Splatter Up!

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Shattered illusions, thy name is paintball.

Among macho-deflating revelations to newbies and neophytes, the news flash that paintballs are largely comprised of gelatin caps is a genuine jolt.

That surge of testosterone sputters when, with weapons drawn, you’re gunned down in a hail of Jell-O. But the marketing campaign — "There’s Always Room for Paintball" — has potential.

Which flavor — Lime? Cherry? Pineapple-Grapefruit? — inflicts the most wounds? … Yes, we’re just joshing.

"I love watching the girls who’ve never played before," says Mike Gallagher, co-owner of Bonehead Paintball, currently Las Vegas’ lone indoor paintball facility, which opened in March. "They put a welt on their boyfriend’s butt and their eyes go wide and they’re walking this high off the ground."

Ah, love so tender.

"The bruises become a badge of honor," says co-owner Rick Serrano. "You’ll see girls lifting up their shirts, showing off their bruises."

Now we’re talking Vegas, baby! … But the partners insist it’s modest and chaste. Although … "I’ve had teams of Hooters girls in here," Gallagher says, unable to suppress a libidinous grin. "Of course I watched those games."

Plus, you’ve got to appreciate a sport whose CIA-worthy code words include "autococker," "barrel condom," "butt plate" and "feed nipple."

"We’re trying to pull this game in off the street so they’re not out there shooting at houses and buildings and cars," Serrano says. "It’s an extreme sport, not your basic soccer or football, and that’s what people are going for — street biking, cliff jumping. Paintball fits in that category. You can actually feel some pain involved."

And yet, Gallagher adds, "There’s more injuries in golf than there are in paintball." Industry figures argue that there are 0.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures, compared to, say, tennis, which rates 2.3 injuries per 1,000 hours of play.

"A child has to understand that it’s not a toy and needs to be mentally older and play within strict guidelines," Gallagher says about the Bonehead experience, where players must be age 10 or older. "The biggest thing is wearing the mask for eye protection. If you get hit in the eye with a paintball, you lose your eye."

Setting aside the miniscule odds for such unpleasantness, Bonehead streamlines the sprawling original "Woodsball" edition — with its open-air, jungle combat-style play and games that could last long enough to rip pages off a calendar — into "Speedball," with its compact field peppered with artificial bunkers behind which players can hide, reload and shoot. (The uninitiated, take note: So as not to rile the ire of the Michael Moore faithful, guns are politically corrected as "markers.")

Indoor play is also less suffocating than summer contests on a delightful, 110-degree Vegas afternoon, and eliminates that icky texture when paint meets mud.

On artificial turf-covered floors inviting that slide-duck-and-shoot maneuver that’s so combat-cool, the twin "fields" measure 120 feet by 55 feet, and 65 feet by 55 feet. Black mesh netting separates spectators from gladiators, who often fill out their playing outfit with team uniforms — The Las Vegas Effects are here tonight — or, more often outdoors, don camouflage. Player configurations can range from one on one to 10 on 10 to five recreational shooters taking on one extremely adept splat-marksman.

"I love the action, love the adrenaline," says 16-year-old Troy Isaacs, suited up and waiting for a contest to conclude so he can storm the faux-beaches beckoning him just beyond the netting. "Yeah, you can get bruises, but at least it’s not broken arms like you can get in skateboarding."

Well, if nothing breaks, some body parts can otherwise get out of whack. "I had an injury where my shoulder popped out," says Charlie Redondo, decked out in his Effects ensemble, which, along with equipment, set him back close to a grand in green. This is serious paintballing.

"Every once in a while that happens. I just roll over, pop it back in" — Ow! Ick! Did we really need that visual, Charlie? — "and go play again and get some guys outta there. It’s therapy." At least it’s a physically fit alternative to couch-bound obsessing about your childhood.

Quick-draw paintballers can nail opponents by blasting upward of 20 balls per second at a velocity of 250 to 280 feet per second for max-splat impact. With multiple players trading deafening rounds of goo fire bouncing off indoor acoustics, the sound is akin to cannon shots.

"The roar and speed of the game is just amazing, man," says Serrano, noting that patrons range from your average messy thrill-seekers to military types. "This facility was used for recruiting for the Army. We had 120 recruits here for about six hours, running drills with paintball. They’re adrenaline junkies to begin with."

Nor is the other gender too tender for paint pummeling. "We get a group of 12- to 14-year-old girls who can play all day long," Serrano says. "We had adult women crawling around on their stomachs who you would not believe would play this game."

Several lasses are sprinkled among the lugs at Bonehead, including 18-year-old Alexandra Goyen. "We started out going in the woods, and our parents got us, for Christmas, like, seven paintball guns" — Whoa! Whoa! … "Markers," you mean — "and we went out on Christmas Day and started shooting each other, and we’ve been doing it ever since," she says, adding a trigger-happy twist to the yuletide spirit. "And it doesn’t hurt, it’s just a little pinch you feel. Lots of girls are intimidated, but they won’t be once they start playing."

Good, because Redondo requires competition to sharpen his splatter skills.

"My learning curve has been about 110 percent since I started," says Redondo, who began color-coating opponents three years ago. "But I’ve still got infinity to go."

Infinity? That’s a whole lotta Jell-O.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.