingers in front of air and not to damage the valve pin. Placing a cloth between the valve pin and allen key may help to prevent damage. 
  3. Connect the air tank to a paintball gun with a macroline and unplug the macroline from the regulator end. This will slowly allow all the air to be released from the paintball tank.

Here’s a good video below showing Method #3 in action. 

Previous articleBest Paintball Guns for Self-Defense | Top 3 Choices of 2023
Next articleIs Paintball Safe for Kids? | Paintball Safety Tips for Parents
Woodsball player, magfed player, automag owner, paintball sniper. Have played woodsball and scenario paintball (on and off) since 2007 and still loving the game!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here