Returning after a hiatus

[residentr]

When I was first exposed to paintball in middle school, I couldn't get enough of it. Had a framed set of Doc's X-ray prints hanging on my bedroom wall. Played all through high school, scrounging cash together for paint and basic equipment, and even traveled half-way across the country to attend Oklahoma D-Day (1st ID!) in '07 and '09. Not long after that, college, starting a career, my paintball buddies moving away, and a general lack of funds and time soon saw me quitting without realizing I'd quit.

In the last few weeks, the bug has bitten me to start again now. I'm returning now 15 years later to a very different scene than the one I left. No more Bob Long, Smart Parts, WGP, WDP, and many of the companies that still exist are a shell of what they were. PBNation is all but dead. Electronic guns are capped at 10.5bps for tournament play. All the new hot markers look like the same tube with grips. However, with an established career (and the passing of time) all the grail markers I'd once fawned over are attainable. My old gear is considered "vintage" but in a cool way. And I see the crowd here at MCB is still much the same! I've set out to re-build the 2k1 autococker I regret selling many years ago, blew the budget including upgrade parts, ended up winning an ebay auction for a second autococker body, and am in the process of blowing the budget for that one too!

Has anyone else taken a long break and returned? What were the things that surprised you? What got better? What do you miss?

[Jonnydread]

Many of us have a story similar to yours, myself included.

Paint is shittier, but Valken is giving us hope.
Emek good, Emek boring.
Banjos now shoot paintballs.
Limited paint is slowly taking over the East coast.
Things are still weird.
Welcome back!

[Siress]

I'm voting you in as East coast President when the time comes. I've seen a few episodes of Sons of Anarchy and I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

[Jonnydread]

Siress only if you sing that happy birthday mr. president song to me dressed as Marilyn Monroe

[Siress]

I'll have you know that I have standards. I won't do it if the cake isn't red velvet with cream cheese icing.

[autococker04]

[residentr]

Thanks! I'm glad to be back.

Banjos now shoot paintballs.

Well, I've seen it all now. I'll check back in another 15 years.

[Olsson]

Brilliant comment! Most definitely on of us. Welcome back to the fold.

[ford]

Did you keep you JT Flex-7s in good shape? If so, you can probably sell them for an early retirement =P

[Chuck E Ducky]

Pump the 2nd Autococker body. Autocockerparts.com gold lower kit Slice V3 pump kit. (That gold kit is CCM good) Cheeper and you will have the equipment for both styles of play.

Welcome back let us help separate you from your savings.

[residentr]

Did you keep you JT Flex-7s in good shape? If so, you can probably sell them for an early retirement =P

I was always a profiler guy myself unfortunately

Pump the 2nd Autococker body. Autocockerparts.com gold lower kit Slice V3 pump kit. (That gold kit is CCM good) Cheeper and you will have the equipment for both styles of play.

Welcome back let us help separate you from your savings.

It's an Inception Designs body, so I was looking at their pump kit! I still have my old Trracer and PMI-1/PGP to hold me over as well for pump play. I appreciate the offer but not sure I need help emptying the bank account, I seem to be doing a pretty good job of that on my own. 🤣

[Cdn_Cuda]

Just be aware of the design on their drift pump handles. I liked everything about the ID pump kit but could not stand the pump handle as it hit my finger badly. Only pump handle I have truly found uncomfortable to use.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Inception makes a nice kit. I definitely prefer ACP lower internals over the inception. But you can get the spring kit from inception and lighten up the spring if you already got inceptions lowers in your marker. For pump I definitely prefer lighter spring setups.

[residentr]

For the 2k1 mech I'm building I'm trying out an AKA Tornado valve which I'm excited about. I haven't been able to find much info/review-wise on the ACP lowers though, so unsure what to expect from it. I clearly just need to build more autocockers to find out.

[Chuck E Ducky]

AKA valves are great with the right spring and hammer combo it will shoot great.

[Magmoormaster]

Modern high end tech doesn't get much love or discussion here, so I'll give a brief synopsis.

Planet Eclipse is kind of the king, they make some of he highest tech guns with the reliability of a tippmann. They also make the aforementioned emek, which is slowly replacing tippmanns as rentals. If you remember the Geo, which came out in 09, with two permutations. The Geo 5 just came out, which uses the IV Core. The CS3 uses the Gamma Core. The IV core is smoother, whereas the gamma core is more reliable and can be run mechanically. The ego line is now the LV. The LV2 is one of the only poppit valve guns on the market.

Smart Parts went bankrupt in 2011 IIRC? They fractured into a few different companies, which I believe have since coalesced into DLX. You might remember DLX as the maker of the Luxe, which came out in 08. It started as a super high end shocker, it's now morphed into something closer to a CS3. The Luxe really feels like a luxury gun, with the packaging and features and whatnot. They've done a really good job of maintaining the iconic luxe aesthetics with small tweaks. They make another gun called the Shocker, that bears no resemblance mechanically or otherwise the shockers you'd be familiar with. They started as something like a high end Ion, but has since evolved. They're sold under the Shocker Paintball brand. They had an entry level brand called Gog, but I'm not sure if they're around anymore.

Bob Long retired and sold the company to the guys from Dynasty. They rebranded as Field One, and make the Force. It's a single tube gun but IIRC it's an inline poppit like the Marqs. A few of my teammates have them, and they say they shoot great but are a little heavy by comparison.

DYE is still around. They make 2 high end guns, the M3, and the MXR, which was just announced a week or two ago. Similar to the DYE from back when your time, they're still some of the smoothest shooting guns around. Over the last 5 years or so, they've really caught up to Eclipse as some of the highest tech guns around. They probably shoot better, but they're not as reliable. Not to say they're unreliable, just that eclipse guns are stupid reliable.

WDP is long gone, and frankly good riddance. They refused to provide the basic features people wanted, and did nothing to keep up with the rest of the industry. They were great for the first few years, but by 2005 there was absolutely no reason to buy an angel over a timmy or ego.

WGP died, but cockers have seen a resurgence in the last decade. I think we are on the tail end of that, unfortunately. Freeflow and Shocktech resurfaced and are making stuff again, Inception is/was making some innovative parts, and some smaller shops are floating around making stuff.

Mech in general has become really popular, which of course was started by the cocker renaissance. Now, a lot of the modern spool valves have mechanical variants, which is slowly making cockers obsolete again.

Hoppers have gotten really high tech, but prices on them suck. Masks have gotten expensive too. But there really aren't any just garbage mask like there used to be, so the value for your dollar is still much better.

Lots has changed, that's for sure. I know MCB members tend to see a lack of innovation, but the industry is still constantly evolving. It's just slower and subtler than it was from 2000 to 2010.

[Drcemento]

Nice synopsis - I learned a thing or two since I don't really pay attention to newer guns. My sons been dreaming about a Field One marker and i'm like "a what?" I new nothing about them and was surprised to hear dynasty used them - I always assumed they would be Dyes or something. And i did not know they came grew form Bob Longs company.

[residentr]

Appreciate the great overview! Looking forward to navigating this new landscape while keeping some of the classics alive and kicking to the best of my ability.

[russc]

Paint is so stupid small that vintage gear can be completely useless on a bad day. This weekend I bought 5 star paint that was *visibly* small, so I traded it in for larger paint, which sized in at about .673-.675. .673 would have been unheard of 5 years ago, much less whatever that 5 star was...it must have been in the mid .660's to be so visibly small to the naked eye.

[Trbo323]

Tanks have gotten way better. Most companies offer 5 year warranties now. And not that I know of does anyone use a 3 year hydro schedule, everything is 5 year test cycle. Ninja is mostly responsible for all that and continues to push the tank market forward. After ninja demonstrated that you can put out a really high end tank with features and players will buy it a few other companies like powerhouse got onboard.

The bad thing is tanks across the board have gotten fairly expensive. A basic 68/45 will typically run you $160+ by the time you can screw it into your marker.

The nice part is this innovation has lead to actual carbon fiber tanks over the fiber wrap that was common in your era. The CF tanks have thinner walls so you can do things like have a 77 ci tank fit in a tank cover made for a 68.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Siress]

ehhh... tanks haven gotten *pretty* over the last 10 years...and tank regulators have more features now, but the build quality I've seen has been worse than the old reliable HP tank regulators. My last Ninja tank+reg, purchased new and on first use, started to unscrew itself (not the tank, the reg itself) with ~2k psi still in it... that'd have made a very lethal projectile if I hadn't noticed a subtle difference in how it felt to unscrew it. I then identified that they had not fully assembled the regulator. I informed them of the issue and the dangers, and they took no responsibility. I'd say that was my last Ninja purchase ever but seems they've fairly well monopolized much of the market.

[Melrosejedi]

Well first off, welcome back to the ranks of good ole paintball. I think everyone covered the jist of things happening today. Your autocockers whether semi or pump are still very capable and i still rock the profilers so keep em cause its not worth upgrading. Swap out the foam for thr empire EVS stuff. Pick up some small barrel inserts as paint is always shrinking ie… 675 to 679 is common.hope it helps and good luck out there.

[DocsMachine]

... I still have a bunch of those posters.

Doc.

[residentr]

I thought they were the coolest posters ever! I'm super excited to see you're still about and sincerely appreciate all you've done for the sport!