The Lost Carter:
There is a locally (Long Island and The surrounding metropolitan area) a bit of a legend of an automag that surfaced in the long forgotten shop, Flag Station Paintball, a legend unto itself. This mag was a hybridization of a Carter or David Loo duck slide modified to fit on an automag body. Now this is where history gets fuzzy and unfortunately every employee of the former FSPB has passed away to confirm the history but several people through the years have confirmed it existed and was not something Carl or Dan machined in house… they did lots of custom fabrication look up the Mongoose Cocker. Supposedly someone had a film photo it has never surfaced.
Now across the harbor over in New Jersey existed an east coast hub of all things Carter, ABC paintball. So it was not uncommon in the 90’s to have crazy carters popping up locally on Long Island. Many of my team mates in that era had cockers, mags and the occasional buzzard it was just a common occurrence. ABC was known for the weird carters and stuff Earon wouldn’t normally build but his trained shop guys would make stuff for ABC customers. It is possible that the “Duck Mag” manifested from that shop and migrated to FSPB for repair or sold/traded in.
Sadly… Carl passed away before I got to talk to him about his former shop and at that point from several lawsuits and shutting down his store was pretty bitter about paintball in general. His collections and many pieces of historical data basically vanished.
Back in 2013 I built a very rough duck mag with a spring feed welded on I am pretty sure I sold that to Bearded Works during my post move purge.. A friend approached me about building a direct feed version a few years after that, to match basically the legendary mag explained above. After a few years of machining bits and pieces the project stalled as my professional career exploded and the last thing I wanted to do was work at my house shop on top of a few differences in the direction of the build…. I wanted to change the frame geometry to match a few of the custom mags carter made (The APG carter issue with the slate blue pistol mag held by Ken Kidd was a major inspiration here) Eventually the build shifted into being my project and with everything I ever build…. Sits in a box until inspiration hits.
It finally hit big when an opportunity for inexpensive anno popped up (alchemy finishing) and me being me jumped into a flurry of caffeine, adhd and ocd action to complete what was left to get my project buttoned up. It was like highschool all over again in few days I finished the parts that had my stalled for years boxed up and shipped of my creation and here we are a few weeks later…
The Mantis-2 (carter did birds I do bugs) AKA “The Lost Carter” If you were to take a photo in black and white I am pretty sure except for the SLS printed carbon fiber sights you wouldn’t be able to tell this isn’t some piece made by Carter Machine in the 90’s. I would on loved to send him pictures of this and get his insight. RIP Carter and Carl
There is a locally (Long Island and The surrounding metropolitan area) a bit of a legend of an automag that surfaced in the long forgotten shop, Flag Station Paintball, a legend unto itself. This mag was a hybridization of a Carter or David Loo duck slide modified to fit on an automag body. Now this is where history gets fuzzy and unfortunately every employee of the former FSPB has passed away to confirm the history but several people through the years have confirmed it existed and was not something Carl or Dan machined in house… they did lots of custom fabrication look up the Mongoose Cocker. Supposedly someone had a film photo it has never surfaced.
Now across the harbor over in New Jersey existed an east coast hub of all things Carter, ABC paintball. So it was not uncommon in the 90’s to have crazy carters popping up locally on Long Island. Many of my team mates in that era had cockers, mags and the occasional buzzard it was just a common occurrence. ABC was known for the weird carters and stuff Earon wouldn’t normally build but his trained shop guys would make stuff for ABC customers. It is possible that the “Duck Mag” manifested from that shop and migrated to FSPB for repair or sold/traded in.
Sadly… Carl passed away before I got to talk to him about his former shop and at that point from several lawsuits and shutting down his store was pretty bitter about paintball in general. His collections and many pieces of historical data basically vanished.
Back in 2013 I built a very rough duck mag with a spring feed welded on I am pretty sure I sold that to Bearded Works during my post move purge.. A friend approached me about building a direct feed version a few years after that, to match basically the legendary mag explained above. After a few years of machining bits and pieces the project stalled as my professional career exploded and the last thing I wanted to do was work at my house shop on top of a few differences in the direction of the build…. I wanted to change the frame geometry to match a few of the custom mags carter made (The APG carter issue with the slate blue pistol mag held by Ken Kidd was a major inspiration here) Eventually the build shifted into being my project and with everything I ever build…. Sits in a box until inspiration hits.
It finally hit big when an opportunity for inexpensive anno popped up (alchemy finishing) and me being me jumped into a flurry of caffeine, adhd and ocd action to complete what was left to get my project buttoned up. It was like highschool all over again in few days I finished the parts that had my stalled for years boxed up and shipped of my creation and here we are a few weeks later…
The Mantis-2 (carter did birds I do bugs) AKA “The Lost Carter” If you were to take a photo in black and white I am pretty sure except for the SLS printed carbon fiber sights you wouldn’t be able to tell this isn’t some piece made by Carter Machine in the 90’s. I would on loved to send him pictures of this and get his insight. RIP Carter and Carl
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