Many people who come to this forum are new players. Hence the name of the forum.. To fully understnad and respect the sport, you need to know where it came from, adn who started it.
So I'll take you back to the 1970's. A company called Daisy (who currently manufactures BB and pellet guns) created a design for a gun that shot a gelatin capsule filled with a dye, using a pistol-like shell, and powered by 12 gram CO2 cartridges. Today, we know that gun as the Nel-spot 007. A man named James Hale created the design. You could say he was one of the founding fathers of paintball.
Nel-Spot 007
There was one problem with this.. This wasn't used for playing paintball. It was used to mark cattle and trees. The velocity was much higher, and accuraccy generally sucked, so this was a danger for use on humans. WE're going to eat cows anyways, who cares if they have a bruise on their ass or a limp?
Safety was also a major concern... People played with light shop glasses. Not ballistic goggles that passed industry standard paintbal tests. Picture taken from www.airgun.com's museum. Link below.
The very first paintball game was, however, played with the Nel-Spot. The date was June 27th, 1981. A day that will live in infamy. The three creators were:
Bob Gurnsey, a sporting goods retailer
Hayes Noel, a stockbroker
Charles Gaines, a writer
It was played in the woods of New Hampshire, far from the southwestern speedball games of today (you can see how geography affected the split of paintball into woods and speedball)
As word spread of this game, more and more people played. It was paintball! It kicked ass! In 1985, the very first paintball marker was made.
I'm not sure if this is one of the origoanl splatmasters. I've seen a few different designs. You can tell just by the holster and the color of the marker that this was a beast born for the woods and the woods only.
Form the period of 1985 through 1990, there were many technological breakthroughs in paintball. In 1982, PMI was formed, and they started to produce quality pump markers. The First Semi-automatic paintball marker was the Tippmann SMG60, made by DEnnis Tippmann, of Tippmann Pneumatics. Tippmann generally made reinactment weapons and replicas until paintball.
Obviously the SMG60 was so fast for its day, you couldn't play it out with a single 12 Gram. Tom Kaye, founder of Airgun Designs, invented the Six-Pack. The Six-pack was a stock that held 6 12 Gram CO2 cartridges. The cartridges could be switched out just by pulling a lever. Cosntant Air was also illegal in tourneys... Tom Kaye Changed that with his Six-Pack. Fewer then 150 survive today.
AGD 6-Pack in all its splendor and glory.
Another Design, also by Tom Kaye was the 68 Automag in 1990. It featured thigns like a blow forward design, integrated regulator, stainless construction, and power feed hopper system. The automag was the angel of its day. Not much has changed in automags... They are lighter, faster, more colorful and practical, but they have the same makeup...
The Wonderful Airgun Designs 68 Automag.
After that, there were many new designs, all of which were very unique. Today, many markers look alike... To the untrained eye, there is no difference between a spyder and a piranha. Inside there really isn't.
After the SMG60 and semi auto markers, the sport shifted. It was now a speed race. In 1992, The NPPL, the first national tourney league was founded, and speedball kicked off.
You can see the clip feeding mechanism of the SMG-60 by Tippmann. I personally think it looks like an awesome marker. I've owned a marker that was at least 5 years old adn made yb tippmann, and I must say, older tippmann guns are awesome.
In 1995, Smart Parts introduced the shocker. The Shocker was the very first electro-pneumatic paintball marker.
An Early Shocker... Very different from the newer ones.
But don't give all the credit to Smart Parts. A man named Tom Kaye invented the first electronic paintball marker. Tom Kaye is a great man.. He was the owner of a paintball corperation called AGD, yet he treated each and every individual like they were somethign special. The reason why I state that he wa a good man is becuase he didn't want to patent his marker. Paintball markers were very uniwue back then, and he wanted the industry to grow, adn he wanted there to be many different kinds of guns to choose from, not just one..
Smart Parts seems to think otherwise. They stole Tom Kaye's idea of encorperating electronics into a paintball marker, and then turned around adn sued the creator. Airgun Designs(AGD) was sued. They had to compensate, and all of their E-mags were put out of production. This is probably why the current price of E-mags are so high.. They were only allowed to finish selling off the ones that were already produced.
In 2004, K2 (which is also Brass Eagle) purchased WGP, Worr Game Products. Budd Orr is the man behind the autococker. Back in the days of pump in the 80's, all markers were pump action. Well, Bud Orr decided to make a gun that pumped (also known as cocking) itsself.. The Autococker was born.. All it is is a pump marker that automaticly pumps for you...
You can see what an early autococker would have looked like. Maybe not pink, but it would have had the large shround in the front covering the pneumatics. Most people think the shroud is ugly, so they stopped making them. It was just to protect the pneumatics in the front.
WDP, World Dominating Products took a page right out of Smart Part's book and sued Smart Parts. They won.
Summed up by MedicDVG, one of this communitys greatest and mighiest members:
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Originally Posted by MedicDVG
SP started the suits all accross the board. THey BOUGHT the patent rights to a number of products and then sued everyone that made those products. Namely they claim to have "invented" firing a marker with an electronic trigger switch. They sued AKA to stop producing Vikings and won, Sued AGD to stop making e-mags and won, but WDP is able to prove that thier angel markers were patented FIRST and that SP is actually infringing on their patent!! So now SP is getting a taste of their own medicine.
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Thats basicly the brief history of paintball. Its certainly come a long way from the Nel-Spot 007 to the Dye DM5. I often wonder what people would say if we went back in time and showed them one of our speedball markers, complete with compressed air, Q-loader system or Halo B, and all that chrome...
Airgun Designs has a wonderful museum where you can see all of their products from teh 6-pack to the E-mag.
http://www.airgun.com/museum/
Currently, Airgun Designs is one of three paintball companies that dates back to the 1980's. Tom Kaye recently retired form the company and paintball. He was mentioned a lot in this history becuase he really did help the sport go from the 12 gram stock class days to the 18bps 2000 rounds of paint a game style play we see today.
What does paintball have ot offer us in the future? I don't know.. But it looks very grim. Individual artists created masterpieces like the AMG-60. The designs of the early 80's were very unique. They were innovative. But today, companies battle it out to sue each other. ITs al about money. Instead of quality, companies are thinking about how they can possibly make the most money out of the cheapest design. WE've obviously seen that with teh new autococker trilogy line.
There is no more individual people who are playerss. Back in the day, thigns were built to last. I owned a tippmann SL-68, adn it was the sturdiest thing I've ever held in my hands. It was AT LEAST 6 years old. Probably more.
Now, you hear about brass eagle markers falling apart after the first day. Brass eagle went from a company who produced rippers like the Rainmaker, to the excuses for markers like the blade and talon.
The future rests in the innovaters hands. Can they bring paintball further? Time will tell.