The History of the Paintball...?

[Drunkscriblerian]

While we're on the subject of paintballs, I've always had a question; why did paintball (the sport) settle on .68 caliber? I know that paint has been/is made in other calibers (.50, 62, .43, etc.) but I've always been curious why .68 became the standard.

[Fubarius]

As for the size, I vaguely remember that whoever at Nelson was whipping up the first prototype balls needed to make a quick mold, and happened to have an 11/16 (equal to .6875") round nose bit handy. Not sure I'd take that as gospel though, it's not a particularly common size. But that size leaves a satisfyingly large splat on the target, so it stuck. The splats from .50 and smaller would be less visible at a distance, and that's important when you're marking trees and cattle.

[DocsMachine]

I can recall speculating on that years ago, maybe you're remembering that? That is, if Neslon were experimenting/developing his own molds, he'd try to use an off-the-shelf cutter, presumably a ball-end mill, to cut the voids, rather than try and have some custom size made. You'd be a lot more likely to find an 11/16" or 3/4" than, say, a 27/32" or 47/64".

Especially since you're not truing to fit or match anything existing- an existing bore or barrel, an existing gun, etc.

Heh, one thing I just thought of- the original balls were sold in aluminum cigar tubes. What's the chances Nelson picked the biggest 'standard' size that fit in a commonly-available, off-the-shelf tube?

Doc.

[Hp_lovecraft]

That is, if Neslon were experimenting/developing his own molds, he'd try to use an off-the-shelf cutter, presumably a ball-end mill, to cut the voids, rather than try and have some custom size made. You'd be a lot more likely to find an 11/16" or 3/4" than, say, a 27/32" or 47/64".

There was a discussion a while ago. Maybe 20 years ago, about the original Nelson 707. It was made by Crosman and was 68 caliber. Its generally assumed to have been adapted from the Crosman Cap-Chur animal dart gun, which had various dart sizes. The rumor was that Crosman picked whichever dart-size matched the forestry/cattle paintballs, and rebadged it for that purpose. The 70s era CapChur guns are identical to the Crosman 707. The 707 wasnt used for paintball, but when Nelson asked Daisy to make the 007, they stuck with the .68.

That would explain the odd tooling size- Basically, they used what they were already making. Another persistent rumor is that the paintballs that Nelson was making in the 70s. It was thought that they were using existing bath bead molds, since those happened to be .68, and it was cheaper to use those that come up with something more standard.

Neither rumor has any evidence. But I like both, so I'll just keep the rumors going.

[Glovebox Operator]

I keep wondering what percentage of all the guns made does this forum own? It has to be a good chunk.

[DocsMachine]

I keep wondering what percentage of all the guns made does this forum own? It has to be a good chunk.

-We'd first have to determine how many were made, and that's a good, solid question in and of itself. I'm not sure that's a number it's possible to know.

I seem to recall that, a couple years before AGD closed down, Tom said they'd made over a quarter-million Automags. Exact numbers aren't known due to inconsistent serializing. There were a certain number of E-mags and X-mags too, so altogether it's possible 300K were made?

Ditto 'Cockers- Bud supposedly made around a quarter mil before he sold out. How many Trilogies were made? How many Osiris, Revenge and GenX?

I recall Simon mentioning, at the advent of the new Trracer, that NPS/KEE wasn't going to bother unless they knew they could sell at least 100K units. How many original Trracers were made? I'd wager it was at least that many if not more.

PGPs? We've sawed up resoldered and modified a ton of those, and there's still piles of them around. I recall the rumor that SP sold a quarter of a million Ions. How many Model 98s did Tippmann make? I'd be surprised if that number wasn't over a million, and two isn't out of the question.

If we count Spyders and all knockoff blowbacks as one class, I'd be kind of surprised if that doesn't add up to two or three million. SL-68s? VM-68s? Bushmasters? Outlaws? How many Typhoons did Glenn make? Blazers? Sterlings? Rainmakers? Splatmasters? Rapides? GZ-1000s?

THEN... we'd have to accurately guess how many still exist. We all know there's been thousands of markers cut up for projects or unsuccessful mods, we've all heard tales of people throwing away nonfunctional guns, and undoubtedly a huge number have been lost, stolen, thrown out or scrapped by people that don't care or didn't know. They supposedly made a fair number of Pumas- the old pump pistol- but those have only been seen exceedingly rarely in the decades since. Where'd all those go? (Tossed out, I'd wager.)

THEN we'd have to add up everything all MCB members have- or know have been lost/destroyed- and figure the percentage.

Doc.

[Glovebox Operator]

Well that is how I worded it and that is a pretty impossible question. I meant to say of all the kinds of guns made, what would this place have?

[DocsMachine]

Well that is how I worded it and that is a pretty impossible question. I meant to say of all the kinds of guns made, what would this place have?

-Like how many different kinds? That's an easier, but still tricky, question. And actually, that'd be a fun list, too. Anybody know how many pages are in Vintage Rex?

Now, do we just go by type- like "Splatmaster"- or do we count the different colors? And of course do we just say "Autococker", or do we count Evolutions, Rippers, Trilogies, Westwoods and Karnivores as different guns? Then if so, do custom guns count? I've made over a dozen Vee-Twins, do those count?

Not being sarcastic here, this is kind of a genuine question.

I mean, if we were putting together an EMR style museum, or really trying to flesh out Vintage Rex, do we want a sample of every possible variant, or just a basic example? Is a Phantom one entry, or multiple? (Open class, stock class, VSC, etc.) Is the Bushmaster Pointman distinct from the "full size"? Would we want all three barrel lengths of the SMG?

We could keep it simple and go by factory names. The PG is different than the PGP, which is different from the PGP2000, but we skip over grip colors, pump knurling and other changes. The Autococker is different from the MiniCocker which is different from the Trilogy. (Although that still gets into the soup of the special and limited-editions, most of which were specifically named.)

Heck, I bet it'd be a trick just to list all the different Nelson-based pumps.

Doc.

[Glovebox Operator]

I was thinking along the lines of checking off everything on Vintage Rex and fleshing out what counts as variations (major and minor to be debated). Cockers do have some major variations that could be broken down separately, and then later fight about if each company's version counts as a variant. Barrel length... maybe. Colors probably not, but maybe bonus points colored models collected. What counts as a production run? What counts as a manufacturer? I'm sure there can be some sort of gentlemanly agreement on a rough estimate.
It would be a big undertaking for sure but with some established guidelines, all the collective knowledge and lifelong hoarding it would be a fun thing to find out.

[Fubarius]

Heck, if you want to narrow down a collection, lets say just Paintball guns from Brass Eagle available at a local big box retail store, you're looking at like 55 different guns counting all the subtle variations over the years, and like twice that if you do everything the company ever made. Even the lowly plastic semi auto Stingray was sold with and without barrel shroud (Stingray and Stingray II), in 8 colors (black, clear, smoke, red, blue, green, purple, and teal), and in two calibers (.68, and .80 Lazerball), and 4 different body molds. (Stingray, Stingray II, Stingray II Crystal, and Lazerball).

[Drunkscriblerian]

There was a discussion a while ago. Maybe 20 years ago, about the original Nelson 707. It was made by Crosman and was 68 caliber. Its generally assumed to have been adapted from the Crosman Cap-Chur animal dart gun, which had various dart sizes. The rumor was that Crosman picked whichever dart-size matched the forestry/cattle paintballs, and rebadged it for that purpose. The 70s era CapChur guns are identical to the Crosman 707. The 707 wasnt used for paintball, but when Nelson asked Daisy to make the 007, they stuck with the .68.

That would explain the odd tooling size- Basically, they used what they were already making. Another persistent rumor is that the paintballs that Nelson was making in the 70s. It was thought that they were using existing bath bead molds, since those happened to be .68, and it was cheaper to use those that come up with something more standard.

Neither rumor has any evidence. But I like both, so I'll just keep the rumors going.

All of that makes perfect sense honestly. I've worked in the manufacturing trade for 30 years now, and the inertia around "we already have this, we can adapt it to a new market so let's use it, that saves money" is a real thing. Since the whole "paint pellet launcher" concept was an extremely niche market when it first showed up, manufacturers wanting to cater to said market would have been under pressure from their bosses to save money whenever possible. After all, said niche market might collapse, and the paintball industry is rife with stories of manufacturers who went too big and then had to go home...Doc's experience digging into the story of the Puma AP-5 comes to mind.