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Thread: History and back-end information of the "little guys"

  1. #1
    Insider imped4now's Avatar
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    History and back-end information of the "little guys"

    Hey guys, I'm a paintball nerd and enjoy knowing a little more about the companies that turn these damn products out. In particular, now defunct companies, small ones, or ones that are barely hanging on. Such as:

    Vanguard
    Infinity
    FEP
    WDP/APS
    Regency
    Machine
    Tribal
    ICE
    Action Markers

    Feel free to add to the list, I know there are plenty more.

    How did they begin?
    Who was involved?
    Did they evolve from or into other companies?
    What are they doing now?
    OlllllllO

  2. #2
    the one part about AM that i do know was that the WGP lawsuit was not the reason they went goodbye. it was a family business and the family was having issues, and they used the WGP lawsuit to declare themselves over. it was the popular thing to say because of AKA and AGD.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  3. #3
    Wdp is a bit different then the rest of those companies made a much larger mark on the sport at least the way I see it.

    Started in 96 I think made the angel led which out of the 2 electronic markers out at that time they had the one that really set the industry standard.

    Pvi is the other company that is interesting.

    CCI is an interesting company though they are still around.

  4. #4
    Insider Davros's Avatar
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    imped4now: Great idea to try and gather this info.

    Have no idea if you would care about these companies, but I would like to add Fastech/Feral action sports technology (FAST) and Brass Eagle to that list.

    I still use my F-1 Illustrator today so I have interest in knowing how things went/ended with FAST. When I say brass Eagle I mean the real Brass Eagle, Jaguars, Barracudas, Nightmares, Cobras, King Cobras, etc, not the Daisy owned, plastic, craptastic Brass Eagle. A local guy worked for them when he was living in Toronto in the late 1980's/early 1990's. Maybe I should just ask him. :-)

    Regardless of the company, very interested in the history, especially as I was gone from the game for so long.

  5. #5
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    I too love the idea of this thread.

    I am interested in the PGI, Airstar, War Machine progeny as well.


    If I am not mistaken Vanguard was formed from the remnants of what was Lucky UK. The creed featured the AAV that lucky used to sell.

    Tribal is another one that kind of confuses me. I seem to recall that they were tied to MacDev somehow. Like MD used to supply them parts or something and Tribal closed in ~99 or so and then the original cyborg was more or less a continuation of the tribal guns brought wholly under the MD umbrella. Not confident on any of that.

    FEP, like Zodiac, was a Chris Cole design based company. There was some interesting stuff around him, but I'm not sure about the details. From what I seem to recall, Machine got it's start trying to reuse parts from the sour zodiac deal. It's a Mike Spurlock company, so I'm sure there's a story.

    PVI was the company behind the shoebox shocker, right?

  6. #6
    Yes pvi was the shoebox in 1996 if I have my dates correctly. They were always somewhat inbed with smartparts as they came with an all a's barrel from the factory. Then smart parts licensed the marker and bought everything out right at some point but some of the connected guys from then would know that story far better.

    I thought the spurlocks had something to do with the tribal company?

    Also I know the original cyborg was made from Merlin extrusion. I always thought it was macdevs version of the aka evil m that never made it to production.

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    The tribal was almost an identical design to the original cyborg (not a bad thing). MacDev was one of the only companies that made parts for it... I specifically remember the red valve being a hot item. I think that Tribal was a BBT thing.

  8. #8
    the problem with the tribals was kinda like ICD problems, bad regs, low quality seals in them etc etc.

    the design was great, and actually, of the single finger triggered electros, was my favorite i've shot so far. also, single finger electros need to make a come back, they are awesome.
    social conservatism: the mortal fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

  9. #9
    Insider imped4now's Avatar
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    Thanks guys, this should be a fun thread. Yes, I know that WDP was a larger player, as was SP. But I'm sure there's some great history that's little known to us little guys. I expect Simon and Jack to drop some knowledge here.

    And cockerpunk, I agree with you. I love single trigger electros. I'd love to find one for my Viking. Additionally, Nummech now makes a single trigger kit for the Axe Pro and I've been restraining myself from picking one up since they released it. The single trigger is literally the only reason I want to pick one up.
    OlllllllO

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by ironyusa View Post
    The tribal was almost an identical design to the original cyborg (not a bad thing). MacDev was one of the only companies that made parts for it... I specifically remember the red valve being a hot item. I think that Tribal was a BBT thing.
    Its not hard to do a stack tubed gun. Remember, ICD was out with the B2K in 1999, pre-dating the tribals. Also, Macdev, i believe as this is an assumption with no real facta, as they took B2Ks and made private label Sonic B2Ks, they used that as a base for the Cyborgs. In 04/05 ICD was pushing the overseas cut Promasters, the B2K4 did not lend itself to any real PL tuning, and i am guessing that places like Macdev wanted more say in what, how and why on building a gun, used the overall design and made their Borg.

    So you can not truly say that tribals, though had a few advantages over ICD (cocker threads, colours and marketing) that really pushed the market for that $500 range of guns, was the sole progenitor of the platform, as Timmys stemmed from Bob Longs work with ICD.

    As for the red valve. B2Ks, cockers and Tribals all could use it. I think the tribals for an aftermarket valve, you had the red valve, maybe the check it or a couple ultra rare ones. So a hot item, it was the only item they could get.

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