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An overview of the game of paintball

Paintball is a sport in which participantspurchased a pistol and had a duel in what
use compressed air guns called markers tobecame the very first game of paintball.
shoot paintballs (marble-sized, .68 caliber,Gaines  won.
gelatin capsules filled with colored
polyethylene glycol "paint") at otherThe friends quickly realized they had a
players. It is in essence a complex form ofcreated something special. In the following
tag, as players struck with paintballs duringmonths, they devised basic rules for the game
the  game  are  eliminated.fashioned along the lines of capture the
flag, and invited friends and a writer from
Paintball draws a wide array of playersSports Illustrated to play. They called their
worldwide, and the Sporting Goodsgame "Survival." The article on paintball was
Manufacturer's Association estimates thatpublished in the June 1980 issue of Sports
approximately 10 million people play annuallyIllustrated. As national interest in the game
in  the  United  States  alone.steadily built, Gaines and Noel formed a
company, National Survival Game, and entered
Insurance statistics show that paintball isa contract with Nelson Paint Company to be
one of the safest sports in existence, saferthe sole distributor of their paintball
even  than  golf.equipment.
Games can be played either indoors orThereafter, they licensed to franchisees in
outdoors and take various forms. Rules forother states the right to sell their guns,
playing paintball vary widely, with mostpaint, and goggles. Due to their monopoly on
designed to ensure that participants enjoythe market, they turned a profit in only six
the  sport  in  a  safe  environment.months.
The sport requires a significant amount ofThe first games of paintball were very
equipment and has even developed its owndifferent  from  modern  paintball  games.
slang.
Nelspot pistols were the only gun available.
History Paintball began as a simple huntingThey used 12-gram CO2 cartridges, held at
game between two friends in the woods ofmost 12 rounds, and had to be recocked after
Charlotteville, Virginia. in 1976, Hayeseach  shot.
Noel, a stock trader and his friend Charles
Gaines, a writer, were walking home throughDedicated paintball masks had not yet been
the woods and chatting about Gaines' recentcreated, so players wore shop glasses that
trip to Africa and the thrill of huntingleft the rest of their faces exposed. The
buffalo. Eager to recreate the adrenalinefirst paintballs were oil-based and thus not
rush that came with the thrill of the hunt,water soluble; "turpentine parties" were
and inspired by Richard Connell's The Mostcommon after a day of play. Games often
Dangerous Game, the two friends came up withlasted for hours as players stalked each
the idea to create a game where they couldother, and since each player had only a
stalk  and  hunt  each  other.limited  number of rounds, shooting was rare.
In the months following that fateful day, theBetween 1981 and 1983, rival manufacturers
friends talked about what sorts of qualitiesbegan to create competing products, and it
and characteristics made for a good hunterwas during those years that the sport took
and  a  good  survivalist.off. Paintball technology gradually developed
as manufacturers added a front-mounted pump
They were stumped, however, on how to devisein order to make recocking easier, then
a test of those skills. It wasn't until areplaced the 12-gram cartridges with larger
year and a half later that George Butler, aair tanks, commonly referred to as "constant
friend of theirs, showed them a paintball gunair".These basic innovations were later
he had found in an agricultural catalog. Thefollowed by gravity feeds and 45-degree
gun was a Nelspot 007 marker manufactured byelbows to facilitate loading from the hopper.
the Nelson Paint Company and was used byEventually, the manual "pump" marker was
cattlemen to mark cows. Noel and Gaines eachreplaced altogether by semi-automatics.



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