The Death of an Industry

Now, whenever an electronic gun is produced, the manufacturer either pays a royalty to Smart Parts or Dye, another company, which due to an anomaly also holds 1/3 of the patent.

This allows Smart Parts to produce and sell guns that are a lot cheaper than their competitors. The competition is dying, with brands going belly up each month. The advancement of the markers has stalled. New editions of markers are merely more compact versions, with no technological gains. Worse, this has fostered an "us versus them" mentality within the industry. Companies that used to help each other out and sponsor each other, instead changed their mentality. Bob Long, a longtime industry leader, can no longer afford to have his company team play tournament paintball!

http://www.paintballx3.com/feature/long-time-coming-bob-long-part-2.html

This has caused the worst catastrophe for the advancement of the sport. The NPPL, the National Professional Paintballer's League, died, due to the sport becoming too expensive, due to a lack of competition.

http://www.a5og.net/general-paintball-related-discussion/20934-nppl-goes-bankrupt.html

Now, without a large professional organization advancing the sport, young kids no longer have dreams of playing in international tournaments. Fields which catered to these kids have closed. Without local fields, how can paintball ever recover?

Brother Against Brother

In the early days of paintball, people shared technology with each other. Nelson, the creator of the first paintball marker, did not patent their valve design so that others could use it. Their philosophy was that as long as the sport of paintball prospered and progressed, all would profit.

Then came along Smart Parts. Originally, they only manufactured after-market barrels. But they continued to expand their market, and eventually, they bought the patent rights to the idea, the mere idea, of using an electronic switch in a paintball gun.

http://www.haveblue.org/tech/patents/US006694963.pdf

Unfortunately, they had been beaten by the navy, which had patented the very same concept in the 1950's.

http://www.haveblue.org/tech/patents/US002845055.pdf

In fact, Smart Parts did not even invent the concept, they merely bought the patent. They then used it to bully other businesses to stop making electronic markers, a death sentence since they are the most popular markers.

http://automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=191146&highlight=cease+desist

Tom Kaye stopped producing new guns. Bud Orr sold his company. AKA stopped producing their electronic guns, rather than fight a lengthy court battle. No longer were companies helping each other out.

These markers are capable of shooting 30 balls a second.

The Modern Era

Three approaches succeeded.

Bud Orr invented the "Autococker." More or less a pump gun, it was closed-bolt and had pneumatic rams and regulators welded onto the front to re-cock the gun after each shot. Instead of pumping the gun, the gun pumped itself.

Tom Kaye invented the "Automag." It was a completely new design. Open bolt (meaning the bolt rests in the open position between each shot), it was blow-forward. This means that when the sear releases the hammer/bolt, it releases a measured amount of air that propels the bolt and resets the hammer/bolt with a spring.

Many other inventors relied on the "blowback" design. An open bolt assembly, it features a hammer/bolt that is potentially powered by a compressed spring. When the sear releases the hammer/bolt, it moves forward, strikes a valve which releases air, and that valve returns the hammer/bolt with a burst of air, blowing it back.

In all of these designs, there was one area that could be improved. The sear had to be mechanically tripped. This meant that each gun had a trigger pull between one pound to eight pounds! Electronic markers would solve this.

http://www.paintball.com/content.php?aid=1594
http://www.teamsection8.com/cocker-dating.htm

The Evolution

The first guns that were created were "stock class." After each shot, the marker had to be rotated barrel up, and a plunger or cocking arm had to be cocked to load the next ball and compress the springs that would power what is known as the hammer. The hammer, once it is released by the trigger, hits a valve and allows a measured amount of air down the barrel, propelling the ball.

In my experience, each marker could shoot at most 1.5 balls a second.

The first evolution was the creation of the "hopper." The hopper is, more or less, a tub that sits on top of the marker and holds paintballs. Before this, most markers held only 10-15 balls. With the invention of the hopper they could hold at least 45.

The second evolution was the invention of "constant air." Instead of using disposable 12 gram CO2 cartridges that could only hold, 12 grams, constant air could hold up to 20 ounces of CO2, and could be refilled.

In order to advance, true semi-auto markers had to be invented. The fathers of modern paintball took three different approaches.

The Beginning

The first paintball gun was originally developed for forestry rangers and cattle herders. The Nelspot 007 was a single action, stock class airgun that propelled round, oil-paint-filled, gelatin balls with a 12 gram CO2 cartridge. Two friends found the gun in an agricultural catalog, ordered two, and shot each other with it to see if it was safe. Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines created paintball.

They ordered more, and according to legend, organized a game between city slickers and country folk, to see who could win in the ultimate game of man-hunt. The city slickers lost.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question715.htm
http://www.warpig.com/paintball/articles/hayes/index.shtml

The game was played in the forest, with friends, and at most a person would shoot 100 paintballs in a day. If only it were still like that...