Who invented Paintball?
Well there are a
couple of people that made it all happen, and there is a lot
more detail as you read down the page, but this is the question
most people want to know... who invented paintball? Well its
four people and arguments can be made for each of them.
Charles Nelson:
The
idea of a gun that shot balls of paint was his idea. I think if
Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel, and Charles Gaines hadn't bought that
Nelspot 007 and organized the very first game of paintball,
someone else eventually would have done something similar. There
are stories of ranchers and forestry workers shooting them at
each other, but none of the stories are verified.
Charles Gaines, Hayes Noel and Bob Gurnsey:
These three guys saw guns that were
used to mark trees and cattle and figured that they would work
to see who could survive a survival game. The game they played
sure wasn't the game we play today but it was the first
organized recorded game with people shooting paintballs at each
other.
Bob Gurnsey:
He marketed paintball as a game of
capture the flag with teams using the cattle marking pistols;
this is the start of what we play now a team game of bush ball
playing capture the flag. Founding National Survival Games (NSG)
he had the first paintball guns created specifically for this
new game.
Not on the
list.... James Hale:
He didn't have the idea for a gun to shoot paintballs,
he didn't even design or build the first paintball gun. James
Hales is still an important and valuable part of paintball
history, after all it's his design of paintball gun that Gurnsey,
Noel and Gaines used in the first game. But he wasn't first, so
he's not on who invented paintball list.
Mid 1960s
The Nelson Paint Company was founded
in 1940 by Charles and Evan Nelson. Nelson had patented a number
of devices that foresters could use to mark timber. One of those
was a squirt gun that sprayed paint. But the paintball was
invented because the Nelson Paint Company was asked by the US
Forestry Service for a reliable way of marking trees from a
distance. The problem was the tree was sometimes across a stream
or thick brush. The idea behind paintballs was that they could
shoot them out over the obstruction, and a ball from a gun would
shoot farther than a stream of paint. Or ranchers could also use
the balls to mark stray cattle. Charles Nelson played around
with the idea and invented a paint pellet that could be shot out
of a gun. It was actually created by squirting paint into
gelatin capsules normally used then for horse pills.
Nelson Paint then approached Crossman
to design a pistol to shoot the paintballs, after 1-4 years of
production with poor sales. Crossman no longer found it
financially sound to produce the marker. Nelson then moved to
Daisy, the air gun manufacturer to produce a paintball pistol.
Obviously not owning the design of the Crossman 707, Nelson was
not able to simply pass the design to another manufacturer, a
new design needed to be created instead. Which is exactly what
Daisy did by creating the Daisy 'Splotchmarker' which became
known as the now famous 'Nel-Spot 007' The paintballs were also
mass produced. Under contract by Nelson, RP Scherer produced the
encapsulate oil based paintballs for the makers.
Late 1960s
Crossman is
approached to produce the FIRST ever paintball marker The
Nelspot 707, for the Nelson Paintball Company. Using an existing
design of a current pellet gun the Crossman 150, now similar to
the Crossman 2240. Unfortunately we don't know who designed it
and there were no new patents with the design. Crossman
originally patent the stacked tube (which has become on the most
popular types of paintball gun) in 1921 (Patents only last
approximately 25 years). And the firing mechanism was the same
as the pellet gun it was derived from. Click on link for more
information on the Crossman / Nel-Spot 707. The Gun is Blued
steel and was only manufactured for 1-4 years. Crossman declined
to continue producing the marker, finding it not financially
feasible to do so.
1972
Daisy Manufacturing Company patented and
manufactured the SECOND
paintball marker the Daisy 'Splotchmarker', which Nelson
marketed as the famous 'Nel-Spot 007'.
This marker is important because it is THE marker that was used
for that first ever game of paintball in June 1981.
The 'invention' of the "paintball gun" is sometimes mistakenly
credited to James Hale because of a patent (US 3,788,298) filed
for "compressed gas gun with trigger
operated hammer release latching structure" in 1972
by James C Hale of the Victor Comptometer Corporation. Daisy
Manufacturing Company, the air gun manufacturer, was owned by
Victor Comptometer whose primary business was making adding
machines, and early calculators. Notice that the patent is not
for a compressed gas gun that fires paint pellets. The patent
was filed because the Daisy 'Splotchmarker' was designed from
the ground up to shoot a paintball, not modified from a previous
air gun design. Because of this fresh approach to design it
featured a different valve, hammer, trigger design than any
existing pellet, bb, and the CROSSMAN 707, so was patented.
Hale said his bosses handed the job to
him. It wasn't a particularly glamorous project, he recalled, or
one that Daisy thought would make much money. After all, how big
could the market be for marking fallen trees and roaming cows
be? He tried using an existing model of Daisy's air pistol. It
was made for tiny BB's, so it wasn't a surprise that the pistol
didn't shoot paintballs hard enough to make them burst on
impact. Hale decided to design a gun from scratch. He tried
different designs, but nothing worked. His heart wasn't in it.
Daisy was a day job that he worked as he saved money to start
his own business.
Hale graduated from the University of
Arkansas at Fayetteville as a mechanical engineer. He went to
Colorado and worked for Beech Aircraft Corp. designing hydrogen
fuel tanks to be used in the Apollo space missions. In 1970, He
and his wife decided to move back to Arkansas in search of the
quiet life. There wasn't a smorgasbord of engineering jobs in
the area, he recalled. While Daisy was a fun place to work, he
yearned to do something more challenging.
The key innovations Hale produced that
Christmas Eve 1971 were a simplified mechanism to load the
chamber and cock the gun and a set of hollow tubes that
delivered compressed carbon dioxide directly to the paintball
when fired. The patent for Hale's paintball gun was registered
June 19, 1972, with Hale's name listed as the inventor. But the
Daisy company owned rights to the device since Hale developed it
on company time. (Pretty common, employment contracts give
financial rights to the company on all inventions created on
company time)
Hale said Nelson contacted him in the mid-1980s and told him
people were using the paintball gun for sport. Hale's mind
instantly returned to the days when he tested the gun by
shooting pellets at a wall in the Daisy factory to see if they
would explode.
"I can remember the smack of those things hitting the wall and
pitying the poor cows that might be hit with it," Hale said. "We
never imagined that people would ever shoot each other with it."
For James Hale, there is just the framed patent of his paint gun
in his tool shop. He said he never got involved in the paintball
industry after leaving Daisy.
May 1976-77
It was either in the spring of 1976 or
1977, Hayes Noel (a Wall street stockbroker) and Charles Gaines
(a writer - "Stay Hungry" and "Pumping Iron") were drinking gin
and talking, when they thought it would be fun to start some
type of stalking game, as a challenge to their friends. They
were wondering if being able to survive in the woods is a
product of environment or deeply buried instinct. In other words
does the success of a person in business or writing or
manufacturing or any other business translate into being able to
survive in the woods better than someone who specifically hunted
or was a soldier? A friend, George Butler saw a Nelspot in a
farm catalogue. Bob Guernsey (a ski shop owner) and Hayes Noel
wrote up the rules for that first game.
May, 1981
Paintball begins in Henniker, New
Hampshire. The principal creators, Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel, and
Charles Gaines, discuss the idea of finally having their game.
The argument had went on for a few years. The Nel-Spot marker
was located and tested on a volunteer, Shelby, Charles son, who
said it didn't hurt much. The invitations for the first game
drew 9 people, plus Bob, Charles, and Hayes. The 9 each paid
$175 each to cover equipment costs, and incidentals such as food
and adult beverages.
June 27, 1981
The first paintball players. The first
game is played with 12 players competing against each other with
Nel-Spot 007s pistols. They arrived at Charles house the day
before: "Bob Jones, a novelist, staff writer for Sports
Illustrated and an experienced hunter; Ronnie Simpkins, a farmer
from Alabama and a master turkey hunter; Jerome Gary, a New York
film producer; Carl Sandquist, a New Hampshire contracting
estimator; Ritchie White, the New Hampshire forester who had
told Hayes he could cut his neck in the woods; Ken Barrett, a
New York venture capitalist with lots of hunting experience; Joe
Drinon, a stock-broker from New Hampshire and a
former Golden Gloves boxer; Bob Carlson, a trauma surgeon from
Alabama and a hunter; and myself [Lionel Atwill], a writer for
Sports Afield, a hunter and a Vietnam vet, who had had the
unpleasurable experience of leading reconnaissance missions in
Vietnam in 1968, a decidedly poor year."
The prediction the night before the game? That the hunters would
do well, and that the city boys were worth less than a case of
beer. Atwill had the most respect due to his Special Forces
experience. In alphabetical order the players were: Linoel
Atwill, Ken Barrett, Bob Carlson, Joe Drindon, Charles Gaines,
Jerome Gary, Bob Gurnsey, Bob Jones, Hayes Noel, Carl Sandquist,
Ronnie Simkins and Ritchie White. (Possibly Gaines' son, Shelby
played too, he was present.)
The game was capture the flag on an 80 acre cross-country ski
area filled with second growth woods. There were 4 flag
stations, each with 12 flags of the same colour, one for each
person playing. At 10am the game started with players equal
distance apart around the field, and each flag station had a REF
with a whistle. the Refs blew their whistle every 15 minutes so
players with poorer map reading skills would be able to find the
flags. In summary, the first player to die was Barrett. He
surrendered to Gary. Simpkins hand marked Gurnsey. Dr. Carlson
shot five people, one being Noel when Noel had three flags and
was headed for a fourth. Atwill "hurled a moldy onion" at
Gaines, charged and tagged Gaines in the leg--but the ball
bounced off. The tables turned, and Gaines tagged Atwill.
The winner? Ritchie White, the New Hampshire forester. "No one
ever saw Ritchie, and he never fired a shot. He crept through
the woods from station to station, gathering flags as easily as
a schoolgirl gathers flowers." Atwill wrote, "The play was less
than spectacular compared to some Games I've seen since, but
there was a spirit to that first Game that will be hard to
capture again. The weekend bubbled with humor, honor, fun and
obnoxiously friendly, yet intense, competition. Those feelings,
I believe, reflected the dispositions of the founders of the
Game." - from the book "The Official Survival Game Manual" 1983.
Following the competition, one of the writer-participants, Bob
Jones, wrote the first Sports Illustrated piece about the game (june
81?); later the other two writers had articles published in
Time, and Sports Afield. All three reflected on the unbelievable
adrenaline rush that accompanied the hunt. Each article was met
by an overwhelming number of letters from readers requesting
instructions on how they, too, could play. Bob Gurnsey with the
help of Gaines and Hayes responded by selling a starter kit that
included a Nel-Spot pistol, paintballs, a compass, goggles and a
rule book. They called their creation the National Survival Game
"NSG".
October 1981
The second game of paintball,
according to Bob Gurnsey and NSG this game took place in
Alabama, and must have been the first game opened to the general
public. Gurnsey says "the sport instantly tripled in size"
March 1982
The Worlds first commercial paintball
field was opened by Bob Gurnsey in New Hampshire, Bob Gurnsey
invented and marketed paintball as the game we play today under
the brand name of National Survival Game (NSG), or "The Survival
Game". The National Survival Game entered into a contract with
Nelson Paint Company to be the sole distributor of their
paintball equipment. Thereafter, they licensed to franchisees in
other states the right to sell their guns, paint, and goggles.
As a result of their monopoly on equipment, they turned a profit
in only six months.
April 1982
Caleb Strong opens the first outdoor playing
field in Rochester New York (with PMI supplied equipment? can't
be the first outdoor, gurnsey's new hapshire field was a month
earlier - still checking if this was the first PMI field, as I
suspect).
Also in April 1982: the first
franchise NSG field (not run by Gurnsey himself) opens in
Oklahoma.
Also in April 1982
PMI (Pursuit Marketing Inc.), was
founded by Jeff Perlmutter and David Freeman. The founders had
tried paintball and thought is was a winning idea, after
unsuccessfully trying to deal with NSG, PMI felt they could do a
better job on their own. There was no brand recognition to NSG
yet, so PMI created a competing business, where PMI created
partnerships with new field owners, who would set up the first
paintball parks and then be their suppliers of the equipment
they needed.
PMI never dealt directly with the
customer instead they had dealers and stores to sell their
product. For their first marker they went to the Benjamin
Sheridan Air Rifle Company, who had a reputation for being the
highest quality air gun manufacturer in the United States, and
had them manufacture, exclusively for
PMI, a paintball marker for commercial use that was very durable
and reliable. The PMI-1 was the result, very similar to the
later marketed Sheridan P68sc stock class marker.
1983
The first NSG National Championship
was held in Grantham New Hampshire at a up-country farm and
restaurant called Gray Ledges. Despite the title it was actually
an International Championship. Two of the eight teams of twelve
people were from Canada. A NSG field in Ontario Canada, and the
other from Vancouver Canada. These eight teams had survived the
regional championships, and had progressed to this point. A
capture the flag game on a 30 acre patch of forest that became
the field of victory for "The Unknown Rebels" A team from NSG
London Ontario. The Prize $3000 to the winning team, and $1000
to the runners up "12-Man Jury" the Miami team. People Magazine
(Oct 24, 1983) hailed the Canadians as the first world
champions.
Also in 1983
Sheridan introduces the PG (A side
tube non pump version of the PGP).
People started adding pump handles to their Nelspot pumps to
make recocking easier. Extending magazine tubes, and doing the
first modifications to their guns.
June, 1983
Lionel Atwill, one of the original 12
players, writes "The Official Survival Game Manual" - the first
paintball publication.
1983/1984
Lou "Gramps" Grubb introduced constant
air also known as CA, or "California Style Constant Air" to the
game. (Instead of little disposable 12 gram cartridges, CA
refillable tanks had a valve with a big knob and various
fittings that came from the plumbing aisle of a hardware store.)
Lou "Gramps" Grubb and Mike "Grizzly" Grubb were long time
airsmiths and store owners in southern California.
Constant Air was almost immediately banned from tournament play.
The argument was that the game was to be driven by tactics
rather than guns.
Gravity feeds came out end of 1983, with 45 degree angle elbows
and a PVC pipe for the balls.
An old school PVC stick feeder can be made easily with some CPVC
pipe and a 90 degree elbow. The feed end can also be made with a
35mm film canister with it's lid cut to make a one way ball gate
for your 10 round tubes, it's all cheap and easy with a trip to
home depot! If you have a 1" inch feed like a Trracer you just
need to dremel the 90 degree PVC joint, to make it fit.
1984
The sport is introduced to Australia
under the name of Skirmish Games. Also this year the NSG
Splatmaster was the First successful mass produced paintball
specific marker produced solely for the sport of paintball.
Prior to the Splatmaster, markers were adapted for use in
paintball, or borrowed from other applications. Manufactured and
Marketed by "The Survival Game" also known as "National Survival
Games" or NSG. Another competitor of the Splatmaster was the
Mark-4 produced specifically for paintball and quite successful
but not marketed by NSG.
Also in 1984
Barrel extenders became the next big
thing, turning the compact handguns into a rifle, cleaning kits
and harnesses also came out. Caleb Strong of Buffalo New York
opened the first indoor paintball field. Sheridan introduces the
PGP adding the pump handle to their PG's.
1985
The first outdoor playing field is
opened in England. Fields started to change, getting smaller,
the field owners were eager to change from the 100 acre games
lasting 2 hours and low paint volumes, to faster games on
smaller fields.
MID 1980s
Silencers start to appear, home made
silencers from PVC tube really worked. Eventually companies
started to build and sell silencers as well, but the home made
worked just as well. The paintball sniper is truly born!
1986
Dennis Tippmann, Sr. founds Tippmann
Pneumatics. Originally a manufacturer of collectible, half-scale
replica machine guns, family-owned Tippmann entered the
paintball industry in 1986 when gun law changes forced them to
re-evaluate their business. Their first paintball product
introduced the first full auto paintball maker you could buy
(The SMG-60 came out back in 1986 but was originally full-auto
only. Not select fire. The select-fire started at the 2nd
generation of SMG with the Internal line.
As the external line was the first
style.) - The Tippmann SMG-60 a .62 caliber fully automatic
featuring a side feed using a 'stripper clip' held in a magazine
out the side of the marker and used the newly introduced CA or
constant air tanks that had just been introduced this year.
Other semis had been made from converted pump guns, and other
manufacturers had working models, but this was the first to the
market This marker was later converted to standard .68 caliber
in the SMG-68.
LATE 80's
Tippmann invents the Pin Valve for CO2
tanks, they decide it is in the best interest of the sport not
to patent the idea, thereby promoting it's acceptance as the
standard. And because it is much safer than the home built
alternatives that were in use at the time.
1987
Marked the advent of "Action Pursuit
Games", a feature format magazine about paintball and laser tag.
Also that year, the first commercial video about paintball,
entitled "The Winning Game", is filmed and released. January of
this year Nelson paintball's George A Skogg was grated a patent
for the first washable paintballs (No more Oil based paint, that
had to be washed out with turpentine.)
Also in 1987
Was the introduction of barrel plugs.
Also in 1987
Bud Orr starts making the sniper
paintball gun. The design will be familiar to autococker fans,
as this is the original design that Bud Orr started making in
his garage. Later the front pump was replaced with a four way
valve, to auto cock the marker.
1988
I PPA (International Paintball Players
Association) is founded as a non-profit association dedicated to
the education, growth and safety of the sport of paintball. Russ
Maynard, founding editor of APG, led the way toward establishing
the speed limit of 300 fps. At the International Paintball
Players Association (IPPA) in 1988, 300 fps was standardized as
the maximum speed limit. It is the worldwide limit on how fast a
paintball leaves the marker, and is now in the ASTM standards
for paintball.
Also in 1988
Speedball makes its debut at Sat Cong
Village, a paintball field in Southern California. Also called
"arena ball", this revolutionary new variation of the game is an
instant hit and was soon being played at paintball fields all
around the globe. And Pro-Star Labs, Inc. introduces the
"Bouncing Betty" paint grenade. Straight shot Inc introduced the
'Straight Shot Squeegee"
MAY 2 1988
Top Gun Paintball Games' owner,
Raymond Gong, founded and legalized paintball in New Jersey on
May 2, 1988. Prior to winning his lawsuit, paintball play was
considered illegal in New Jersey. The NJ State Police,
considered paintball guns to be firearms. Even if a player
followed all the firearm rules for the purchase or ownership of
the paintball gun, it could be considered Assault and Battery if
the "firearm" was discharged at another player. Any would-be
paintball player in New Jersey ran the risk of being arrested.
New Jersey was the last state to legalize paintball.
November 1989
20 year old, Gino Postorivo started
National Paintball Supply as a small retail operation out of the
pizzeria's back room. It began with $1,000 from his own pocket.
Unlike many paintball supply companies, Johnny Postorivo (NPS'
chief operating officer and Gino's cousin) said NPS is not hung
up on exclusive deals with the brands it carries. "Everybody has
proprietary items. Me, I'll buy anything someone will sell to
me," Johnny Postorivo said, adding that he views it as an
advantage because all brands can be found in the showroom.
1990
The first national tournament to allow
12 gram and constant air is held in Nashville. The tournament,
called the Music City Open, is also the first national
tournament to allow carry-on paint and the first major event to
be sanctioned by the I.P.P.A.
1991
Tom Kaye (the inventor of the Automag)
and the staff at Air Gun Designs developed the first nitrogen
system for paintball along with fiberglass tanks. It was not
marketed, as the industry felt high pressure nitrogen was simply
too dangerous. Today however, it's hard to find players in large
tournaments still running CO2. Tom refused to patent the
regulated nitrogen system for the sake of the sport, since he
felt it was a superior power source over CO2.
Also in 1991
Paintball begins in France, Denmark and other countries in
Europe
Mid 1991
Bud Orr introduces the Autococker,
first as an add on kit for his successful pump gun the sniper
and sniper II, but soon following with complete markers in early
1992. (Bud makes claims that this was '89 in interviews, but
this is chalked up to a memory slip.) The Autococker became
commonly available as a complete gun in 1992.
1992
Arthur Chang forms Kingman
International Corp. with the vision "to offer a superior product
at an affordable price. That philosophy has pushed Kingman to
consistently raise the standards in paintball product design and
innovation." Their first marker is released two years later in
1994 the Kingman Spyder
April 15, 1992
Rec.sport.paintball passes its vote
for creation on a vote of 195 to 43 and is announced as an
official newsgroup. Sheridan VM-68 / PMI - 3 introduced, one of
the early very popular semi automatic guns. A prototype had been
used in 1990 at a tournament
1994:
Kingman International introduces
the spyder series of markers.
MID 1990s
The ATF makes a decision about
paintball silencers, they are now illegal, and they have decided
that they are able to silence real firearms, so are illegal to
posses
1996
The Shocker, manufactured by
PneuVentures Inc., and distributed exclusively by Smart Parts
(patent Oct 19, 1999) is the first electroneumatic paintball
marker, PneuVentures and Smart Parts soon parted with
PneuVentures in 1997 producing the Shocker, and PneuVentures
producing the very advanced Cyber 9000 the first marker with
built in LCD screen, also featuring built in chronograph!
1998:
First Agitated
paintball hopper patented
Also in 1998:
Tippmann
introduces the model 98 paintball marker.
1999
Concerns regarding paintball guns and
rate-of-fire spark another major debate, ultimately leading to a
decision to limit the b.p.s. (balls-per-second) of any gun
manufactured from the year 2000 on.
2003
Tippmann Introduces the FLATLINE
barrel, back spin on the paintball produces a flatter trajectory
and able to shoot 80ft-100ft further!
2005
The Tippmann C-3™ with PEP (Propane
Enhanced Performance) technology is the world's first propane
powered paintball marker. With more than 50,000 shots per
16-ounce tank! That's probably less than a tank per season for
most players. Is the bigger news that it uses combustion to fire
the ball, or that it's a pump? A semi auto with PEP is
apparently on the way.
Nov 2006
Tippman Sports and Special Ops
Paintball team up to produce the Tippmann X7 milsim style
marker. Designed together, and launched with an array of
customizable parts from Special Ops. The X7 is being launched in
conjunction with more than 30 different integrated mods - making
it easy to give the marker thousands of different milsim looks.
http://www.ody.ca/~cwells/history.htm
SHORT AND SWEET ANSWER
The first paintball gun used to play
the sport was originally intended for marking cattle.
Services
We are the oldest certified
Tippmann Service Center in Northern Oregon
We service most makes and models of Paintball markers.
Discounts on special order markers over $500.00.
Off Site Rentals Available.
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