Most influential paintball gun by decades?

[Siress]

Oh man... I cannot wait for Bacci to weigh in on this... Dude's historical knowledge of the sport is impressive.

I'm going with:

'80s - Nel-spot.
We wouldn't be here without it, and the same fundamental pneumatic design is still being manufactured today by CCI... Amazing, really.

'90s - Spyder, and JABBs.
I think this was the first low-cost semi auto option. It reduced the 'pay to win' stigma the sport had in those days, when every game started with dividing up the semiautos before the pump players. Practically everyone could sling paint now - kids, adults, little old ladies... Not only did it incentivize and facilitate a huge influx of new players, field owners started selling a lot more paint. It increased the viability of owning a field as a profitable endeavor. As much as we enthusiasts love the autocockers and automags, their combined effect on the sport wasn't even close to that of the cheap blow backs.

'00s - WDP Angels
Extremely debatable... but I think this was the 'super car poster' product of paintball in this era. They'd been around in the late '90s, but in the '00s the Angels started to invest heavily in aesthetic and high tech offerings that no other company had dared to try. And they actually succeeded. The captured the attention of many investors, I think, as it made it clear that there was a lot more money on the table than they'd realized. It also gave players something to dream about besides overly complicated pneumatic systems and how to keep them running - because this was something you just bought and shot without ever worrying about it, and a caveat that if it ever did have an issue you'd treat it like you would a super car and send it into the specialty mechanics.

'10s - PE EMEK
I'm being facetious. I haven't played much in the past decade so I really haven't got a clue. If magfeed has really taken off (i.e. risen to even half the qty of hopper players) then I'd have to give it to the first affordable magfeed gun - whatever that was.

[Grendel]

The original OP mentions Influential by decade not most innovative or most liked so this is why I do not include Automags:

1. I've played all over the country since 1988 as a Rec Player, Tournament Team Member, Scenario Team member, Tournament Judge/Ref and Paintball Business owner and even during the hay day of the Mag vs. Autococker period Automags were still relatively niche compared to Autocockers. Sure there were regions and locals that Mag was king but overall Mags have a very loyal but relatively small following relative to other marker platforms. Mags may have been innovative and super reliable I do not believe they drove (influenced) markers that much through the 90s and early 2000s. Might have been different if Tom had gone to battle with SP over intellectual properties but he didn't so we will never know.
2. 1990s there are really only a few single tube inline markers and sorry Tippman 98 and variants hands down beat out the Automag for influencing Paintball. In-line single tube markers came really much later and were arguably better maybe less over engineered but the crop of single tube electros definitely are more influential now the Automag ever was.
3. As much as I like Automags (I was an early adopter and have always owned at least one since they came out) and simply amazed by their versatility and reliability they are not and never were truly competitive when it came to the marker "arms race". Tom came out with throughout his time in paintball with ingenious solutions to problems but on the competitive side they were always outlawed. They influenced paintball by being rule not only unusable in tournements but also on many rec. fields [Auto-Response, Retro-Valve, RT, 6-Pak,...etc] as being unfair....

[SignOfZeta]

All of what you say makes sense, but this is why I said earlier that “influential” can mean a lot of things. Ferrari is the most influential sports car company of all time but virtually nobody owns one. When I go to track days and time attacks there are virtually never Ferraris at the track, maybe in the parking lot. Top sales may not be the same as influential. If they are making special rules for Automags then that’s pretty influential, IMO. If 1000 people quit paintball because they got sick of being overshot by jerks using that gun then that’s another form of influence...although from my personal experience that was more of an Angel thing.

[Grendel]

Yup, fully agree it really depends on the point of view that is why in my original list I listed 3 very specific "datasets" New Player Influence, Paintball as a business Influence and finally for a Technology standpoint. If I was to do the list from a tournament influence AGD would be in there for both 80s and 90s but not influential from that point on. Most of the rules against AGD's innovations in tourney play were really more giving into over hyped fear and whining then really had any game changing validity [IMHO]. Sure AGD influenced paintball without a doubt but the weight of that influence is more subtle and I do not feel should be ranked "most".

[MrBarraclough]

I'll never tire of saying this: Tom Kaye is the Nikola Tesla of paintball.

[Falcon16]

80's I'd say the PGP and other brass sheridans and/or the phantom

90's I'd say Tippman 98/A5 and/or STBB Spyders and their clones

2000's I'd say the Ion as it brought a lot of the benefits of the high end to the average player

from the 2010's to present I'd say the mech spool valve so not one marker but a platform has been truly influential in pushing paintball back towards skill rather than sheer ROF

[bellicose]

There's not enough phantom in this thread.

[ATBen]

Holy crap... that never even entered my mind... talk about a consistent paint gun in every sense of the word.

[SignOfZeta]

While the Phantom is a big deal for us...if you think about it, it’s mostly just about keeping a Nelson of some sort in continuous production. The Phantom itself did nothing new at all but the way Mike promoted it as the way to play a better game of paintball is a big deal. He helped keep pump alive during the arms races and the Phantom has been on the market unbroken (more or less) since it was current tech. Pump play may have not survived till the current hipster resurgence if not for Mike. The gun itself...eh...it could have been a Bushmaster or a Trracer, it wouldn’t matter as long as he was selling it.

[sniper97]

There's not enough phantom in this thread.

Yep..I was thinking phantom, sniper, CCM S6/T2/S6.5. Palmer SS and HT. Carter Machine deserves mention. IMHO, S6 carries the pump crown along with the phantom for stock class. Maybe we should look at stock class, pump, mech and electro separately.

Mags deserve a spot. Palmer typhoon then Blazer.

With the Matrix, Vikings also deserve mention. PE rules this area now.

[punkncat]

I feel like the STBB was a precursor to SO much more. In essence that design led to a bevy of legendary poppit electos. It is said the Timmy was a direct derivative of the milly he worked on. Maybe urban legend, not sure? One further to be many others, but an Ego IMO draws a lot from that lineage.

The 98 has been and continues to be an astoundingly robust design.

Mags and cockers absolutely ruled the top of the market for a long time and are quite hot in the market again today.

The Angel was an astounding marker for it's time.


IMO one of the real game changers was the Ion. Fuck the Smart Part hate aspect, it was a revolution for it's time. It introduced the idea that an inexpensive base marker could do what the "big boys" were doing and opened the door to a whole new entry level market that has continued to blossom to this day.

[Tarsun2]

The most influential..? the angel.
They moved away from CO2 way back.
Tell me how many new markers are still designed to run on CO2.

i think they were also the 1st to have a form of ball detection as well. COPS(?)
and they pursued the solenoid driven electros'.

so how many new markers have been made that are solenoid driven, air powered, with eyes...? Almost all of them; from the cheapy's at Walmart to the latest and greatest.

[MrBarraclough]

Let's start with how spool valve paintball guns operate. In layman, spool valve markers use a bolt the slides forward, shoots the round down the barrel and then the bolt slides back. As the bolt is sliding forward, the air is dumped through it.

Yes, that is a nice, succinct definition of a spool valve. It's also a perfect description of how an Automag bolt functions. That is the original spool valve marker, designed in 1990. The term "spool valve" wasn't in use then, but that's exactly what the Automag bolt and power tube assembly does.

The Matrix did not invent or introduce the spool valve. But it did apply it to an electropneumatic design, which was key to really unlocking the potential for fast, efficient, and affordable electros. That's a significant milestone in its own right.

EDIT: This was supposed to be posted as a comment to the_matrix_guy's post earlier in the thread, not as its own reply. Not sure how I managed to bugger that up.

[SignOfZeta]

If you were to make a “tree of life” of paintball guns the entire trunk would say “Nelson” on it. Automag for sure would have it own main branch with most modern guns stemming from it.

However tree of life type illustrations, or those flow chart looking things that show the evolution of military aircraft or whatever...they don’t show how many of each species exist...and sales are a major proof of influence. Nobody at the field today knows what an Automag even is so while it was super influential it was most inspiring to paintball gun designers, less so for player who on the whole couldn’t afford one. Not everyone is a childless dentist with $500 to blow on the air source alone in addition to multiple cases a day.

Bigfoot sold a lot of Ford pickups but nobody drives Bigfoot...so Bigfoot is influential as a truck but only from people looking at it, not driving it. I think the Mag is the same way.

[russc]

The Automag is king of the early 90s in my mind for many reasons. They had unprecedented systems integration, pressure regulation, modularity...but in terms of influence, don't forget that AGD basically brought HPA systems to paintball. 'Cockers definitely won the long term war of recognition, but that's mostly because they're just retro cool.

[flyweightnate]

So, a question. What was the first widely available, functional, semi?

The SMG? An early cocker? A VM? We're the double action models relevant?

Most of us know the name "Camille", but I'm foggy on what followed.

[SignOfZeta]

68 Special, PMI3, F1 Illustrator...those were the first big semis in my area. I don’t know what the first twin tube blowback was but the PMI3 was the first one I saw.

I knew a guy with the SMG60 and it basically sucked. I hated that POS. There are probably more people actually using them now than in the 80s. I will say though...it has be considered one of the most influential guns ever because it was the first retail gun with Constant Air and the ASA with a pin in it that we all use today. Moving from 12g to a 7oz tank is even more significant than HPA if you think about it.