Modern Paint Ball guns were a natural progression from a 'Ping Pong Gun' that was used by many young 'Warriors' in the 1950's. This 'Toy' would fire Ping Pong balls under air pressure. A hit wasn't as painful as a modern unprotected 'Paintball' hit, because of the deceleration of the very light projectile.

Then the Daisy Manufacturing Company of 'BB Gun' fame came up with the first Paint Ball Gun. The first Paint Ball gun was invented (1970) and patented by a Daisy Employee, James Hale (U.S. patent 3,788, 298 issued on January 29, 1974.) with the original intent of use by the Forest Service and ranchers marking trees for harvest and cattle for selection. The first gun actually designed for playing Paintball was the Splatmaster invented by Robert G Shepherd. This U.S. patent number 4,531,503 was issued to Shepherd on July 30, 1985.

The Forestry version (Nel-spot 007 pistols) was used in a game of 'Capture the Flag' in 1981, boys will be boys. By 1982 some of the entrepreneurial players from that 'Capture the Flag' game, started National Survival Games (NSG) and opening paint ball fields. Charles Gaines, founded NSG. PMI (Pursuit Marketing Inc.) was founded for the distribution and marketing of Paint Ball products and paint ball gear sites. Caleb Strong opened the first outdoor paintball gear site in 1982 in upstate New York. Being in upstate New York, Caleb also opened the first indoor paintball gear site in Buffalo in 1984. The early marketing of the new sport included articles written by quite a few of those early players and published in Sports Illustrated and other sports genre.

Once established it was only natural to set up a Championship Contest. This was done in 1983 at a paint ball gear site with a purse of $14,000 cash. The sport also went international in 1983 with the opening of an outdoor paintball gear site in Toronto. More International Venues were added beginning with Australia in 1984, France and Denmark in 1991 with the rest of Europe soon to follow. An indoor paintball gear site was erected in England by 1985.

I'm sure quite a few Wives, Mothers and anyone who does their own laundry are grateful to George A. Skogg who in 1987 patented a "washable marking fluid formulation for soft gelatin capsules" - a Paintball bullet recipe (U.S. patent 4,634,606 granted January 6, 1987.) The fluid when packaged in a soft gelatin capsule produced projectiles that were more accurate and stable and made bright, highly visible marks that could be easily washed out with water and/or detergent and were ideally suitable for use in the sports and games exercises. Skogg worked for the Nelson Paint Company and this patent became the Nelson recipe for Paintballs.

LET'S GET ORGANIZED In 1988 The IPPA (International Paintball Players Association) was founded. This is a non-profit association dedicated to the education, growth and safety of the sport of paintball. During the period 1992-1993 NPPL (National Professional Paintball League ) was founded and the NPPL Pro-Am Series began with paint ball gear site tournaments set up in Reno, New York, Boston, and other cities around the U.S..

It was inevitable that television would become involved. How could it 'NOT' be included. In 1993 ESPN aired it's filming of the NPPL 'DC Cup' from Bowie, Maryland, organized by the PCRI (Paintball Ratings and Competitions International). As interest expanded in 1996 ESPN aired the ESPN World Championships of Paintball from Orlando, Florida. And of course the Internet would become a venue. In 1994 Warpig introduced the first internet paintball gear site.

The game has exploded into a multimillion-dollar sport with amateur and professional tournaments across the United States and Europe. Paintball Gear Sites are opening every day now, all over the world. Cash purses and prizes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars are involved. Daisy (manufacturer of pellets, B.B.s and air guns), Crossman (manufacturer of airguns), Scott USA (manufacturer of ski poles and goggles) and JT USA (manufacturer of motocross safety equipment) are just a few of the companies that have expanded into paintball paraphernalia and equipment. Sponsors of modern tournaments include companies such as Budweiser and Pepsi-Cola and who know's what's next. (Toy's r Us, Ruger).

About the Author

C. R. Ellsworth is retired and living in the 'Great North Woods'.
He's been involved in On-Line & Network Marketing since 2000.
Paintball Gear Sites I Work 4 U

Paintball Guns Examined by Carl Walker

A paintball gun is a device, or a replica of an actual firearm used to mark an opposing player with paint in the popular game of paintball. It uses different types of propellants such as expanding gases to propel a paintball through a barrel with a muzzle velocity of approximately 300 ft/s to break upon impact.

Firing Systems in Paintball Guns:

In the Electro-pneumatic firing system, electrical power from an onboard battery is used to drive a motor that turns gears inside the gun to compress and release a piston, which creates a blast of air that propels the paintball. These guns are capable of multiple firing modes, such as three-shot bursts, six-shot bursts or fully automatic. Most of them are capable of firing 300 to 900 rounds per minute (RPM) and their muzzle velocities range from 200 to 400 feet per second (FPS).

In mechanical or spring-powered firing system, the paintball guns are mostly single-shot or spring-cocked devices the spring has to be cocked by pulling back the slide or bolt before firing each shot. In some devices, excess air not used to propel the ball is then used to re-cock the hammer which is known as a blowback system. Mechanical paintball guns are able to fire at a rate of 200 to 275 FPS.

Gas-powered firing systems use pressurized gases like propane and HFC134a refrigerant to propel paintballs. They are also capable of using blowback mechanism, in which on-board or magazine-stored gas storage system is used to propel the paintballs and the same compressed air that propels the paintball is used to pull back the slide. So they are also capable of automatic or semi-automatic fire.

Types of paintball Guns:

There are various types of paintball guns which come in different sizes, configurations, styles and designs. Pistols are the smallest, running off of twelve gram CO2 cartridges. They have to be reloaded after ten shoots. Since pistols are less powerful with smaller paintball capacity, they are normally used for back-ups.

With pump guns, the user has to manually load the paintballs into the chamber, they cannot be automatic. They are much cheaper, very accurate and powerful in comparison to other paintball guns. Some of them come with a constant trigger so you can hold the trigger down and just pump it to shoot.

Semi-automatic paintball guns are quite expensive and may even cost you up to a $1000. They are capable of semi-automatic and automatic fire. The trigger is considerably sensitive and most models have shorter trigger pulls.

Specially configured paintball guns such as stock guns can only hold about 10 paintballs, and must be parallel to the breech, which requires tilting to load a paintball. A stock class paintball gun is powered by a single 12 gram CO2 powerlet. The knob that holds the powerlet has to be removed in order to change it. They are mostly used for stock only games. Regular pump paintball guns can also be modified to fit stock class specifications.

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Paintball Guns Examined by Carl Walker

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