what happened to all the good paint brands?

[Raven911]

RPS, Proball, Powerball, Kickin, What happened to all these? I used to love shooting Powerball black shell in my mag, that with a lapco barrel was a dream. Proball was our go to woodsball paint. RPS (especially Marballizer) was always a great choice too. Combat 68 was good in the early 00s. Kickin was supposedly made locally to me and was really fresh and great shooting. Then there was the 200rd boxes of California Magnum.

The only choices Im seeing at the local fields are a field grade paint that sucks, valken, and empire. The only thing I have found that I like so far was a empire paint with little checkers on the shell. My cocker and rails love that stuff.

Overall it feels like the quality of paint has gone down from what we used to have.

What am I missing?

[JeeperCreeper]

It has gone downhill. Overall paintball are smaller than they have ever been. I usually use a .684 insert now or smaller. The only decent paint I can get locally is Graffiti. Prices are going up too, they only plan on making 1600 count cases very soon.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Cheaper brands may go 1600 but most of the big names backed off on that, after customer backlash. Expect higher prices on everything tho.

[un2xs]

I miss my 2500 case Gator Black.

(Somebody had to say it.)

[ATBen]

I believe it all has to do with companies merging. I know a lot of paint I used to use in Ontario was made in the RP Shererer plant in Windsor(Zap, RPS, Draxxus). I think when GI took over Kee Action Sports they started cheaping out. Marbs started being branded as Empire around that time and AllStar disappeared around here. I think it had to do with cross border transport too. When the Quebec GI plants moved paint before the merger it had to pay duty and taxes to cross. After GI owned the operation, cross border transportation was just one warehouse moving inventory to another warehouse, thus no duties and taxes.

I'm also not sure when the patent on paint ended, but I know GI started adding flour to their mix to make it proprietary and cut costs. I do know that fields with GI rentals (tippmanns mostly) were told they would not get parts if they sold anything but GI paint, so that could be why so many fields sling that 3 star and no star field garbage.

Basically I blame Richmond Italia, Gino followed suit, paint got smaller and crappier. Last I heard the RITF was switching some paintball encapsulators over to CBD capsule production. Guess legal weed is what pays for his race car hobby and private jets now. Valken also bought APX recently, so it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

The best paint I've used recently had been #1 graffiti, #2 GI 5 star, and #3 APX berserker. Everything else has been iffy at best. The 3 star shoots okay, but the bounces are next level. Poor rental kids must feel those for a few days.

[JeeperCreeper]

I got shot by a rental kid with one of those cheap paintballs. Bounced right off my neck from about 50 ft. They don't count bounces, but I still had to call myself out on that one.

[Otreese]

I’ve had the same frustration since coming back to the game last year after a 7 year break. I too remember always being able to rely on spending the extra cash on a case of marbs or hellfire and getting fantastic results almost guaranteed. I started playing again may last year and for a few months going to multiple local fields and being unable to find paint that shot even remotely in the general direction I aimed, I fought gaslighting myself into thinking this is how it must have been.

rose tinted glasses I believe is a VERY small factor at play here for many players. After researching for a while and talking to players and local field owners I have a few ideas.

many paint manufacturers folded with the downturn of the economy in 08 or absorbed through the kee then gi and khor outdoors merging. Also a lot of production went overseas where traditionally almost all paint manufacturing was stateside which makes getting fresh paint difficult let alone high quality.

A very boiled down factor is manufacturers began pinching pennies understandably and creating slightly subpar balls and this has escalated to where we are and until consumers and field owners demand or stop tolerating garbage paint from manufacturers we won’t see a change.

Players, field owners, pro shops maybe didn’t realize this and tolerated it leading to a trend where manufacturers are selling the same amount of paint with no complaints from consumers and begin lowering the amount and quality of the fill and shell. Now we are where almost all paint aside from tournament grade which is difficult to get is junk, I’m routinely using a .675 insert. Now with this small and incremental decrease in quality and size consumers are finally seeing that something is definitely wrong.

I definitely recommend watching this podcast

https://youtu.be/gMyuggogttg

mike hinman owns apx paint and he makes it stateside. I’m not sure the time stamp or episode because he has two episodes on the play the game podcast. He talks about the economics of paint manufacturing and actually turning a profit from paintballs which according to him is extremely difficult.

[Dalep_rc]

Here I though when I returned to the sport I was going to grab a case of Evil and or Allstars when I paid my field fee.

[Ecapnation]

Rps was absorbed by NPS during the PMI merger ultimately it was shut down and kinda only exists as product names for overseas made paint now.

Rp shearer the medical division still exists but has nothing to do with paintball.

The other three you mentioned..... Absorbed by NPS, out of business, and out of business.

[glaman5266]

Heck, even some of the old Wal-Mart paint shot better than the field paints we're seeing today. Game Face Scorch anyone? That stuff shot great for what it was.

But yeah, companies either folded after '08 or cheaped out. The only paint that I was actually semi-impressed with over the last two years was Empire Evil.

It sucks even worse for the pump players, who actually NEED good paint.

[Chappy]

When I got back into backyard balling in 05 ish we would hit up Walmart every weekend and buy up all the scorch/ visible impact. If you bought it up they always had a fresh stock. That was some of the consistently best paint we were able to get. Not to mention the Ted shell and that bright pink fill was easy to spot.

[Jonnydread]

The Walmarts used to carry an RPS-branded paint that looked like fake Marbilizers and shot great for outlaw/pickup games. Super Swirl?

[gabe]

I remember that paint! I think it was RPS premium iirc. Diablo also sold a knock-off paint at wal-mart that was a white and red shell and shot amazing. I miss wal-mart selling paintball stuff.

[coyote]

Anyone know what became of Softgelcaps West/ Great American Paintball?

[iamthelazerviking]

Nelson still makes Anarchy and sounds like they have made efforts to return to their former standard of quality. Still $80 a case though.

[Toestr]

I've never really been sure what GI has done with brands. My local field used to use Draxxus bronze that was branded as field paint.

Then it seemed like every time I went in over the past 5 or so years they were using a different brand/quality of GI paint. Draxxus, GI, Inca, Empire (even Valken once).

Most recently it was Triumph, which seemed to be at many of the fields when people would talk about/show what their fields were using. Triumph looks identical to the cases of Cryptic I see when people list the paintball stuff they bought at Canadian Tire on Kijiji.

A big issue recently is that paint sits when supply chains and business is interpreted. Even before that I can't remember the last time I saw field paint that wasn't dimpled.

There's a local independent proshop that sells Art Life paint, which seems pretty good for the price. The stuff I used was in a lot I got locally, and was a several months old when I picked it up. It was kind of oblong looking when I started using a few months after that. The fill and shell colour are very nice as is the packaging (almost looks vacuum sealed?). Made in Russia though...

Valken Graffiti was always good when I used it. Not that it matters since you're at the mercy of fields for the most part.


Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[euangelion]

I could go for a box of draxxus bronze

[Raven911]

I found 3 pods of RPS Marballizer in my garage that’s about 9 years old. Shot a couple and they still shoot good lol.

[cougar20th]

I did similar several years ago. Found a new 10-15 year old case of Marbilizer. So 2000-2003 vintage. I used it and it shot far more consistent, broke more consistently then the paint everyone else bought that day.

I wish I had more of that old paint. Now the paint doesn't last a year of sitting .

[Agglet]

Then it seemed like every time I went in over the past 5 or so years they were using a different brand/quality of GI paint. Draxxus, GI, Inca, Empire (even Valken once).

I really liked the Inka stuff I used to buy the Gold from Badlands for outlaw games (because that's how I roll) I'd have to say it was probably the best quality for the money I've ever seen. The brand seemed to come and go pretty quick though I can't remember the last time I saw it for sale. There can't be too many companies out there making paintballs so we just need to figure out who was making the good stuff and then what they are selling it as now.

[BenoitOWN]

Wanna try Wpn?

[iamthelazerviking]

BenoitOWN looks like Wpn is d3fy now and doesn't look like they've done anything under "Wpn" since 2017 but ANS is still selling the Elixir... wonder if it's a super old batch.

[the_matrix_guy]

Nails in the coffin of the industry: 1) Vertical integration (pushed customization and small custom shops out, the industry lost its soul); 2) mergers and acquisitions (brands lost their soul); 3) 2008 global recession (revenue and traffic down across the board, never fully recovered); 4) Pro league ROF caps on electros (they should’ve just made a mech only league like they started doing in 2015, it’s pointless to shoot an electro at 10.3 BPS ROF max cap. Just shoot a mech, FFS) All of this contributed to PB manufacturing to take a nose dive in profits, and manufacturing quality paint was no longer a viable enterprise.

Anyway just my .02

[MuddyBloodyFactory]

the point of shooting a 10 bps electro is to get you stuck in your bunker shooting lanes and watching zones. faster bps and you actually hit your targets off the break and when you snap shoot. slower bps and no ramping and you end up picking your shots. the game is currently engineered to shoot as much low quality paint as possible.

[k_obeastly]

but soon hydrotec will save us all.

[latches109]

Lol then we’ll be in the matrix.

https://youtu.be/mr9kK0_7x08?t=6m44s