OFGs of MCB: What was paintball like in the transition from pump to semi?

[Marauder_Pilot]

Some comments in threads floating around about the SMG68 got me thinking about what the game was like in those early days, well before my time (Some of it before my birth, honestly) when we were transitioning from pumps as the main style to semis.

I know that there's a long-running debate as to whether the SMG60 or Camille was the first semi-auto paintball gun (As far as I can tell, Camille may have existed first but the SMG60 was for sale before anything derived from Palmer's autococking Sheridan designs), but looking back I can see there were tons of oddball designs that popped up before the first blowbacks and autococking Sheridans kinda solidified their places on the market. Was it a fairly chaotic time with respect to what people were using? Did the transition happen fairly quickly or was it a more drawn-out process? What designs popped up during that time do people wish had gained more traction? Essentially, what was it like to play while the whole sport was going through such a big technical upheaval?

[Ecapnation]

I was young.... 7-8 not playing yet but around it because of my father. Semis were kind of a weird thing and respected but limited to their own field of open semi. Open pump always had more people... Oddly it was like that still 93 at least the open semi had more players and in 96 we stopped open pump.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

So it definitely took awhile for pump to become less common than semi. Basically once the price of semis dropped significantly to that of lets say a mid range priced pump. The decision to go with a semi was a lot easier for a buyer, especially someone new to the sport. That and of course a used market now full of older model semis to score a sweet deal on

[Hp_lovecraft]

I remember those days well.

In the 80s, SMGs were everywhere, but fields started banning full-autos. I think by 1990, nearly all the fields around me had banned them.
But double actions were becoming pretty popular. Rapide-Comps and Gators were a very common rental. Brass Eagle double-actions were very popular. We called them "semi", but they really were not.

A big change around 89-90 was decent pumps started getting cheap. Most players were still using splats, 007s, and PGPs, and upgrading them. Bushies, Phantoms, and Snipers were way, way to expensive. so there was a large technology gap. That changed with the rebline, bloodsucker, razorback, etc. The average player could now afford decent equipment, with 7oz, direct feed, etc.

We knew of the Hurricane and Nightmare semi, but they seemed out of reach. an expensive novelty. Kinda like how the "C3" and "EVolt" were viewed. Nobody took them serious.
I remember going to a big game at "Triad NH" in 1990, and people kept hearing rumors of the "new tippmann semi". There was a buzz, some players had seen them at another event. This was pre-internet, and paintball was all word of mouth. So information trickled around kinda slow.

The someone at are field in late 1990 got a 68-Special, and it was game changing. It was no novelty. Any player with no skill can rip out a constant rip of paintballs until the tank was empty, feeding while shooting.
The field was selling them for $450. Around $900 in todays money. Alot for a teenager, so the field setup a "payment plan". Sorta a rent-to-own. haha. About 1/ 2 the field went out and bought 68-specials. They were great, though the stock hopper and 7oz was a joke. But an easy fix.

By 1991, 3rd party companies started offering SMG conversions, and by late 1991, TIppmann was also offering for $75. Gradually, other semis started trickling in, like PMI3s and automags. But now there was another technology gap between the cheaper Mavericks and Traccers, and the 1st generation semi-autos. That lasted for a couple years until guns like the Poison and Eliminator became nearly as cheap as pumps. And by the time the stingray came out, nobody really used pumps unless it was on purpose.

Those are my memories. The weird thing to me is that in 1991, the 68-special was literaly everywhere. It was easily the most common non-pump at every field. But within a couple years, they pretty much totally vanished. They were heavy, large and ineffecient. I guess they became outdated.

[Marauder_Pilot]

What kind of price gap was there between the 'average' pumps of the late '80s and early '90s and the first few widely available semis and double actions? Was it fairly significant for a long time?

[Spider!]

Here in Texas, we didn't see many Tippmanns nor Brass Eagles. Tournament-wise, I think things transitioned between the classic Nelsons and PMIs to Automags/Autocockers, year-by-year from 1988 to 1992. Is that quick? It meant a new marker almost every year. I went from a Piranha LB, to a Unibody Phantom, to an F-1 Illustrator, to an Automag. We were playing woodsball against the Boonie Rats, Tomcats, [Texas] Bushwackers and Texas Storm.

We didn't worry much about full autos in woodsball tournaments. We played a lot by ear, and tried to attack cooperatively. Anyone shooting a lot in the thick woods better bring friends. A good wingman beats full auto.

Somewhere between '93 and '96 the tournanments went to speedball format while I was out. That's also when the really high dollar cockers and mags started showing up around here (talking about you Brad Q ).


Prior to the semi's, many of the guys could autotrigger a good chunk of a 100 round hopper, so the fire and maneuver tactics didn't change much. The semis made crawling through the brush more productive. The semis did bring out the Sargeant slaughter style, giant CO2 and pod packs.

[paintballedbackin88]

Did you know Jon "Ninjon" Kinchen from the Texas Boonie Rats?

[Spider!]

Not unless he was the one with the mustache and goatee (and boonie hat of course). We seemed to find each other often on the field. No one got to hang out much then as we traveled across the state and played a one day tournament.

I've talked more with those players on AO than on the field.

[paintballedbackin88]

Tippman smg-60 was my first marker in 1988, and I used it at Field of Fire in Santa Clarita, CA when it was run by Tim Grise and Jed Burns. The field FPS limit at the time was actually 330 fps for smg 60s only, and 300 fps for all the pumps. It didn't help. My smaller balls would fall short or bounce, while they still hammered me hard. Couldn't penetrate thick brush. Decided I needed a pump.

I think I bought a Paul Vasquez Hornet with 20" inch barrel and pump mounted feed to compensate for the shortcomings of the SMG-60. Used the marker to great effect while playing at Steve Buzick's Southern Comfort in Pacoima, CA. He created the Rebline. Some of the barrel bores were actually too small, and broke paint! They had custom colors and removeable pump handles. His field had a trench littered with beer cans in the middle. Gilly played/reffed there too with the Mexican Mafia as home team.

I remember Earon Carter "shaming" me and my Hornet when we played a walk on game together. He examined it closely and was not impressed. His laugh still fuels the nightmares of my shame to this day. It was like when Vin Diesel was talking down to Paul Walker when they first meet in the first Fast and Furious, just before a race. I sold my Hornet to a buddy after that day, and asked Earon to build me my first Comp. Bought my Buzzard like 2 or 3 months later.

I would visit Earon at his shop after hours, and bring him and everyone there filipino fried chicken dinners for free. Earon would then work on my markers for free, doing whatever I asked (flex hone, rebore, whatever...) He worked with Bill "Thunder Pig" Harvey R.I.P., and Jon "Ninjon" Kinchen of the Texas Boonie Rats back then, so they got free dinners too. Bill gave me free cocobolo wood grips for my comp, telling me how it was known for hardness. Used JB weld to attach them to the frames back then, not screws. Bill also gave me free colored spring kits for my comp and buzzard. The only person I didn't buy dinner for was Dave Youngblood. He was always busy working on Earon's markers. I remember seeing him flex honing barrels at the shop one evening, after hours.

It was either Nelson's or Sheridans to me. Nelson's were easier to work on, didn't require a special tool. Made autotriggers by dremeling the trigger plate. Learned how solder direct feeds on pgps. Used Flex Hones for some reason. Broke lots of #6 power tubes and lost pump arm screws off my buzzard now and then. Felt jealous when my buddy got a new Line SI Bushmaster with removeable barrel from Henry and Ross in Reseda, while I was "stuck" with my fixed barrel comp and buzzard.

Sheridans seemed quieter to me, but were heavy and gas hogs. Heavy pump stroke, but not as bad as SL-68.

Paint was actually .68, with the occasional double feed. Didn't recall rollouts ever being a thing!

I was just fodder for all the pumps when I had my smg, as .60 cal didn't have the mass to match the distance of the huge Nelson or RP scherer. 68 cal paint. The rapid fire gave my position away, and I always lost stripper clips.

The field had great competition, and was where I played with and against some of our sport's early legends. It was not uncommon to play walk on games with the likes of Earon Carter, Bill Harvey, Termite Smith, Jessica Sparks, Dave Youngblood, and Rick Schroeder to name a few.

The Flinstones were a local team and refs, and players from teams like Gilly's Mexican Mafia, Fatal Swoop, Bushwackers, Navarone, and Mojave Green also played there.

One could also play with and against various Kamikaze shooters if you went to Sat Cong Village on any given weekend.

Socal has been home to the pump game for as long as I've been playing, and I didn't pay much attention to semis until a buddy bought an AGD automag around 1990 or 1991. I thought they were "gimmicky", and would never catch on. I think the PMI 3 came out around then, and that seemed like a solid semiautomatic marker to me vs. my buddy's automag.

I remember Glenn Palmer showing off Camille at either Sat Cong village or Field games around 1989 or 1990, during some special event.

The biggest change for me was the advent of California style constant air. A LOT of Sudden Death players, other than early Dave Youngblood, used constant air, and created the idea of laning and hosing, imo. They shot a lot of paint, relatively speaking from a 12gram player. They combined aggressive tactics with high volume, vs say the Kamikaze shooter squads who were exclusively 12gram, irrc. I was an 18 year old kid who was intimidated by those guys whenever I watched them play. Earon Carter always spoke very highly of Dave Youngblood's speed and accuracy. He did not use an autotrigger when others did, per Earon.

I took a long break around 1993, and didn't follow things too closely after that.

Found some old pics


Earon Carter and I



My first Carter comp with aluminum Carter CO2 slam changer, and proudly rocking my Carter Machine Pet Shop Boys Tournament Team All-Stars





Our team was "Strikeforce Morituri", from an old DC comic I think. "Those who are about to die."





I'm rocking the Scott goggles with gold lenses. I was shooting a McMurray and Sons Mac One Annihilator.





This gentleman's name was Jerry Yandell, Sr. I believe he played with Sudden Death, or "Those guys and that Gal Mercenaries" with Jessica Sparks




Random Pics from various fields In Socal

[Bow]

This was really fun to read. I just had lunch with Earon the other day. I'll have to show this to him the next time I see him.

[paintballedbackin88]

Please do! He will remember playing outlaw ball with the Chinese and filipino gangsters at Legg Lake in Whittier Narrows.

He complained about playing the Sunday the 49ers were playing for NFC championship I think.

[Arthur]

I possess neither the experience nor knowledge for this thread but I sincerely enjoy reading it. Thank you friends.

[Marauder_Pilot]

These are all super insightful replies, thanks guys.

I thought I was fairly up on my gear history but honestly I had no idea that there was this jumble of crazy shit that popped up in the late '80s, and I'd always kinda just assumed that stuff like the 68 Special would have wiped out most semis basically overnight, it's interesting to see that even in fairly competitive play it wasn't until the early '90s that semis even really became the 'norm' it seems.

I also had no idea that there were so many double actions in that transitional period as well. Had to go fall down a rabbit hole just to see how they even functioned. The Splatmaster Rapide is a surprisingly slick piece of technology relative to it's day after seeing how the action works.

Keep the stories coming guys, this is super interesting stuff.

[Euphie]

When I started in 2001, almost all of us locally who played outlaw ball used pumps, just a few of us had Stingrays. For our outlaw games very few people used semis because we had to drive a long way to a military surplus store to fill co2, lots of people rocking Talons, a few PGPs, and such because 12grams were easier to get. So there were pockets of pump play being primary for a long time.

A paintball shop opened locally, and they opened a field with pro-carbine rentals, started selling Tippmann 98s and doing cheap co2 fills in town and within about a three month period things went from Tigersharks, Talons and the occasional Stingray to Tippmanns and Spyders. It was brutal, being so terribly outgunned really changed the way we played even for outlaw ball away from the fields. Still it wasn't till late 2001 to early 2002 that semis really "hit" my local paintball scene.

Sometimes I wonder if there are still pockets of pump play, but something tells me the rise of E-commerce probably crushed that long ago. The only real reason why it didn't happen earlier locally is just lack of availability. If you found an old PGP at a pawn shop it was a heck of a find, way better than a Talon or other big box store guns, but now you could just hop onto amazon and get the latest and greatest.

Anyways just commenting because for me semis weren't the norm in some pockets decades after their introduction.

[vijil]

Having started in 2006, at the field I'm the OG, but on mcb I might as well have started yesterday. Fascinating stuff!

[glaman5266]

Started on X-Mas of 2002. It great, but also kinda hurts, to see people like us playing longer than some players have been alive.

[The Inflicted]

I myself did not start playing until semi-automatics were ubiquitous, but this might be helpful to people wondering about the price difference: https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/p...guns-1987-2009

Remember to right-click the links and open new windows of you want higher resolution.

[Marauder_Pilot]

Having started in 2006, at the field I'm the OG, but on mcb I might as well have started yesterday. Fascinating stuff!

Same, I started in 2003 and when I talk about the days where a Spyder Electra was hot shit people look at me like I'm crazy. But I've got nothing on tons of people here.

[gabe]

I love hearing about this subject from the perspective of people that lived through it. Having started in 2001 I missed the semi auto revolution but was present for the electro scene. Interesting how the firepower difference from pump to semi doesn't seem as drastic as the firepower wars of the early 2000's.

Another thing that's mind blowing is the amount of inflation from the 90's to now. You can look at old magazine scans and basically double the price to correct for today's dollar.

[Paintslinger16]

Remember back in the mid 80’s tourney ball was 15 man and fields where huge, lots of teams tried to use military tactics so a SMG would be paired with a pump or two and have the squads doing different things. Sniping, Flanking, attacking , defending etc.
When pinned by a SMG, it was called out, SMMIIG! And we all tried to count to the 15 shots to move on the gun nest.
of course this was countered by the SMG gunner, holding the clip and shooting air. 12 gram’s would also release air to simulate a cartridge change.
.62 was for woods ball and the lower Jules allowed SMG 325 FPS. Each new innovative idea was always banned, No CA, no AT, no SMG
Most of what we call the classic good pumps were still kits, you already had a 007 and would add a breach or bore drop kit.
the double actions Rapide or poison quickly showed how they didn’t work if you got large paint or if the paint started swelling, you just couldn’t pull the trigger.
barrel breaks in all paint was a problem, but carrying multiple squeegees like a straight shot telescopic in tube was more important then pretty much any gun sometimes.
Tippmanns were all over the place, but Automags and PMI were Midwest to east coast and Cockers were West at first.
I bought a early auto cocker and of course it leaked, I drove two hours and took it to Caleb Strong of PMI Pirannas and Paintball Game Supply in Victor NY and was told that’s a Cali gun we don’t work on them here.
The Great Mag and cocker war was getting a late start in NYS.
Walk on play against the Not quite yet Pro teams happened all the time, I played Wolfs Lair the year it opened in ‘88 the origins of the AA’s and Piranna, Skippy Posse later know as Lockout would be there just like we were playing open games.

[Dusty Bottoms]

I first started buying paintball magazines around ‘92, and first played in ‘95. In those early magazines, pumps were still the standard for a lot of people but all the classic early 90’s mechs had started to appear and gain traction. Just a couple years later it seemed like only the budget friendly pumps were being pushed as a viable option for those on a tight budget. I always remembered a drawn ad with a player in the woods pointing a remote Automag with a red dot sight. That looked so GI Joe to me that I was hooked! I never even considered a pump when I was first learning about the game, nor when I bought my first marker in ‘96. If anything, we already felt wildly outgunned even with semi-auto ProLites and Spyders against mags and cockers, no need to compound that further. What’s funny is that the sadness that I’m sure a lot of pump players felt as their style of play and markers of choice were pushed out of the mainstream game of paintball later also happened to me when electros took over, pushed out mechs, and the game morphed into speedball format as the dominant style of play.

[iamthelazerviking]

I think it's super cool you were buying magazines and had an interest years before playing

[Dusty Bottoms]

Thanks! A neighborhood boyscout had played with his troop and showed me his leftover paintballs and his magazines. I knew it was right up my alley and started reading up! Took a few years to convince my mom to let me play, though.

[MrBarraclough]

Looks like you and I had very similar experiences, I just started reading APG a year or more later (Dec. 93) and started playing a year before you.

I remember those drawn ads! They were often whole page or even two page spreads. That dude with the remote Minimag, expansion chamber, and red dot indeed looked badass (I also remember a small figure in the background who looked like he was fleeing the area). At one point in the late 90s my setup was remarkably similar to that, red dot and all, and I felt a little like I had fulfilled a dream.

[Spider!]

I also had no idea that there were so many double actions in that transitional period as well. Had to go fall down a rabbit hole just to see how they even functioned. The Splatmaster Rapide is a surprisingly slick piece of technology relative to it's day after seeing how the action works.

Kind of like real steel, pulling a double action trigger is a lot of work after a few dozen shots. I never saw any Brass Eagle or Rapides while they were relatively new. The Rapide in particular was noted to wear a blister on your finger if you played it hard. A back bottle phantom could easily put out more paint.

Trigger pull fatigue is where all of the double triggers came from. You didn't "fan" the trigger, as much as you alternated or rested different fingers. "Fanning" is an electronic thing. "Walking" was a relatively slow alternation of regular trigger pulls.

[MrBarraclough]

Started playing in the Spring of 1994 after stumbling across the December 1993 issue of APG (Fred Shultz on the cover) while out Christmas shopping. The first time I played was at a commerical field where you could rent a pump for $25 or a VM-68 for $35. I was 12 and paying my own way, so I played with some vaguely Trracer-like pump that first day. [Edit: In retrospect, I think it likely was a Kingman Hammer. I distinctly remember being surprised it was silver instead of all black.] Within a few months I bought my own marker, a beat-to-death 68 Special with a 7oz tank and Indian Springs XL loader. I soon found a semi-outlaw group playing on private land in my hometown. Usually anywhere from a dozen to a couple dozen people who showed up twice a month. Ages ranged from 12-13 year old kids like me to middle aged guys in their 50s. Almost all guys but the occasional lady. Probably at least 2/3rds of the players had semis, so still a decent number of pumps of every description. The core group of guys who ran the games all had Palmer Typhoons or Strokers. To keep things fair and affordable for everyone, we always played hopperball, so even those of us with semis were hesitant to press our advantage too much. Semis were more common and more convenient, but on that field at least a pump did not seem too much of a handicap.

I distinctly remember one time being in a small squad that had taken the long way around and managed to get deep into the other team's end of the field. We were single file, and as we were about to emerge from a gulley and make a run at their flag station, the lady who happened to be in the lead turned around, pointed at my marker and asked "Is that a semi?" I nodded, and she said "How about you go first, then?" to which I obliged. I wish I could remember what happened after that, but only that moment sticks out in my memory. I had been playing for a year at most, probably less, and had played with and against enough competent pump players that it had not occurred to me to think of myself as being at any significant advantage. At one point a year or two later, I happened to be in possession of a unibody Phantom that I was trying to sell on behalf of its owner, and I didn't think anything of playing a few games with it instead of my usual semi.

Looking back, though, in the mid-90s the pump players I encountered were usually either older guys who had been playing since the late 80s and felt little need to switch, or were broke kids who could only muster up enough cash for something like a Tiger Shark. I might've bought a pump myself if I had not somehow found out about a local tournament player who was looking to sell his old starter gear, which is how I ended up with my 68 Special with ground-off sights and missing one take-down screw. This was the twilight of the mixed pump and semi era, though. By the end of 1995 I had switched up to an Automag, I had friends with Autocockers, and such "high end" semis were becoming more and more prevalent even at our little outlaw field. Spyders and Stingrays put semis into the hands of kids who a couple of years before would have been able to afford only pumps. Without their dominance of the newbie-on-a-budget market anymore, pumps became an endangered species in mixed play pretty quickly. By the end of the 90s, they were pretty damned rare, especially by the time the early electros had started to trickle down into recreational woodsball. At least, that's how it was on the northern Gulf Coast, in my recollection.