History of Paintball and the paintball marker

History of Paintball

Paintballs were first created in the 1960’s by the Nelson paint Company who were asked by the US Forestry Service to provide a reliable method of marking trees from a distance. Charles Nelson came up with the ideas of using gelatine capsule that were then used for horse pills and squirting paint into them. The end result was a pellet that was stable enough to be fired out of a gun and remain intact until it hit a target. Along with the Forestry Service, ranchers also began to use the pellets for marking stray cattle.

The original paintball gun (known as a marker) used for firing the paint pellets was manufactured by Crossman and marketed as the “Nelspot 707” a handgun very similar to the Crossman 150, which is a .22 pellet gun. After a few years of manufacturing the Nelspot 707 marker, Crossman decided to pull out from production as the sales were insufficient to make it profitable. This left Nelson without a marker for firing their paintballs, so they turned to Daisy another airgun manufacturer to design a new marker. In 1972 this came in the form of the Daisy ’Splotchmarker’ which was patented by Daisy and marketed by Nelson as the ‘Nel-Spot 007’.

Between May 1976-1977 Hayes Noel (a stockbroker) and Charles Gaines (a writer) were discussing over drinks the factors that would influence survival in the woods. They talked about the idea of forming some kind of stalking game and wondered whether being a successful business man would translate into better survival instincts than someone who was trained in survival like a soldier or hunter. After a friend of theirs came across a Nel-Spot 007 paintball marker in a farming magazine, Hayes Noel and Bob Gurnsey (a ski shop owner) wrote up the rules ready for their first game.

It would take until 1981 for the first paintball game to be arranged, Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel, and Charles Gaines located and tested a Nel-Spot 007 paintball marker and put out invitations for the first game. Nine people plus Bob, Hayes and Charles each paid $175 to cover the cost of equipment food and beverages for the game. The night before the game they all met up and discussed what they felt would be the outcome of the following day’s game. It was a general consensus that those from the City wouldn’t do very well, while the hunters would.

On June 7th 1981 the first paintball game took place with the following 12 players: Lionel Atwill a sports writer, Bob Jones a novelist and sports writer, Ken Barrett a New York venture capitalist, Bob Carlson a brain surgeon, Joe Drinon a stock-broker, Charles Gaines, Jerome Gary a film producer, Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel, Carl Sandquist a contracting estimator, Ronnie Simpkins a farmer and Ritchie White a forester.

The object of the game was to capture flags, there were 4 based spread out over an 80 acre cross country ski area. Each base had a marshal and 12 different coloured flags, one for each player. The first player to collect all four of their flags without being shot would be the winner. Ritchie White, the New Hampshire forester was to win the first game, he did it without firing a single shot he simply crept around and collected all his flags without anyone seeing him. Dr. Carlson the brain surgeon managed to tag 5 players one of which was Noel who had managed to capture 3 flags and was on his fourth.

In October 1981, the second paintball game took place in Alabama and this time was opened to the public.

March 1982 the world’s first commercial paintball field was opened by Bob Gurnsey in New Hampshire the game was marketed as ’National Survival Game’ (NSG) with equipment provided by the Nelson Paint Company.

April 1982 the first New York outdoor paintball field was opened in Rochester by Caleb Strong. The field used PMI (Pursuit Marketing Inc.) equipment.

PMI was founded by Jeff Perlmutter and David Freeman who both tried paintball and liked the sport. They initially tried working with NSG but thought they could do better on their own, so they contracted the Benjamin Sheridan Air Rifle Company, who already manufactured high quality air rifles. Benjamin Sheridan designed and manufactured the PMI-1 a quality/reliable paintball marker made exclusively for the PMI brand.

In 1983 the first NSG national championships were held in a 30 acre forest in Grantham New Hampshire, 8 teams competed 6 from the US and 2 from Canada. Each team comprised of 12 players with the object of the game being to capture a flag. A Canadian team “The Unknown Rebels” from NSG London Ontario scooped a prize of $3,000 for winning the game, with the runners up receiving a prize of $1,000. The first Canadian outdoor paintball field also opened in Toronto in this year.

1984 brings Paintball to Australia under the name of Skirmish Games. The first successfully mass produced paintball marker called the “Splatmaster” was introduced by NSG.

In 1985 England gets its first outdoor paintball field. Paintball fields also evolve into smaller faster playing fields, which encourage players to use a higher paint volume.

In 1988 the IPPA (International Painball Players Association) a non profit organisation dedicated to the education, growth and safety of the sport of paintball is founded.

1991 Paintball is introduced to European countries including France and Denmark.

1992-93 The NPPL (National Professional Paintball League) was founded.