The Official Survival Game Manual for Walzmas

[OpusX]

Paintball has a long and fun history. Starting with an argument between friends of who would survive when faced with conflict, and growing into the sport we love today. Do you want to read about the beginnings of our sport? Would you like to know how they lived back then? Do you want to learn how to firmly plant your tongue in your cheek and sing "The Survival Game Song"?

If you have said yes to any of these things then this Walzmas giveaway is for you. If you enter and win you will receive a copy of "The Official Survival Game Manual, by Lionel Atwill, a first printing from 1983. How do you enter?

1. Be a green/red member
2. Share some historical knowledge of the sport and/or a wonderful myth/legend true or hearsay (example: frozen paintballs, shooting 400fps, etc)
   1. "Bonus points" for sharing pics of markers you have from the "old times" (bonus points are fictional and have no bearing on giveaway, just fun)
3. Wait until December 22nd when I will roll a D20 (or appropriate die for the entrant pool) to choose the winner. Your number is determined by the order of reply

-----List of Entrants [Last Updated: 12/22 7:55am]-----
1) shooter311
2) Ford
3) Impactfour
4) redsquirrel
5) XEMON
6) Trbo323
7) Chuck E Ducky
8) Alexndl
9) RAZBAKK
10) bellicose
11) Super Nova



Some pics of this wonderful tome of knowledge:

[shooter311]

Ohh, I would love this!

One of my favorite paintball stories is the Jeremy Salm incident. I don't want to type it all out, since it has been covered to death, and there is even a well made documentary about it, but for those who don't know (could there be any MCB members who don't know this story?):

During a heated tournament in the 90s (or early 2ks?) a member from team Avalanche dressed in all black and hid with a marker on the adjacent field his team was playing on. During the game he was shooting the opposing team to give his team the win. He was obviously caught, and this turned into a massive ordeal.

Documentary:
EDIT: Sorry original link did not work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1A7FmswdkU

BONUS POINT!!!!
It saddens me that I don't have any pics of me with my gear (not that it was anything other than bottom shelf stuff) from the 90s. However, I do have a pic of a cocker I bought dirt cheap from the local pawn shop (Belfast Army Navy) in the early 2ks. No one in my town shot anything but CO2 and it needed a rebuild and time, so they gave it to me for what it was pawned for. It turned into an amazing shooter, and still the best Ano on any marker I have ever owned:

[OpusX]

Ah yes the legendary cheat mode. Hell that PK Selective lava anno is also killer!

[Jordan]

I have never followed the tourney side of paintball (nor do I care to) so that story was indeed unknown to me.

[redsquirrel]

Wow, I’ve never heard of this story either. Bold.

[ford]

Love this book! Had the fortune of borrowing it from someone else years ago. Really special bit of paintball nostalgia.

[Impactfour]

My story is a personal one, but through a series of mishaps, luck and determination my very underdog team managed to place third in an NEPL Jr event in 07 or so. Feeling emboldened by that victory we got a few local businesses to "sponsor" us. One of them was a very confused but wholesome Greek immigrant who ran my towns pizza place and sponsored many highschool teams. Dude gas us maybe $100 to put his business name on our team banner. We never placed again, but the guys daughters still run that pizza joint, I see him from time to time when I go back home, really great guy.

My old school marker is my customized pg/pgp. Odds are the core of this marker is around my age, maybe older.

[redsquirrel]

I started playing in the mid 00s so my knowledge doesn’t go back too far. I really just miss the signature sound of rentals running out of CO2. Good ole field farts. Doubt anyone getting into the sport in the last 10ish years is well acquainted with this.

Dont have any pictures of my early gear but this is the first marker I ever bought. Diablo Mongoose II, as cool as it gets. Swore it was a 32 degrees that I had but this is definitely the one.

[XEMON]

I've always wanted to put my paws on one of those, but never got a hold one one 🤩

Historical knowledge noone cares about:
the first official paintball importer of paintball markers in France was Bob Long. There were 2 brothers who moved to southern France and we called them "the Americans" ... never knew their names, just "the Americans" 😅

[Trbo323]

Let's see, agd released the agd 6pak in 1989, I forget which event but they brought something like 100 and they sold out the first day. Overnight they went back to the agd factory and built 100 more in parts they had. Brought those and they sold out the next day.

The 6pak was such a success that organizers of professional paintball changed the tournament rules in the middle of the 1989 season to allow CA tanks as there was not really a functional difference between using a 6 pac and a co2 tank.

In turn, the 6paks popularity dropped off as it no longer gave a competitive advantage. This lead to agd only producing 2000 of them.

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

[OpusX]

Innovation. A piece of kit that I would love to see have a niche modern run.

[OpusX]

Bumpidy bump

[Chuck E Ducky]

While playing Woods Ball World Cup I struck up a conversation with some players from “The Band” 10man team made up of people who built our sport. One of which turned out to be Bud Orr I had never met the guy but had definitely seen him around at events over the years. But he told me a story about how they came up with the 300fps rule.

So when paintball was in its infancy NJ was attempting to outlaw paintball due to its “bad boy persona” it didn’t have the best reputation. It was seen as dangerous and only for the wild and crazy. Apparently on the drive to court to testify Bud and his friend did the math on how much kinetic energy It would take to break a human collarbone the morning before court on a napkin. Somehow settled on the 300fps rule and convinced a whole host of people in court that paintball was safe if done properly. At the time nobody was choreographing there markers if it shoots the bark off a tree turn it down kind of thing. However this set an industry standard that’s still used today. I’m probably mixing a bit of the story up but something I thought was super cool he shared with me at an event we both played in.

[OpusX]

I had heard similar as it being the energy needed to break a finger, but still a great legend of the sport.

[OpusX]

Bump. Will be closing this Friday.

[Alexndl]

Guinness world record

The record for the most paintballs caught whole while blindfolded in two minutes is 11 and was set by Anthony Kelly (Australia) at Ultimate Skirmish paintball field, Helensburgh, New South Wales, Australia on 30 May 2003. The paintballs were .68 caliber, shot from a Tippmann SL 68 II paintball marker at a speed of 240 ft/sec. from a distance of 20 metres.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-paintballs-caught-in-two-minutes-blindfolded

Anyone want to try?

A picture of my SL68 and SL68 II

[OpusX]

Blind eye of the tiger?

[OpusX]

I will roll the die sometime tomorrow for this one. Get in while you can.

[RAZRBAKK]

I always found it interesting that Tippmann only entered the industry due to a change in firearms laws. Previously they were producing half-scale replicas of machine guns.

What a cute lil MG.

EDIT: here's another demo with a few more. I really love the tiny ammo box.

Here is my recently acquired Spitfire II:

[bellicose]

I remember my dad going with my uncles when I was young. This had to be about 87-88. The stories they told enthralled me. My uncle popping up and getting gogged, the description my dad had of the paint just covering his mask. My own kids have no interest, but at least my nephew does.

Myths - the shotgun. When I was in high school, before the first time I went, my friend was talking about it. He was one of those kids that just had to lie about everything. Yeah, I have a Black Lotus MTG card, but my mom won't let me show you guys - kind of person. He didn't have to do that, people liked him just fine for who he was. Anyhow, he was telling me about paintball shotguns. There was a needle on the end that made the ball break and kind of spray out. He went with us our 2nd time, and my dad nailed him in the neck from close range. He had a scar all through high school.

[Super Nova]

In high school when my dad was playing we had a girl out with us and he ended up shooting her in the back of the head. Funny but not the best part. He was shooting a green sparkle shell with yellow fill and she had blonde hair. It looked like someone had sneezed on the back of her head.

When I started playing the idea of a double barrel paintball gun was a myth although looking back I think there were probably already double barrel guns out.

pic is a recent purchase but the first mask I can remember purchasing and/or wearing back in the 90’s