Having pass a month fence with no end in vision , Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel decided to resolve their conflict the old - fashioned agency . Theyagreedto a gun duel at 20 rate .
It was the late 1970s and Gaines , a writer and wing fisherman best known for authoringPumping Iron , a Word afterwards turned intoa documentarythat aid usher Arnold Schwarzenegger to superstardom , had been verbally sparring with his friend Noel about who would be better - outfit as a survivalist . Gainesbelievedsomeone with outdoors skills like himself would stand out . Noel , a Wall Street stockbroker , thought his urban instincts wouldprovesuperior .
After going back and forth like this while vacation on Martha ’s Vineyard in Massachusetts , Gaines returned home to New Hampshire and make out something in an agricultural catalog . It was the Nel - Spot 007 , a gun power by carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) gas and used to mark trees or kine using a gelatin ball filled with oil colour - based rouge . Gaines thought it would make for an interesting combat simulator . alternatively of essay survivalist skills with ammunition , they could test it with globs of rouge .
After find the guns , Gaines and Noel engaged in a affaire d’honneur that Gaines won — this accord to Gaines — and also sneak around in the woods hop to snipe the other , a situation which both men later said they had acquire the upper hired man in .
These at odds story failed to settle their argument , and so the two friends decided a large , more involved experiment was in order . strictly by stroke , they create the biz of paintball in the process .
Weapons that shoot projectiles using compressed air are nothing new . In the 1940s , Britain ’s commercial freighter shipsusedsteam - powered cannon to launch grenade at enemy aircraft . When they were bored , the sailors used the carom to shoot potatoes or beer bottles instead . Much later , sport teams would adoptT - shirt cannonspowered by the same principle to dispense apparel to rooter in the upper decks .
Theideato use CO2 for rouge come from the Nelson Paint Company in the 1960s . Hoping to help foresters with marking Tree that were n’t easily accessible on foot , the distributor marketed the Nel - Spot 007 , which shot the gelatin balls with a reverberating splat . Farmers also used them to indicate cattle that had been bred . ( Because the key was used for scoring , the guns were and typically are still called paintball markers , not paintball guns . )
By the time Gaines became aware of the equipment in 1979 or 1980 , it still had no hardheaded use of goods and services outside of farming intent . Along with Noel and another ally , a ski shop owner named Bob Gurnsey , the trio decided to coiffure a scrap simulator using the Nel - Spot 007 . The affaire d’honneur had proven that being hit with the paintball resulted in no serious injury . ( Gaines reportedly essay it on his married woman , Shelby , as well , who account that “ It did n’t suffer much . ” ) Gurnsey developed a rudimentary set of rule for the competition , which would see the three man and nine other rival essay to capture flag from four stations in a 100 - Accho field in Henniker , New Hampshire , a land site not far from Gaines ’s home . The object would be to grab the flags and head for a premarked exit without being snap .
In orderliness to maintain the central amour propre of their debate , Gaines and Noel tried to recruit a crossbreeding - subdivision of personality for the event . There were outdoorsmen like a forester and Vietnam old hand along with would - be urban tacticians like a trauma surgeon and an investing banker . All were armed with the Nel - Spot 007 , goggles , camouflage , paintballs , CO2 cartridges , a compass , and a mathematical function .
The competitor was held on June 27 , 1981 . For two hours , the men stalk around the premise , lurking behind leaf and doing their best to seize the flags without being bombarded by paintballs . Gaines grabbed two flag before have into a stand - off with a Green Beret , who was holed up in an abandoned woodshed . The trauma surgeon wound up shooting nearly half of the 12 players by himself . But in the ending , it was the arboriculturist , Ritchie White , who emerge the master , use a stealth strategy that allow him to covertly grab all the flags and get out without open fire a individual shot .
Did the event dissolve the debate between Gaines and Noel ? Not really . But they were having too much playfulness to handle . So was Bob Jones , a participant and author forSports Illustratedwho issue a account on the competition in 1981 . Along with other coverage fromTIMEandSports Afield , Gaines , Noel , and Gurnsey were inundated with letters and requests for more information about the formula of the plot and the necessary equipment .
Sensing a business opportunity , the three formed the National Survival Game , a business devoted to the burgeoning amateur activity . Gurnsey continue to refine the rules while the others assembled outfit consisting of the Nel - Spot 007 and the paintball . Gaines was capable to negociate a deal with the Nelson Paint Company to licence the gunslinger and ammunition for non - agrarian purposes .
shortly , they were licensing the National Survival Game brand to franchisees , who opened paintball fields and keep back devise competitions . By 1982 , the National Survival Game was promoting a World Championship , and enthusiast were modifying the weapon to include pump - action loading , larger cartridge clip , and automatic firing . Because other administration besides National Survival Game were popping up , the more generic name ofpaintballwas introduced . More significantly , the paint became water - base rather than oil colour - based for easier clean - up .
While paintball explode in popularity throughout the 1980s , not everyone was on board . In New Jersey , the ordnance wereconsideredfirearms due to their power to shoot projectiles at velocity . To acquire a paintball marking , one demand a firearms permission . And even if you had one , you might still leave yourself opened to legal problems if you used it to “ shoot ” at another human being .
The issue was n’t answer until 1988 , when a paintball enthusiast appoint Raymond Gongsuedthe state ’s attorney general and Monmouth County public prosecutor John Kaye to remove the weapons from the New Jersey Gun Control Act . Judge Alvin Milberg require for a demonstration and catch as a human target was strike roughly a twelve times without suffering hurt . The defense also proved the CO2 magazine used in a paintball marker was not the combining weight of a cartridge used in a veridical firearm , a term used to describe ammo . Gongwonand was capable to open his own paintball field .
Gaines sell his part in National Survival Game ahead of time on , leaving the commercial enterprise to Noel and Gurnsey . The activity has since grown far beyond their initial ambitiousness to decide a friendly disputation , with playersspendingupwards of $ 169 million annually on equipment . Despite the inherently belligerent nature , it does n’t seem to be especially bad , with just 0.2 accidental injury reported per 1000 participants . While not quite as popular as it was in the early 2000s , there ’s still raft of requirement to shew survival skills with one well - target paintball .
