The History of Fifty?

[DocsMachine]

A discussion on another board led me to wonder if anyone knows the... history? Timeline? of .50 cal paint.

I mean, as far as I know, the first and only .50 prior to the resurgence in the late oughts, was the Spotmarker. Were there any others? I recall reading that Bud offered early Snipers with .50 cal conversions, but I suspect few were made and fewer survive today.

What happened after that? I seem to recall you could get blowgun .50 balls...

So what was the timeline? Did they start making some specifically for the Spotmarker, switched to occasional runs of blowgun ammo in the years after, and then restarted full production when they started pushing it again in the late oughts?

Come to think of it, you could ask the same thing for .62. Was .62 made just for the SMG? Or were other guns made to take .62? Only one I know if was the... what, Brazilian Skorpion? Something like that?

I mean, I should know more of this, but really, the magazines (my main source of information back then) hardly said a word about either .50 or .62, and locally, I only saw one Spotmarker (which the owner couldn't get paint for) and only saw SMG's in pictures 'til I picked one up a few years ago.

Anyone have some info? I'd be curious to know.

Doc.

[Chemical-x.....ahain]

The AGA is the only thing I can think of not listed. but it was the receiver portion of the crossman .3357

[COB]

I could be wrong, and my wife will say I definitely am, but I believe the original Forestry and Farm markers were 62 cal oil based paint.

[Drcemento]

the Nel-spot 707 most definitely was made for 68 caliber paint and that pre-dates the 007

[Painthappy]

There were other guns that used and shot the .62 caliber paint, but not many. Obviously the AGA 62. Bud Orr made the .62 caliber sniper and it was stamped as such on the serial number. Line SI made a .62 caliber gun, though if I measure mine it seems closer to .60 so go figure... Sleeves were sold for certain guns in both .62 and .50, but those were not specific built guns, just adapters for PMI's / PGP or the such.

For .50, the only real gun I know of is the 3357. Bud did make a .50 caliber sniper, it was just a one-off. I believe that was just for some New Jersey court room or some thing like that. Don't quote me on any of that, but it was for a specific case when they wanted to ban paintball.

Of course Gurn-Z shot the .555

I remember playing as a early teenager when all three were out and used on the field at the same time. The SMG-60's were running and kept people down. Everyone else shot 68 caliber. The only .50 cal was being used as a back up gun and it was a 3357. I remember the old timer (he was probably younger than I am now) told me he liked it to shoot through brush as the ball was smaller and slightly harder to break and would get through the bush. I can speak for the validity of that statement, but that's exactly what he told me and believed at the time.

I don't believe there was ever a case for .50 caliber back in the day. Just the 3357 shot it really. The argument was over .62 and .68 for a bit, but that didn't last long either as well... you know... physics.

[DocsMachine]

The AGA was .62 caliber, the Spotmarker was .50.

And the 707, 007 and Splatmaster were all .68.

Which is my basic question: Did Crosman (or whoever made/commissioned the Spotmarker) also invest in having a run of .50 paint made? Did Tippmann, on developing the SMG, have to have .62 made for it? Or were those already available, and if so, for what or whom?

Heck, if Tippmann had .62 made, why that and not .68, which was even at the time already kind of the standard.

I realize this is the kind of thing that really only interests the odd enthusiast.

Doc.

[Hp_lovecraft]

The 3357 uses a standard 357 frame. My guess is they could not get any decent FPS with anything larger then .50 and stuck with that. They were cheap enough that most of us had one, but pretty useless. If you fired the 3357 upside to juice it a bit, the balls would corkscrew all over the place. and the field owner would buy a single case of it.... and it might last years, to the point where a tube of 50 was shaped like a dodecahedron.

and thats what was weird about the recent Smart Parts push for 50-cal. We knew from the late 80s that it didn't have the range, and if you increased the FPS, it wasnt stable, and corkscrewed. It all seemed like SP just needed players to have a reason to buy a new gun. Tech had plateaued, and gun sales were dropping.

Maybe thats also why Tippmann started with 62? The original patent showed a drum magazine, and maybe they just couldnt get it working reliable with 68? Maybe thats why they never released a fullauto 68, or a 68 that didn't need a siphon? who knows

My old theory as to why 68 was picked was that the original 707 was based on the capture Dart guns. Its possible that they were simply rebadged dart guns. I know all the other theories, but I like mine best

[Chemical-x.....ahain]

fwiw, theres a related discussion going on elsewhere and it led me to asking Nelson if they had any .62. will update when I hear back.

[Rainmaker]

I remember those oil bath beads were a thing back in the late '90s. Probably a similar manufacturing process. So if they had certain size of dies for those balls, that might be relevant. Short search looks like they were somewhere between 1.5mm to 2mm diameter, so that's the right ballpark at least. Were early paintballs made on bath-bead machines?

[vijil]

I kinda wish 62 had become the standard.

50 is just too small for the physics to work.

68 is ok but just big and heavy for shipping and difficult to make work in magfed.

Too late now.

[DocsMachine]

Robert Paul "RP" Scherer developed the encapsulation technology we still use today, nearly a hundred years ago. It was mainly used for medications, and I have no idea when it may have started being used for "bath oil" beads or the like, but it was a well-established industry when "paintball" rolled around, starting in the oil-based days.

The only question being, did any of the paintball people (Charlie Nelson with the original guns [or whoever made the 707] Crosman with the Spotmarker or Tippmann with the SMG) specifically request a size/caliber, or did they see what the encapsulators had on hand for available dies/sizes and went with that one?

One might suspect they went with 'off the shelf', since making a new set of dies is expensive. (I once heard $50K just for the dies, quoted.) But, on the other hand, all three of them were largish manufacturers- Tippmann was gearing up to mass-produce SMGs (to the point there's still thousands and thousands out there today) Crosman was alrady a company that made hundreds of thousands of pellet guns a year, and Nelson was hoping to provide for the entire nationwide forestry and cattle industries. I'm not sure any of them would have had much issue with dropping a million or two- in '60s to '80s money- on a large run.

So ordering a specific size isn't by any means out of the question. I wonder if there's anyone still alive that knows the answers. Bud? Glenn?

Doc.