Your exposure to pump

[flyweightnate]

I picked up a Phantom - 14", back bottle, RF - as my second gun, ever (behind a Spyder Compact 2000). I kept getting roll-outs, had no idea why, but did some work to keep the rain off the barrel and it freaked people out that I could just move down the sidelines and remove them with a shot at a time. I only played in thick forest back then. I sold it and my Spyder to get a Sentinel later.

I got out of paintball when my friends all switched to airsoft. In college, I got back into the game, and tore up the field on a dorm room trip using a rental 98C. It was awesome. I got the bug, bad, and wound up with cockers, a pump kit, Phantom VSCs, and an Illusion. The VSC was great for the scenarios on a college budget.

I haven't not owned a pump since college. It's just... necessary.

[SignOfZeta]

When I started there were no semiautomatic guns. The SMG 60 existed though and seeing that thing “work” on the field really convinced me that the whole idea sucked. When it wasn’t broken it was an unfair advantage. The onset of the Automag RT, the cheap Spyder, and even the now-perfected Made in China talking space dildo…I’ve stubbornly avoided all guns that cock themselves ever since. Manual action is the best. Speedball sucks. I’m never changing.

[$L!mBo]

My younger brothers and I started playing when Ft.Detrick opened up their paintball fields to the public on weekends. We had a shop a couple blocks from there where we bought tippmanns and ions and spyders and our gear. Used to love going wide and flanking all the speedball guys in their backs with my a-5. When we all got to the final years of high school, we stashed our gear away and hung it up for good.....or so i thought. When the shop (Paintball Wholesalers) had to close up, I bought a bunch of flexes, revvys and a bunch of other gear for closeout prices. In this lot was a tricked out,, cut and annoed eblade cocker i paid $70 for. This haul went into the closet with the rest of it.
Almost ten years go by and Im working at a local hotrod shop doing custom fab and efi swaps on old Stingrays, Stangs, Fairlanes, ect.... We hire a new guy who "cant work Sundays because hes on a paintball team." I drag out my old gear and he goes crazy, like he just struck gold. I sell him the cocker for $100 and he comes back with another $300 after the old heads on his team told him it was worth much more. They had a swap meet the next weekend where i came out, met the guys and sold most of my treasures. They dragged me back into the sport and after learning the dark arts of tuning from the old guys, i built a mag and a cocker. It felt like fight club, i had to get out there every weekend and scratch the itch.
One day two 14 year old kids show up with their "Grandpa's old gun". A Lapco Grey Ghost, setup for 12grams and rocking a 50rnd winny. I was fond of trading guns with the rental kids for a game or two and they let me use the pump for a game on the airball field. Into the snake off break and past the 50 side after gogging the only dude who saw me, some hotshot with the newest ego/luxe/dm whatever. from there, i took out the rest of their team one by one and had the most fun game of my life. I was instantly hooked on pump.
A few weeks later, I nabbed an openclass phantom off ebay and played with that exclusively for weekends and big games. A duckslide build popped up on facebook and i took the plunge into stock class. This years Slim's Spring Game (2023) was my first time actually playing sc, Id been too busy to make it out for any weekends leading up to the trip so i was limited to backyard shenanigans for my training wheels. Slim's was the best time Id ever had playing ball and now its the only format that interests me.

[Melrosejedi]

So we were both nubes this year,cool. Hope to see ya in the spring in our sophomore year bud.

[$L!mBo]

ok, confession time.....
i been shootin pump since 'Nam

[JOESPUD27]

Ref of my first game was on the local fields team. After my private party, joined open play and the ref proceeded to pwn open play with a stock class CCI phantom.

Fast forward 5 years and I'm playing at the field regularly, shooting a Phantom and some other pumps. In 2008 the owner of the field/team asked me to join.

Shot CCM for a few years, then just whatever I wanted. Now it feels weird to not have a pump at least with me at the field.

[glaman5266]

My first significant exposure to pump play was in 2008 when the economy crashed. GF (now wife) & I moved into an apartment & things got tight. I still wanted to play, so I bought a nice CF sniper to help reduce the cost to play. It was rough learning how to play pump against all the people running 15.5 PSP ramp.

I'm still not great at it, but I can hold my own in rec play. I've still never played a pump-only game/event. I really want to, but I have to travel 2.5hrs minimum for a decent field, and so I just bring my favorite mechs that I know I'll have fun with. Mech is my jam, but I have a '96 RF WGP and a Trracer. Love right feeds on pumps.

I'm thinking I should play more pump this year & try to go to a pump-only game/event. I feel like I need to change some stuff up.

[Paintslinger16]

Well the three choices to rent in ‘88 was PGP, a couple bucks more was PMI and then for another two bucks a KP!

[k_obeastly]

94 outlaw ball with my brothers college roommate and his family/friends. We barrowed guns but they ran out of semis. The gun they had left was a trracer. I didn't want that pump gun so my brothers roomate took it saying 'it was PGI's pump gun of the year." He shot me in the head that game. I didn't play again until 01. Picked up a cocker in 02 and not knowing what I was doing broke a barb on the pneumatics. Bought a pump kit a few weeks later and never really looked back all that much.

[The Jayster]

My first game was 1990, outlaw ball, and my hosts had Brass Eagle pump guns. So that's what my first exposure to paintball was. They had 7 oz tanks and gravity-fed hoppers. We had less than 100 paintballs each and that was supposed to be plenty for the day, and it actually was. We were using... ski masks as "protection".

Then I played again at a commercial field in 1992 using a Tippmann SL-68 II pump gun as a rental.

So yeah back then your introduction to paintball was most likely through pump guns.

Right after playing as a rental in '92 I geared up and since then I went through it all: Tippmanns, Cockers, Mags, Angels, Shockers, Egos, DMs, Geos, etc. What's ironic though is that today, about half of my play time is done using a CCI Phantom, which is basically one of the high ends that was used 33 years ago when I started.

[iamthelazerviking]

You're the walking embodiment of that "know your enemy" meme. Can't find the version where the "expert" was edited to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt lol.

[The Jayster]

Haha yeah, good one! And I *do* own an Hawaiian shirt for paintball!

I don't mean to brag, but when I pull a move where I outflank the opposite team and take them all out whilst armed with a semi my feeling now is like 'meh... been there done that'. Even worse when I have a one-on-one frontal engagement that lasts forever (I pop out, shoot, miss, he does the same, back and forth and after 5 minutes and a few empty pods one of my paintballs finally nicks the tip of his hand... great "I won"... YAWN!)

Nah - when I play with my Phantom I don't set out to wipe out everyone in my path. I'm giddy if I get to eliminate a single opposite player (or maybe two). I have to play tighter, sneak around more, try to find a clear angle, better mind my aim, etc. And then that feeling when you see that single paintball burst open on your target... OH YEAH!

[SuperAtomic]

My first game was in 2007, I was a junior in college and a buddy of mine had booked a day of play at Gladiator Paintball Park in San Luis Obispo, CA as part of a welcome program for new students he was involved in. I was invited if I helped shuttle his group out to the field and back in my car. It was a blast. I'd never experienced anything like it before. I don't even think I even hit anyone but I had so much fun. One of the guys who worked in the pro shop came out and joined us with his silver Phantom with clear acrylic parts. He was a ghost on the field, we never knew where he was until he tagged someone through a little barrel sized whole in a bunker. As we were leaving, the owner asked everyone if they'd like to sign up as a ref, since it was a new field and they needed help. I put my name down and didn't think anything would come of it at the time.

He called me the next weekend and I ended up reffing there off and on for the rest of the time I lived in SLO, another two years. When I started out reffing I had nothing, not even my own mask. I didn't really know how to ref a paintball game either, I just emulated what I had seen the other refs do and it eventually worked out. The whole time I thought about getting my own gear but didn't know what to get, so I decided I would just watch and listen to what other players were talking about see where it went. The guy with the silver phantom was always around and I was in awe. Other pumpers used to come and hang out at the field too. My decision came down to an Invert Mini or a Phantom, and I picked the Phantom. It ended up being my only gun for the next 7 years. Who knows what would have happened if I picked the Mini? Maybe would have gotten into tournament ball, maybe would have burned out, but I certainly wouldn't have ended up here.

I loved that black VSC Phantom with clear acrylic parts, 3.5oz CO2 tank, and L-stock. I still have it, though it's been reconfigured half a dozen times since then, and I will never sell it. I have a small collection of markers now, one each of stock class, open class, space mech, and electro. The Phantom doesn't come out as much as it used to but I'll always consider it my "main" gun. It just always feels right when it's in my hands and brings me right back to my early days playing walk-ons on the pipes field and Gladiator.

[CheapChi]

In early 2000, I was blissfully enjoying recball. A new player showed up with overalls stained with paint splatter, ancient looking goggles, what I later learned was a PGP and a pocket full of ten round tubes. While curiously eyeing him, the field manager whispers to me, “That is probably the most skilled player here today. Watch out for him.” He explained that the stains were from oil based paints from paintball’s infancy which meant he’d probably been playing for awhile. For the rest of the games, I never spot him on the field but he racks up kills all day. That left an impression especially since that was the time where accuracy by volume was on the rise.

[ChuckLove]

The first paintball gun that I shot was a Walmart brass eagle pump around 2001. We didn't play paintball due to there only being one gun, instead we took turns shooting at each other from about 50ft away.
Eventually I got into playing a year or so after but that was exclusively with semis and electros. These were the early days of the bps wars. By 04 I was on a team playing Airball and as part of our field sponsorship we had to help ref scenario games. I'd occasionally see players shooting Phantoms or CCM's and was fascinated by them but didn't understand how they could play so seemingly outgunned.
By senior year of highschool my priorities had changed, any money I had went to gas, beer and chasing women.

Fast forward to 2018 and I started playing again. Naturally I went back to shooting electros. I bought an Emek when it came out and really found that I liked playing mech too. In late 2019 I was introduced to now my good buddy Clayton (I can't remember his rarely used s/n) who had an Empire Sniper. He let me play with it and by the end of the day I had bought it off of him.

Now for the past few years I've been a part of this amazing community of pump players here in the North East. I've made more friends in pump paintball then all my previous years combined. Pump is my favorite way to play wether it be Open Class, Stock Class or Pistols.

[glaman5266]

Those plastic Wal-Mart Brass Eagle Specials got way more people into paintball than I think many would admit. The Blade '02 is what got me into it. Not great on the field, but I'll be dipped if they didn't start the fire for many players.

[Jordan]

My first marker was a Tigershark which made me hate pump play. 🙂 It wasn't until I got into Cockers that I returned to pump play, and that was sporadic - didn't see many other pumpers at the field in the early 00's.

I've had shoulder/joint pain for years that prevented me from really enjoying any style of play, let alone pump, but the last few years have seen a lifestyle change that helped correct the root of that pain issue and I've finally gotten to the point where I can actually run a pump all day without regretting it.

I just wish pump play was more prevalent in my area, and that the local field hours were more in line with my schedule so I could get out more... and that I had the interest/drive to play like I used to.

[Impactfour]

I went fro hating the Tigershark as my first pump to loving it as an addition to my current collection, something about it just feels right now

[Slim]

I'm humbled to see my name pop up in this thread and to be credited for turning a few players on to stock class. I'm happy to be able to pass along my passion for the format, and honored to have played a positive role in someone else's paintball journey. Thanks for enjoying the skill, sportsmanship and camaraderie of stock class with me!

[$L!mBo]

Youre the man, Slim!

[Magageddon]

I really got exposed through youtube, watching channels like gerglemuff, webdog, the pump documentary with Splattt, and a few others in the 2010s. Ended up getting a vsc phantom in silver for christmas in 2014 because it was the cheapest one at the time at 229 bucks. I used that for awhile and a lot of the guys at the local field had been playing pump for years, so they definitely influenced me when it came to pumps and gun choices in general. That's how I got into automags, one of the guys was big into them and it just rubbed off on me. Also the field I used to go to all the time in highschool/college was a BYOP field, so playing pump I could afford to play 4-6 times a month there, those days were great.