The Illegal Guns That Transformed Paintball

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A Selection of Sources:
• NXL switch to 15 BPS - www.warpig.com/paintball/tourn...
• Dave Zinkham - In the Hot Seat - www.warpig.com/paintball/arti...
• Mike's Paintball Magazines - profile.php?...
• Old Paintball Magazines - / oldpaintballmagazines
• 241 - Tom Cole - • #241 - Tom Cole
• 1995 PAINTBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. Ironmen vs All Americans, FINAL GAME - • 1995 PAINTBALL WORLD C... Heroe
• For A Day the XSV Story - • Heroes For A Day the X...
• Push - • PUSH
• Paintball Aftershock v Ironmen 00 Sup - • Paintball Aftershock v...
• 7 Man Paintball World Cup Toulouse 1999 - • 7 Man Paintball World ...
• 01 CUP ALL A'S v Bob Long's Ironmen - • TRAUMAHEAD PAINTBALL 0...
• 300 FPS - • 300fps - Full Derder P...
• Bob Long's Ironmen v Dynasty - • Paintball | Bob Long's...
• Cereal Killerz - • Cereal Killerz - Monke...
• NPPL Dynasty Naughty Dawgs interview - • NPPL Dynasty Naughty D...
• WCPPL x USXBL State of the League 2024 - • WCPPL x USXBL State of...
• Oakland Assassins Raw Training Footage - • Oakland Assassins Raw ...
• 720 Videos World Cup 2003 Paintball - • 720 Videos World Cup ...
• NPPL HHHB Surf City 2011 - • NPPL HHHB Surf City 2011
• PSP Dallas 2015 Paintball Tournament Highlights - • PSP Dallas 2015 Paintb...
• True Semi vs Normal Semi - • True Semi vs Normal Se...
• Bob Long Intimidator Ripper | Shooting Video - • Bob Long Intimidator R...
• SFT Shocker Eigenbolt - Paintball Tek - • SFT Shocker w/ Eigenbo...
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#paintball #doodoobrown

[@PaintballRuinedMyLife]

If you have a topic suggestion for future videos like these, let me know!

[@ianbelletti6241]

I have a solution. All electronic guns must get tournament specific settings installed by the refs to compete. The refs also install tamper seals over the data ports to prevent tampering. Tampering with the settings or using a gun that hasn't been set to the tournament specs by the ref should be a lifetime ban.

[@tyler_wagner]

rate all pro teams from worst to best

[@gbone2636]

This was awesome. I got into paintball right in 99 and didn't even know all of this was happening at the pro level. Got out before the rules change, so it came and went without me ever hearing about it. Love this doc style kind of video, not sure about another topic but I know I'll watch it!

[@Findlayhats]

Research the current state of cheater boards. Never discussed these days but like…why would people stop using them haha

[@Nein..]

History of Paintball companies (JT, PE, GI Sportz, Angel, Bob Long etc.) would be cool. Or teams, what things were like back then etc..

[@BikesNThings]

I guarantee you the guys who were just playing in the woods with tippmann 98's were having more fun than all these teams.

[@alberthoupy5546]

Yes sir ✊️

[@keelyourshelf]

Bruh....you just reignited 4 years of repressed high school memories LMAO

[@TattooedGQ]

They are, i played nppl during the bps wars, it was a blast, but rec ball is a lot more fun now.

[@christopherizzo9755]

Most definitely that’s how my teenage years were. tipman 98 custom is the goat !!!

[@spicysaddness9049]

That was me and my buddies…..it was over 20 years ago a and we still talk about it

[@stupidnamefilter]

Probably should have gotten into the fact that the uncapped and high capped play at the start of this video led directly to paintball's massive collapse in popularity in the years immediately afterwards, as casuals simply left due to the huge cost of firing that much paint and what it felt like to get lit up. The damage was colossal and arguably has never really been repaired.

[@Tempest-ec2nn]

It wasn’t really high capped play, though it didn’t help with the transition between casual and tournament play. The early part of the financial crisis killed tournament paintball as free cash dried up overnight. I miss the 200 team cfoa events though.

[@stupidnamefilter]

@@Tempest-ec2nn According to industry insiders at the time the collapse was already in progress before the financial crash happened. It was a convenient excuse, but paintball was in total freefall before.

[@tyrrollins]

I played from 1996 to 2008 and I think its because paintball as a culture tries to distance itself from the milsim community. Airsoft is relatively big and I think thats largely due to essentially being full on milsim play. Speedball is the lamest way to play paintball. I never understood the appeal.

[@alanbowles836]

As a casual I'd say it is very daunting to play with rentals/cheap markers up against 13 bps. Lots of people who would have been up and coming regulars, trying out PB get turned off after they've been humiliated.

[@CBDLife-gx8sv]

Yup, other hobbys at least let you have stuff on the shelf after a match. Paintballs are for stupid dicks now with to much money

[@drewbeirn7704]

Played paintball with friends. All mechanical, tipman's, spider, etc. Tons of fun, 5 v 5 on five acres of woodlands all with friends. That is what paintball was for me. We didn't go through tons of balls. For us it was, hunt, engage, retreat, flank, etc. more tactics than an overwhelming volume of fire. Never forget one game we did. 2 vs 15. The 2 won just from knowledge of the bore trails and being able to hit and run. Was a lot of fun.

[@justinyoussi7221]

Hellyeaeh, I had a spyder, then got thee Auto-cocker, Yees, finally, got the front valves all aftermarket, made a custom grip from oak wood in woodshop, 7th grade, autofeeder hopper,dyee 10 inch spiral barreel. and co2 linees to belt,

[@Ben762]

Yes! I bought every clever add on for my 98. I could have probably bought one nicer grail gun for the money I spent that I so sought after at the time, but looking back I am sure I had more fun with my Tippmann.

[@nastrodomis]

That's awesome

[@TheRealRedRooster]

Yeah, did a lot of that back in the late '90s here around LA. Had a Tipman Carbine. Was more about tactics, stealth and smarts than "firepower". Hated all the cheaters, though that was commonly wiping off paint and cranking up the guns after the chrono before the game start. Kind of lost interested when you had to deal with this shyt at every single game we were playing (walkup teams).

[@nastrodomis]

@@TheRealRedRooster For sure!

[@Chris-qo2jx]

In middle school and high school in the late 90s, we would regularly have games 10-15 on a side out in the woods. Started off with a handful of guys had cheap pumps like Tigersharks but the majority were using sling shots or taking a weapon from someone who was already out. Eventually everyone had a gun, but some guys started bringing cheap semi autos like the spyder. Next thing you know there’s no more pump guns. Soon the $1,000 guns started coming and guys were going through a case of paint in an afternoon and we stopped playing in the woods and started playing in open ground because “it was more fun” according to the people with the expensive guns. That’s what ruined paintball for me. Started off being about stealth and tactics and turned into whoever had the most money to spend on guns and paint would win.

[@JamesGrim08]

Exactly. It was always the guys that sucked at the tactical part that had the crazy guns too. That turn was a real bummer for all of us that played woodsball.

[@_Grumpy_Panda_]

Absolutely this. Had a couple Tippman semi's, eventually a semi spyder, and a pump, forest games, sim games, etc. Hated the arena stuff, just seemed like a waste of paint, no tactics, no strategy, no team play, just run as fast as you can and waste paint.

[@panchopistola8298]

Thats kinda how it feels now . I rock a tip man 98 and yeah it sucks but I go with friends … I have a hard time justifying more then a couple hundred bucks for a paintball gun . But that’s just the old man in me

[@adamb2619]

I remember playing at my friends house in grade school who had an acre of lightly wooded trees. about 12 of us and most of us with sling shot and paint balls. We would rotate the paintball guns around since we didn't all have one. Eventually most had a gun within a year and continued to use those for another 2 years. It was a blast

[@madeintheusa9744]

yup bs money pit

[@brandongilbertFL]

I miss NPPL, especially on the beach. What a time to be alive.

[@TL-angzarr]

Thank you for reminding me of that. Playing at huntingdon Beach was the best!

[@josephking1502]

​​​@@TL-angzarr HB was one of the best settings but by Saturday the turf would have potholes and divets. Caused by the turf being layed ontop of sand with all the foot traffic and sliding

[@XavierWells-kf9jx]

Before Chris Lasoya became a douche and that old vhs of 300fps, maaaaaaan lol the nostalgia

[@mcav9459]

Agree, was a different time. HB was the highlight of the year. But honestly every venue was memorable for me. From QUALCOMM, PEVS, HSP, SC Village even smaller indoor like Splat Factory (which was extremely fun due to the turf being so saturated you could start your snake dive off break and make it lol) paintball from 05-09 was a wild ride.

[@Mr.Thermistor7228]

@@mcav9459 dam man you are bringing up some primal memories of mine. i was at everyone of those fields a time or two. same time period. some of the best memories of my life

[@saucyl3477]

Oh man, that 2000 to 2006 era time frame was my favorite period of paintball. It was like a reintroduction of mystique into the game that was lacking for a while. The internet forums were abuzz with rumors and speculation about every little thing ESPECIALLY when it came to electronic paintball gear.

[@shockashoota]

Bruh, nights with all your friends huddled around a dusty basment computer watching the g7 fly video drop,wishing for something unique like a macdev cyborg and terrorizing neighborhood stop signs with a virtue dm6 at 2am un able to sleep on a saturday night waiting to play on sunday was golden era.

[@brianpfouts2326]

Dude 2000 to 06 i call the the race gun days it wasn't about efficiency it was how fast can it shoot and that was all anybody cared about

[@nickv5131]

Dude right. I remember the whole team I was on standing watching video after video of how to make our karnivores shoot insane firing rates or work in general.

[@brianpfouts2326]

@@nickv5131 i have a 1st gen angel speed with a virtue board that has all the cheat codes lol glad she's still alive

[@SpaceMissile]

@@shockashoota such a mood.

[@ericlinville564]

I remember the first time I ever played paintball. Everybody was running around with mechanical guns, then in the distance I heard some rapid fire. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. We got back to the staging area that's when I saw my first Angel

[@Iscariot18]

lol! I think everybody has an identical angel story! I was in same situation, first time out, rental spyder, too nervous and hoping I wouldn't hit a ref, teammate or shoot myself in the dick. Playing some woodsball defend the castle mode. We were being overwhelmed by the attacking team around the castle perimeter. All of a sudden I hear a "GET DOWN" to my right. Dude pops up with his shiny gloss red wundermarker and proceeds to light up all the attackers like the minigun Blaine/Mac used in Predator (1987). I found out what a WDP Angel was that day 🙂.

[@ericlinville564]

@@Iscariot18 thats a badass memory

[@herrskeletal3994]

@@Iscariot18 you were lucky you had the spyder. I had a rental pump lol.

[@Rogan_Dorn]

@@herrskeletal3994 Lol we always got crusty ole Tippman 98s

[@herrskeletal3994]

@@Rogan_Dorn Yeah I ref occasionally at that same field and the 98's are the current rentals. For Dorn and the Emperor!

[@EKKsoldier622]

I gotta say, this is the best video you’ve made. Accurate, and nostalgic. We had the electronic arms race 20 years ago, now the mechanical arms race is occurring. Interested to see how mechanical valves evolve.

[@anthonygalluze6972]

this

[@Robert-ou5pf]

Honestly the last major tournament i played was 08 chicago at 12.5 and i can honestly say 10.5 is perfect. Games are still slow at 10.5 and i was an extremely aggressive player at 12.5.

[@WardenWolf]

Meanwhile I still have my Automag with a pneumatic trigger frame. It may not be as gas-efficient, but not enough to matter in a match; that trigger will still keep up with semi-auto electros.

[@gunztommiegunz]

@@WardenWolfi have an emf100, mechanical, fastest gun I have ever owned magfed though. I remember the angel and shocker I also had an automag with an RT valve!

[@swayntseng5243]

Still have a mechanical autococker mini black magic and fired fast and accurate - only cheat there is, is how fast you can aim n shoot😂🙏

[@jamesc8722]

I remember drooling over all the guns in my magazines while I’d take my Brass Eagle out to the woods.

[@GearsAndGuns]

Lol heck yeah brother

[@lyleh937]

I think just about everyone had a Brass Eagle at one point lol. Either that, a Spyder, Piranha, Tippmann 98 or A5 or a Smart Parts ION.

[@jamesc8722]

@@lyleh937 nice trip down memory lane. My semi auto was the closest thing to a god gun when everyone was still using pumps.

[@carbonite1983]

I would give anything to go back to 2000's paintball 😢

[@alpham777]

It was the fucking best (68 Automag powerfeed viewloader 12v Ice blue, centerflag hyperframe 4" drop forward 68 cu 3000psi tank havin ass nigga checking in!) I don't miss the prices though lol that marker alone was in the 1000's but man I miss those days.

[@michaeljohnston531]

I played competitive ball for years but finally got out when my team sponsor told me point blank that we had to start bending the rules to get more podiums. Some years later I took a group from work to a local indoor field for funsies. I left the Angel in the box and played with an SL-68 pump against the rental Automags, to keep it fair. There were a couple of walk-ons with electronic guns of some sort. I had a chat with them before the games started and made sure that they knew not to light up the nubies. They agreed. Of course, once we started playing, they couldn't resist dumping half a dozen balls into every new player. I pulled out the Angel and showed them what a pro overshoot at 16 BPS feels like. They left after that and I went back to playing pump. Good times.

[@cody4925]

Ultimate sigma move. You dropped your crown 👑, king.

[@jackmountain8503]

Holy smokes I have a similar story using an Angel I had won off a guy in a pump only woods dual hehe. I was two urban combat tours deep (Infantry) who got invited to a local field by an high school team...they got wreaked by some very disrespectful adults with obvious autos during a semi (none electronic /mechanical ) only match - I busted out the Angle and gave them an similar introduction when they did an open match (this was a Mil Sim/air soft field so 'speed ball' wasn't a thing)

[@aidanafshar8744]

You sure showed them, bro.

[@justinbevier8231]

It's been 20 years and that clip of rocky cagnoni saying "doodoo brown!" Never gets old.

[@wolfhausindustries]

The old clips of Addicted just gave me legit goosebumps and brought back that stoked feeling of being 12 years old staying up all night watching paintball dvds with the homies before hitting the field with everyone rocking 25-30 bps. Those Team Addicted dudes were the prime era of "swag" in the game and who we all just wanted to be like.

[@antecboy]

As an embedded systems engineer who started out his career with arduinos with the AtMega microcontrollers (back then by Atmel, they were acquired by Microchip later) and I'm now designing with 32-bit ARM micros by STMicroelectronics and having played airsoft back in the day, I designed a custom fire control board with mosfets for power control to the motor. This video seems on some parallel level very nostalgic to me .

[@Bobby_Rib]

I don't play paintball, but I love paintball history. I miss going to the grocery store and buying the magazines.

[@PaintballRuinedMyLife]

I think 90% of the old guys in the comments miss those days too

[@Robert-ou5pf]

Shit i was a wide eyed little kid looking at the brass eagle kits encased in hard plastic at wal mart. That was the first paitnball marker i ever had with a little 9oz co2 tank. We had a field down the road from us where we used to get fishing bait and i saw an angel on the wall for 1750. I thought it was only $17.50 and everyone laughed including my dad. Oh the good ol days. ❤

[@OPFOR-SQUAD]

You can always watch paintball videees!! Feel free to check out mine. My boys play hard!

[@cody4128]

I still have tucked away a few tall stacks of the only 2 paintball magazines available around me. I was more of a woodsball scenario guy so high rates of fire were useless to me but I loved the tech.

[@potatoarms291]

going down to the local shops to get the monthly facefull that they only got in because I asked and seeing it there was an event in itself

[@jameshinrichs4811]

Still have my old DM4 with a tadao board with all the now illegal modes haha

[@oredshirt969]

Illegal!? So does that mean my m6 isn't allowed anymore? I havent played in years...

[@IanFitty]

Would be cool to see 7 man at 15bps make a comeback as a spinoff series. The ICPL is insanely fun but truthfully the most fun I’ve had competing was in the UWL due to the limited paint, reinsertion at 10 min, and the unique roles each team got to field - scout, heavy, demolitionist, and the secret 11th stock class player. Always playing scout or stock class roles.

[@joshp8168]

Super 7’s in Australia still fire at 15bps

[@somebrains5431]

They dumbed the ICPL down as a washed up old man league. Most of us that played 10man in the woods -> hyperball era alongside mech guns giving way to electronic guns range from 42 at the very youngest to 65 now. Modern mech should be where the freestyingl guns blazing fun lives. It shouldnt be the diabetes, adult diaper, bad knees, obesity means you cant crawl game.

[@jong2359]

I am so happy that I got into the sport way before all this crap started happening. For anyone going to highschool, working at K-Mart, and trying to keep up with some other kids running a cheater board... it must have felt like this hobby made no sense at all. Glad I got to enjoy the days when the worst thing you had to deal with were talent, an Autococker, or the occasional cheater.

[@matthewhaskell2349]

I think 10.5 makes for a more exciting game - but they could limit the tank sizes to 68 or smaller so you can either drive greater efficiency or bring out less paint. Either way, the regular players win as the game will get faster or the markers will get more efficient.

[@yourpbtv]

Not everyone is short and guns can’t get anymore faster than it already is and there’s always a fill station in the pits so gun efficiency won’t really matter

[@matthewhaskell2349]

So if we could get a case of paint through a marker that handles paint like the field 1 force v2, that wouldn’t entice you? Improvements can always be had.

[@BrandonGavin_EDC]

I love 10.5. I agree it’s about perfect.

[@jasonguthrie730]

Nah tank size is based on how long your arms are. Its about the only customization left to a setup you can do. Markers are so efficient that 68ccu really wouldnt make a difference at all except in player comfortability

[@matthewhaskell2349]

Tank shape could stay the same, but volume could be limited. Or, even only allowing a certain amount of psi from the certified fill stations.

[@nate6386]

This was a nostalgia trip. I had to stop playing in 02 when I went to college it blows my mind what happened after I lost touch with paintball.

[@rrsch]

Totally relate. I stopped playing just after the Shocker and Angel came out. I alwasy wanted to shoot one. Never did. Crazy to see what happened since then.

[@sickmak90]

Having lived through those times I will say the uncapped days weren’t better.

[@PEZ1514]

Uncapped semi was the best ever. Ramping sucks bro and I could shoot semi faster than ramp speeds

[@sickmak90]

@@PEZ1514 yes and no. The uncapped days were nuts. I think it got too crazy and caused a ton of people to leave the sport.

[@mikewilson5194]

Great video, keep putting these out!!! R.I.P. A.K.A who knows what those guys would have put out if they hadn’t been screwed over…

[@dopemopey]

I'll never forgive the Gardeners.

[@somebrains5431]

Stupid parts

[@jarodhindes1901]

Agreed!

[@GeoffHinkle]

I haven't fired a marker in almost 20 years, and I still regret trading my DC Viking.

[@drock00013]

That shit ruined paintball. I had a cheap spyder compact 2k and it was fun

[@jesse8458]

Lowering BPS can facilitate more movement, but I think anything more in that direction isn’t really needed. Sure, a pump or mech pro tournament might be cool, or a further BPS reduction could open up the field a little more…but the better fix is far simpler. Limit the amount of paint a team can carry. Paint manufacturers (and fields that sell it) wouldn’t love it, so idk how feasible it is. But for the sake of the game itself, a hard limit on team paint (e.g. 15 pods total for a 5-man team, split however they’d like) would be more effective. Shoot as fast as you’d like (or keep the current 10.5 cap, whatever), but you can only do it so long without harming the team.

[@charlesw3120]

Exactly.

[@aaronpierce8438]

Interesting take-I like this idea.

[@58degreefpv45]

I like this idea. Maybe a set amount of pods per player? Capped semi auto?

[@jesse8458]

@@58degreefpv45 yeah, something like that. A limit per person gets mentioned sometimes and would definitely work, maybe 4 or 5 pods per person? Personally I like a wrinkle in that like I mentioned above - pod limit per team, but allow them to divvy it up as they'd like. Or maybe it's a hybrid, where they have a team limit and thresholds for the players (e.g. 15 pods for the 5-man team, each player must have at least 2). Just something to limit the paint and give more strategy to the game: you want your back guys to have most of the paint for lanes, sure, but maybe don't allow them to have 7 pods...

[@58degreefpv45]

@@jesse8458 max of 4 pods per player, but can be "gifted" after buzzer?

[@JAllenKaiser]

My very first job when I was 16 at the end of the 1990s was at a paintball field. The Autococker was considered a respectable marker, (and about the only thing we had to watch out for was custom thumb dials on the rear that cheaters would use to dial up pressure after being chronographed in.) …but then the Angel came along, and after that, electronic guns really ruined the sport for everyday people who didn’t devote their lives and entire paychecks to buying the latest equipment. It got to the point where some refs would only allow electronic markers if a group rented out an entire field for private play. That didn’t go over well with pro and semipro players who were frequent returning customers at the business. When I started working there, it was a fun pastime people could come in and play like laser-tag - but 2 years later it was nearly impossible to bring new people into the sport, because the semipro and pro players spending ridiculous $$$ on custom gear with cheater electronics made first-time experiences terrible for newbies. It just became a niche moneysucking pastime for hardcore enthusiasts from there on, and decreased in popularity with the general public. I wished that the leagues would return to an analogue/mechanical-rule only, and ban electronic gizmos… but the use of electronic hoppers, etc. etc. had become too entrenched with the pro players - and they had invested wayyy too much money in all that kit to ever want to give up the electronic trend. To me, IMHO, paintball destroyed its own broad appeal and accessibility because it allowed electronics to niche the sport into increasingly expensive obscurity. Just my $0.02 having been a local ref at a local field back in the day when that transition happened.

[@perarduaadastra873]

The U.K. had 14 failed criminal prosecutions of people alleging paintball were real guns, before civil servants decided on implementing new restrictive legislation.

[@chaos817]

I swear the UK governance ran by Karen’s and Fun Nazis

[@nastrodomis]

Man they can't have any fun over there

[@kingterry6045]

@@nastrodomis They arrest people over twitter insults now, lmao.

[@perarduaadastra873]

@@kingterry6045 Yes, use one bad word in writing to another, and it’s a “Malicious Communication”.

[@timothee3446]

@@kingterry6045they will also arrest people for spitting or saying anything bad about the royal family. Seems like communism to me over there

[@hwi7114]

I started playing paintball in the late 90s and the first rate of fire shenanigans I can recall are the Shocker Turbo and Automag RT. I quit playing in 2006 and just recently started looking back into it, the changes are pretty crazy with guns shooting so much slower, but the biggest thing I noticed is how much the sport has shrunk. Way less people play now than did in the heyday of the BPS wars.

[@kevinhullinger8743]

Agree, after my recommendation my grandson just started looking into paintball I had an old tippman 98 custom I reworked and now we cannot find air! Back in the day you could fill up tanks just about everywhere! Crazy!

[@Clockwork0nions]

Yeah, getting lit up by people with full auto guns at the height of the BPS Wars will do that to younger people who played once and said never again. There's a reason airsoft rose just as quickly as paintball fell.

[@hwi7114]

@@Clockwork0nions Agree to disagree on that point, it seems to me that paintball shrunk after the rate of fire limitations, not before.

[@Clockwork0nions]

@@hwi7114 I mean I can’t change your feelings, but the facts are the BPS Wars and the move away from woodsball killed the sport in North America.

[@tylerharris1085]

I remember having a predator board and using the 20 bps full auto break out mode, super sneaky only worked on the 3rd trigger pull. Crazy cool tech for back in 2005

[@ChimneyTopPharm]

Forget which board but it had first pull full auto, then reverted back to semi/ramping. All kinds of fun modes back in the day.

[@anarchyamp]

Cringe cheating

[@Sindrolik]

This is my favorite video you've put out. The content was fantastic but the structure, timing, graphics... The whole execution was excellent. You're killing it.

[@ogitexc]

I raise my hand to take some of the responsibility for this BS.... Being the HALO guy, I can openly say I am so glad to have retired from playing before the effect of these guns really took hold. LOL

[@austink4712]

5 man Uncapped semi 3 people with 4 pods each as 'front' players 2 people with 6 pods as 'corner' or 'back' players Try to make the game interesting and ramp up action while relying on skill rather than just dropping lanes across the field in the hopes that one or two players get a lucky break

[@Krazy_Kook_YT]

I stopped playing in 08. Was very active in the nppl 04-07. Learned about the nppl’s collapse a few years after it actually happened. That was saddening. This video update is heartbreaking to hear. I’m happy I was living in the cowboy days 🤙🏽

[@dan12970]

As one of those Splatmaster-in-the-woods players from the late '80s, I still remember the shock and awe of being on the receiving end of my first barrage from a Tippman SMG-60! I can't imagine playing against modern guns...

[@General_Eisenhower1945]

I remember the shocker, my dad ran one basically his whole paintball career until he retired from it in like 2010

[@deznut564]

Man you should have added the emag and how it got banned right away cause the rt mode was just too damn fast and provided an "unfair" advantage

[@bqnestle]

Emag wasn't banned, the particular trigger pull was suspect to some people.

[@rino451]

Had an eMag. It wasn't all that. Maybe for it's time, but my Sandridge Smoked it. Ugly, but far more reliable than the eMag. eMag was too fast for the hoppers at the time unless you got that force feeding abortion that AGD came up for it (had one). Worked, but what a hunk to haul around.

[@ExDementia666]

Videos like this make me glad you didn't quit KZbin man! Would love more history or retrospectives like this from you. I haven't played in nearly a decade but it makes me want to pull out my pump gun again

[@jonathanscoggins5868]

OMG the woods with splatmasters!!! That is how i started. With hockey masks and sports goggles, we painted the hockey masks also!! then came the tippmans, than automags, autocockers, then the shocker, angels! i still have my custom 2005 shocker nxt! :) I helped start the Texas A&M program back in 96! :)

[@booshandorkakow64]

technology ruined paintball

[@snikrepak]

My last ever game I used my classic pgp

[@wilesmedia]

such a quality edit! great story telling as well!

[@bruiser0159]

When I got into Paintballing in 2000 We had Auto Cockers, and Spyders, and Cheapo Tippmans, And then Angel came out and changed everything!!!

[@renegadeoffunk2588]

I'm just getting back into paintball after about an 8 year break. It is so awesome to see you're still making content.

[@PaintballRuinedMyLife]

Welcome back!

[@dchavez1528]

I ran a Tippman 98 with a reactive trigger and a flatline barrel. Although I ran an electric hooper, it wasn't as fancy. I actually came up with the idea of extending the neck of the hopper a few inches. I achieved this by using 1 inch pvc water sprinkler pipe and wrapping it in electrical tape. This decreased the chance of exploding paintball. I was called out a few times, but nothing was ever done cause I was like 15.

[@DOCKDISPAIR]

Remember using the spyder rocket triggers on a victor

[@MTKTube]

bro I still have a spyder shutter with a modified E-frame trigger. It was my first marker before I got my timmy and after I stopped using it my little brother ran it until he quit playing. talk about a wild setup for back in the day

[@NightmarePB]

This is the best paintball video that I've ever watched! I never knew that paintball had a storied history. Way to go Brad!

[@KM-ho3lf]

Thanks for posting this. I used to play back in the mid 90s to early 2000s with some guys from work. We had a blast, mostly in the woods, wearing camo. A couple of the guys had Autocockers, I had one of the early Spyders, then later found a good deal on a used 2000 Angel. Not sure how you showed up on my YT feed, but I'm glad you did. Brought back a lot of fun memories watching this. Subscribed.

[@smmalafa1]

They should have one tournament per season that’s an “anything goes” tournament. Lets see some insane guns out there lol

[@soloflyingmonkey]

I'd personally love to see semi-auto come back capped at 11-15bps and more blind field tournaments.

[@gunfytr249]

I started Paintball in 1985. My team took 3rd in the Nationals Tourny in Pittsburg PA in 1987....with Nelspots. That was when skill was valued, woodsmanship, camo and teamwork. I got out in the mid 90s, when arena ball took over and firehoses replaced skill. Last serious time I played was mid 90s, helping a buddy open a field in SE Indiana. After the first match, (30 v 30), a kid ran up to me with his shiny new angel and told me that he had spent 2000 rounds had gotten a kill! I replied I had fired 200, and had gotten 6. Long story short, I'm not impressed with where the sport has gone.

[@MK-dk5cx]

Great video! This was awesome to watch. Brought back some fun (and some frustrating) memories. Lol... I miss when paintball was this huge though. Back then in felt like the party would last forever.

[@mikecartoscelli5938]

I remember being at NPPL Tampa in 2004, and seeing a friend from LA in the chrono area with a new DM4, pulled the trigger back 3 times slow, and it went 24bps basically full auto, pull the trigger once slow and it went back to normal. Also the robot was in Tampa, and it caught 0 people out. It was a total laughable failure. It just couldn't be programmed with all the permutations that existed with all the boards.

[@Krazy_Kook_YT]

I played in Tampa in 04 & 05. I got pulled in 05 because they thought I was cheating. My fingers registered 22bps in front of 11 refs. Majority of them yelled “holy shit” when I cursed them out and ripped half a hopper showing them how fast my fingers were. I used to rubber band fishing weights to my fingers & tap pens/pencils against my thighs in class all day waiting to go to the field after 😂 I would kill to get my 05 ego back.

[@jaderiddle9082]

Man, this video brings back memories. I started playing paintball around 2000 with my first marker being a PMI Piranha which was a direct competitor to the Spyder. But, my weapon of choice for the last 20 years is still an OG 2004 Smart Parts Impulse Vision. It was the little brother to the Shocker: open bolt vs closed bolt, ran at slightly higher pressures, but was half the cost, super easy to maintain, and was a true "tinkerer's marker". Custom bodies, bolts, rams, hammers, valves, regulators, boards, trigger frames, triggers, feed necks, you name it. One of the most famous (and is equipped on mine) is the W.A.S. (Wicked Air Sportz) Equalizer Board which would definitely fall under the header of one of these original cheater boards. Everything was adjustable: bounce, debounce, dwell, max cycle rate, multiple programmable firing modes: semi auto, full auto, burst with user defined cycles (e.g. 3 shot, 5 shot, 10 shot, whatever), ramping to include the trigger pull rate required to activate said firing modes. Paired with the eyes, which weren't beam break style, you could set an "unlimited" firing mode where the cycle rate of the marker was only limited by physics. Literally it would cycle as fast as the inertia of the bolt assembly would allow which could get over 30 BPS with the right combo of pressure and weight. Paired with the "Freak" barrel system which had adjustable sleeves to fit different diameter paintballs and the newer style force feed hoppers, you could rip unreal streams of paint with pinpoint accuracy and never worry about breaking a ball. Compared to today's markers it's a brick boat anchor with terrible gas mileage, but it still turns heads when I dig it out and roll streams with it. With that said, once electronic markers started becoming more standard, most fields I played at quickly instituted rules disallowing any type of auto, ramping, or burst firing, and cycle rates were capped at around 10-12 bps because the field markers were all mechanical Tippmann 98 or Spyders. They didn't want 10, 12, 13, 14 year olds on their birthday parties getting ripped to shreds by folks with $2000 gear setups

[@ShowMeVirtual]

Excellent video Brad! The editing and splicing together the historical video clips was top notch and you really crafted the storyline well. Hope to see many more like this. I think the best players should be able to win in every format, be it pump, semi, ramping, air ball, woods, mounds, etc. Obviously it’s not cost effective for anyone to switch contexts like this for practice or competition today, but the technology to digitally remix everything on-the-fly is just right around the corner and will allow individual players to hone and flex a much more diverse skill set than today’s competitive players.

[@PaintballRuinedMyLife]

Much appreciated!

[@WardenWolf]

Cheap true electropneumatic guns (not just mechanical guns with electronic triggers) are what killed paintball. What a lot of the "Get good" crowd don't understand is that the game is a LOT less fun as a casual player when you get lit up from head to toe every time you're eliminated. The pain-to-pleasure ratio starts shifting heavily towards pain, and the learning curve gets a lot steeper. This tends to turn off both younger people who are getting into the sport and older players who just want a casual game. If you wind up with 5-10 welts every time you're eliminated instead of 1-2, you tend to call it a day a lot sooner and seriously consider whether you even want to go back. Once these guns got so cheap that a middle-class 10-12-year-old could reasonably get one for Christmas or birthday, it basically killed the stream of new players entering the sport because overshooting became the norm instead of the exception.

[@sixthgatebass]

Did you ever consider getting good?

[@KinoTechUSA69]

Been getting lit up since 06 and im still having fun. 😂

[@jeffh6960]

I guess the Mini.... that has been around for idk 10+ years is new lol 😆 been this way a minute bud. Get good

[@jeffh6960]

@@notetaking9308 two.bery different fire rate bro. But I had both and hear ya.

[@ENOCK360]

I remember lending a teammate my custom Naughty Dogs Intimidator at a tournament when he got spot checked going to the field. He was DQ'd for the match and the gun was confiscated until the end of the tournament for bouncing. The gun was so hard to stop bouncing, I gave up. Couldn't tune it out but I didn't want a horrible trigger pull either. Compared to today's paintball, I think it is fine where it's at. I do like semi 15bps cap but I'm ok with 10.5bps ramp as well. I do miss shooting lanes at 15-20bps knowing the other player isn't making it through without a hit. Things got spicy back then at those speeds. Lots of overshooting. Lots of bonus balls for whining to the ref.

[@blwnv8]

I was almost thrown out in Atlanta for bonus balling a terrible ref playing psp

[@anarchyamp]

Because standing there shooting 20bps the whole round and lane locking is soooo fun 🙄

[@ENOCK360]

@@anarchyamp I don't think you played back in the early 2000s. Paintball then was extremely aggressive and very not defensive. You need to shoot lanes like that because you most likely had 2 people running down the field to bunker opponents almost immediately. Also, we didn't play for points in most tournaments like today. Most tournaments where a round robin system with an elimination finals. It's ok though. You had to be there to appreciate what is was then and how it got to where we are now.

[@benjaminnelson1856]

Production quality is through the roof on this video Brad!

[@BlueTrane2028]

It's been a solid decade since I played. The most advanced gun I ever had was a Tippmann 98 with an e-bolt (pneumatic ram setup instead of sear and bolt) and their cyclone feed on it (the valve is gonna waste the gas anyways, may as well use it for something). One battery, shot faster than anything I faced with regularity, and gave me probably my favorite comment ever from an opponent: "What's up with the old guy with the Tippmann and how is it so good?" IDK why the algorithm brought me to this video but I'm glad I'm here. Was a fun watch. My Cyclone feed had some mods to it, was fully capable of keeping up with the board. I never formally measured the BPS but the speed demo in the video makes me think I was at the pointy end of the range, over 15 for sure. I need to get some new air tanks and go play again. Show the teenagers that you can still get it in your 40s and over.

[@notjoeyg666]

10.5 ramping is the future. Its good at keeping a level playing field

[@MarekMediaPB]

Man this video is super well done, you nailed it! Felt like going through a time warp haha

[@j.crizzle8942]

Yo! Great vid! I’m from the era of Autococker and Automag 😂 with Dye barrels being the tiddies! When the Shocker (followed by Angel) first hit shelves, I was part of the crew that first started hacking it. We partnered with an electrical engineer meganerd, who went to town making custom programming and even ground-up board builds. It was wild and awesome! I believe the engineer and shop owner & captain of our PB shop, Jon, named the final board “Archangel”. This was all done in sight of the KFC Big Chicken, in Marietta GA. Good times… I wish I still had a Cocker to play with. I absolutely loved making custom parts, machining, hacking and rebuilding them. Thanks for the memories, dude!

[@stuporsmoothie]

Awesome video. Please keep making paintball history content in this easily digestible format.

[@itsjustcaz]

This was an awesome video Brad, I actually learned a lot. Thank you!

[@bobspalding2477]

Dang, so glad this popped into my feed. I was obsessed with the sport from like 2005-2012. Barely look at anything for it anymore but this brought back some good memories.

[@Caveira138]

I really love these paintball history ones you delve into. I know they're a lot of work but really nostalgic and awesome. Great job!

[@SpaceMissile]

this is a fantastic video essay. I had no clue the paintball scene was this well-established. 11:00 was a great demonstration as well.

[@kevbot5.0keller66]

I played a psp event in I think was 2006 out here in Arizona at 23bps and man was that a fun event. Running a shocker with a virtue board. Those were the fun days for sure. Felt like people had more heart back then. People had actual emotions back then.

[@MinistryOfMagic_DoM]

As a former NPPL Division 1 professional player I can confirm the downfall of the sport for us was when they started trying to regulate and change the rules every year. Exceptionally few players actually got paid well enough to do it as their only job so the constant need to change the markers was expensive and it killed a lot of the top teams. Sponsors rarely paid much at all and often only offered discounts at the best.

[@trippynicktv2985]

My old home field has a regular mechanical tournament every year and it gets WAY more LOVE than regular 10.5/12.5 bps

[@recklessjunkie]

The eye candy in this video is overwhelming love the old footage and magazine shots thank you 🙏

[@Iconic_Paintball]

Phenomenal video Brad! Great mix of history and analysis! Love it

[@-Fluxor]

Could you imagine a legit late 90s early 2000s Walmart Talon pump gun tournament happening in 2024?

[@gymkhanadog]

Still got mine! lol. Still fires as reliably but largely inaccurately today as it did back then!

[@joshs4566]

This is so cool, a look into some amazing vintage footage. Thank you for this! Subscribed.

[@californiahandball]

I never had an intimidator, but my friend bought one. And he let me borrow it maybe in 2001 or so. I always used mechanical autocockers. That intimidator was awesome!

[@MrAssassyn86]

I had an RL one. Loved it but traded it for a mid gaming desktop.

[@adm3991]

In 2003 my buddy and I not only switched to HPA tanks but he got a 2k2 signature series dragon that came stock with a WAS board and I picked up an Adrenalin Impulse with a WAS board added as an upgrade. Upgrading from a mechanical Spyder for him and me a 98 right feed autococker it felt entirely like a new game at that point for better or for worse. Those old original NPPL era boards are crazy fast and those old was boards in particular on "semi" I swear they always felt like if you hit about 12 bps they would got crazy and next thing you know your doing 16..18...20 bps over the old red chronos. They'd always pass tech but I'm telling you they took off. And my 2k5 Dark Alias's frenzy board omfg machine gun

[@illegalclown]

This video made me feel nostalgic. I was obsessed with paintball as a teenager. I haven't played since 2002. I became an adult, had to get a job and go to college. My friends were in the same situation too. We always planned to get back together again but never found time. I finally sold my gear last year.

[@scotttoman371]

Great video! 03-06 was just the best time and best memories from my paintball days!

[@10t0esdown]

I played the game in the 90s and started to drop out during the proliferation of autos, especially cheap ones. Going up against an even modest player with an Angel was tough enough. I bought a spyder flash lcd to test the waters, but always fell back to my trusty automag or tippmann 98. Our best games were with pump guns, and sniping 100 yards with tippmann 98s with a flatline barrel. I would watch speedball tourneys and it was apparent that technology surpassed tactical and physical ability. You still needed both, but whoever could lay paint was the king. I look forward to bringing my kiddos to the field, but only for the nostalgia of it.. and show them their pops still got it. One note, I wasn't part of the game that involved the cheat boards. But we had players that would up the gas pressure and seriously rip others on the field.. or slightly freeze their paintballs before hitting the field, causing them to seal tighter and carry more kinetic energy coming out of the barrel. This always resulted in a fight. Fuck cheaters. 🖕🖕🖕

[@kawicepticon8866]

I remember when the Shocker came out the Angel then All American...back then I use to use a Micro Mag on a remote system with a tiny 48tank in my pack. Our team actually placed 2nd at the Worlds in Orlando in I think 95' . We all had AutoMags, Rtmags, and I run a MicroMag. The Eguns really changes the game by players just laying paint . I think the skill levels of players would have been higher today if there were all truly semi auto

[@Gunbudder]

i'll never forget being blown away by how insanely expensive the full electric guns were, with the carousel loader. i had gotten a regular style machined paintball gun for christmas and all it has "extra" was just a long rifled barrel. i still use that gun today to haze off moose, but i would desperately outmatched playing against humans with turbo machine gun rigs that shot a literal stream of balls so fast it sounded like a single ripping sound

[@Mr.Thermistor7228]

"ION, VIRTUE, LETS DO IT" god fckin damn that video will forever be engraved in my memory. god what a time it was

[@alienspacebones]

Super cool vid! I got out of tournaments between LCD and IR3 Angels (way too much cheating and theft), but I would come back to play some walk on every few years. Local field started calling us the Angel Mafia. Most of the field dudes had never seen one. I have an LED with an uncut single trigger guard and sub 600 SN that still works, all the way to an A1 Fly. I love this stuff1!

[@Frostbyte911]

Oh man, I remember that 15 bps cap. You were motivated to get off the field quick with that or else you were escorted off by… 15 bps. I’d like to see nxl do a mechanical series, I think that’d be fun as hell

[@nickwayman]

You mean like the ICPL?

[@Frostbyte911]

@@nickwayman like using a mechanical marker in an nxl match

[@kingterry6045]

I miss my ragtag old paintball field in my hometown. The majority of us had those old pump action paintball guns because the Spyder/Angles or anything like that ran way above anyone's ability to afford. We use to play all sorts of odd games, one I remember was the "revolution" in which we lined up at 100 yards then each side fired a volley then advanced a few feet. Since we all cheated and wouldn't call our hits we all decided to freeze the paintballs so you wouldn't shake it off. Good times, those frozen paintballs would break the skin everytime.

[@jregulatori4672]

Randomly came across this video and brought back a lot of memories. I was around during the Mag/Cocker wars (still have an Automag VHS maintenance video) and then years later got back into and had a DM7. Lived in So Cal and played against a lot of local pro teams that would show up to the parks. Spoiled living down there and having so many shops you could just walk in/find anything like ANS (again, this was 2008ish). Just blows my mind at the advancements in tech. Scrolling paintball shop websites today, I don't recognize half the stuff I see. Still sell my old favorite paint though (Ultra Evil).

[@patmcbride9853]

I found this fascinating because I started playing with pump guns and never competed with a semi-auto, although I got one to play around with. Now I think I will look at the electronic guns for backyard plinking and varmint discouragement.

[@wtfserpico]

I rarely play anymore, and when I do I ALWAYS rock the field rental Tipmann. I play at an event for a local business every summer and there are always guys from a few local and semi-local D4 teams that show up to play and we always make them roll true semi-auto with no ramping and it's amazing how much of a crutch ramping is for them. It's fun to watch them have to adjust over the course of the day and significantly satisfying to shoot them off of the field with my rental. With that being said, I think the 10.5 cap for pro ball is just fine, as to really have a competitive game at a pro level you do need to limit as many variables outside of player skill as you possibly can. As someone pointed out in another comment, a much more interesting limitation would be on total paint allowed per game.

[@tulsatops6248]

Got into paintball at the height of all this silliness. We had a D4 team out there practicing shooting 15bps. Was fun, but insane looking back at that time. 😂

[@brianmoore3659]

Cool to see, i worked for Pure Promotions and NPPL back in the 2000’s. Rocky is my dude. I was in charge of field and site set up. Seen a lot of stuff behind the scenes, everyone called me Chief

[@PurposefulRecreation]

I know this video took a lot of effort and time to make, and i really appreciate it. Nice work!

[@michaelsaenz5638]

I started playing around 2001 as a 12 year old mostly in the woods and orchards. Speed ball wasn't a thing where I lived and there wasnt anywhere you could go that had fields and pro-shops etc, we only had what we could find at Academy sports, walmart, etc and we had a blast with just that. I think it was around 2006 when I first saw an autococker in person, and another 5 years before I finally picked up a used E-Orracle as my "dream marker". I still play basically exclusively with that marker because of the nostalgia it represents. Even now, I can get through what amounts to a whole day of play on half a case of paint. I tend to just take the shots that count and skip the rest. Nothing like the feeling of winning a match with several tags and coming off the field with your first hopper still half full.

[@mothjoke]

This was an amazing breakdown, thank you for your awesome work buddy

[@driveitlikeyastoleit55]

Wow this brings back some memories! I started playing in the early 90's when you didn't have much choice if you wanted a top of the line gun, either a cocker or an automag. I had a smart parts automag that I had put a binary trigger on, it would fire 14 a second but it was easy to screw up the timing and break a ball which sucked. I eventually put the stock trigger back on and it hardly ever broke one afterwards. Watching this makes me want to play again.

[@stevenpennington8059]

I have absolutely have no idea how i ended up here. I've never played paintball. Ever. Fantastic video. 😂

[@ryanlepore9191]

Dude! What an awesome video! I can't tell how much effort you put it into this! More please!!!

[@AudiA07]

I started playing in '95/'96, so it's great to see this video!

[@DynaLowrider]

I played tournament level decades ago - back in the AutoMag and Auto Cocker days. I have a fairly tricked out AutoMag and a Team Lockout-built Auto Cocker. For me, peak play was semi-auto players using actual skill. I was done not too long after my local fields started letting full-auto on. In the beginning you could still be competitive. One night in particular, when these two brothers started coming, each with a SCUBA tank over a shoulder and several cases of paint...and of course, Angels...that sealed the deal for me. They'd sit at the back of the field and just spray everything down (they were of large and not very mobile stature). You literally couldn't move from cover - and during no time-limit CTF they never ran out of paint. Funny side-story; I was working at Johnson & Johnson in the 90's and the regional manager decided to get a bunch of the employees out for some paintball-team-building-fun. After a couple rounds the refs pulled me aside and asked if I could "take it easy on them" as I was slaughtering the opposing team (they all knew me). I said I WAS taking it easy on them! After another round they kicked me off. The regional manager disagreed with them and was actually impressed watching me out on the field since I was so laid back at the office. They let me back on as long as I didn't use my AutoMag and used a rental Spyder...not even one of their Tippmanns! That didn't change much....LOL! We all had a good time. And a couple years later when the full-autos and more money-than-skill players filled the fields I knew what my coworkers felt this day.

[@mechredd]

I haven't played paintball in maybe 15 years and the last big event I played in was the tippmann world challenge in 07 or 08. I'm quickly becoming a fan of your channel. I wish KZbin would allow us to post pictures. I'd post my impulse which had several aftermarket upgrades. I was shooting in the mid 20's bps with it, but I don't remember what my settings were. It was some sort of ramping mode. I also have an A5 with e-grip and aftermarket board that could shoot up to 20bps on full auto but it chops so I kept it down at about 15.

[@koolBOY8323]

i loved the plinking fun you could have with these kinds of boards. but as for tournaments and competitive play i always kept it on semi. we practiced like crazy to get our fingers up that fast, and it was a badge of honor to hit 15 on semi with no bounce or ramping.

[@adfadgaqgv]

I loved my shocker, Angel LCD, Angel Speed and Proto matrix 4 with tadao board. Had a Halo on all of them. Those were the days

[@Forbeszy1]

Great history lesson for paintball. Tons of great info in here. Would love to see more videos like this as well. Keep it up! ^_^❤

[@CockerTop]

Great quick history!! 2004 was brutal! I got blown up in ways that today are just legends… The rec field cap was Slow to appear, too! I had a PM7 burn it’s way into my memory in Charleston back in 2008. Thanks - and yeah - maybe we should all just play MECH!!

[@floridasoldat]

In my day I rocked a blue/black fade ‘05 Proto Matrix with Virtue Board installed, blade trigger, Dye Throttle tank, blue/black Freak barrel with insert kit, and a rip drive Halo B. Good times. If I remember correctly my Virtue Board allowed me to fire up to something like 35 bps or something, and tourneys allowed ramping, but capped us at 15 bps. Ollie Lang was everyone’s idol. It’s been years lol.