Get to Know: The Trendsetter
Introducing Anthony D'Ambrosio, or Ttwo, the driving force behind the legendary Boston Paintball's custom line of markers and gear
I've known Anthony for a number of years now, and am lucky enough to call him a friend. I thought that it might be interesting to pull back the curtain at the legendary Boston Paintball, home of the Twister, and pick the brain behind their custom work. We also went into all things Boston Paintball, including Team USA, Ninja Turtles, Aardvark, Planet Eclipse, and bitcoin.
Fair warning: You may want grab a drink, and maybe order a pizza. This is long and will take some time, but I hope you enjoy it. Let's jump right in.
Fair warning: You may want grab a drink, and maybe order a pizza. This is long and will take some time, but I hope you enjoy it. Let's jump right in.
Ttwo as a wee lad
How long have you been playing paintball, and how did you get into the game?
So I started playing when I was nine or 10 years old. I went on a company outing was my father's company. He owned an engineering company and still does to this day. They brought all of their their kids out, along with a lot of the guys that worked there.
I remember it was at Canobie Paintball in Windham, New Hampshire---that field is now defunct. It's it's been closed for about seven or eight years, but at the time was the longest running paintball field in the world. I think Greg Hastings played his first game there, and the Wild Geese, a very historic New England team, played out of there. It was a pretty popular field, and it was very close to Henniker, New Hampshire where the first game of paintball was played. So it was really it was in the cradle of civilization of the birth of paintball. So looking back, I'm so pleased I've ever got to play there.
It was the winter and I had snow up to my knees. I think we were using Tippmann SL pumps or something. And we were getting every other ball out of the guns---maybe. But it was me and my brother, who is a year younger than me. And after that, I pretty much casually played through school. I really picked playing up quite a bit more when I got into high school, and got more into tournaments and things like that, which opened the door to me to get into the industry.
I started working Boston Paintball in 2003, so I've been with the company now for about 17 years. But I actually had bought my first paintball gun from Boston paintball in 1992 when they opened so I've literally been a customer or involved in Boston Paintball since they started 28 years ago.
I have to ask---what was your first paintball gun?
Oh boy, ah, it was a Maverick, I believe. And I remember taking it home and taking it apart...and then it wouldn't work. I think it was a Maverick. It was definitely a pump, a nelson pump. I took it apart and then it would not work after that.
And couple years later, I ended up finding it and putting it back together again, and now I have the gun downstairs on my workbench, So yeah, I'll say humble beginnings. Then, you know, the usual. You get a Spyder [Editor's note: Yep, that's my first gun] and things like that.
It wasn't really until I really started at Boston that I really got my first real electronic gun, which was a Matrix. That was in 2003, so like a DM3---I don't want to say that because I know that's not the proper terminology for it---but it was when Dye first released the Matrix, the premium marker.
And back then you got a lot of hand-me-down guns from various players in Boston Paintball Factory Team second-hand, so I think I had a DM for awhile for after that. But yeah, after that I was playing tournaments, and moved onto a shocker, then got into Planet guns. After that it was pretty much Planet and Dye guns from there on out for me.
So I started playing when I was nine or 10 years old. I went on a company outing was my father's company. He owned an engineering company and still does to this day. They brought all of their their kids out, along with a lot of the guys that worked there.
I remember it was at Canobie Paintball in Windham, New Hampshire---that field is now defunct. It's it's been closed for about seven or eight years, but at the time was the longest running paintball field in the world. I think Greg Hastings played his first game there, and the Wild Geese, a very historic New England team, played out of there. It was a pretty popular field, and it was very close to Henniker, New Hampshire where the first game of paintball was played. So it was really it was in the cradle of civilization of the birth of paintball. So looking back, I'm so pleased I've ever got to play there.
It was the winter and I had snow up to my knees. I think we were using Tippmann SL pumps or something. And we were getting every other ball out of the guns---maybe. But it was me and my brother, who is a year younger than me. And after that, I pretty much casually played through school. I really picked playing up quite a bit more when I got into high school, and got more into tournaments and things like that, which opened the door to me to get into the industry.
I started working Boston Paintball in 2003, so I've been with the company now for about 17 years. But I actually had bought my first paintball gun from Boston paintball in 1992 when they opened so I've literally been a customer or involved in Boston Paintball since they started 28 years ago.
I have to ask---what was your first paintball gun?
Oh boy, ah, it was a Maverick, I believe. And I remember taking it home and taking it apart...and then it wouldn't work. I think it was a Maverick. It was definitely a pump, a nelson pump. I took it apart and then it would not work after that.
And couple years later, I ended up finding it and putting it back together again, and now I have the gun downstairs on my workbench, So yeah, I'll say humble beginnings. Then, you know, the usual. You get a Spyder [Editor's note: Yep, that's my first gun] and things like that.
It wasn't really until I really started at Boston that I really got my first real electronic gun, which was a Matrix. That was in 2003, so like a DM3---I don't want to say that because I know that's not the proper terminology for it---but it was when Dye first released the Matrix, the premium marker.
And back then you got a lot of hand-me-down guns from various players in Boston Paintball Factory Team second-hand, so I think I had a DM for awhile for after that. But yeah, after that I was playing tournaments, and moved onto a shocker, then got into Planet guns. After that it was pretty much Planet and Dye guns from there on out for me.
Finishing up a custom gun run
When did you start working at Boston Paintball? Why did you leave, and why did you come back? What brought you back to Boston Paintball?
Oh boy. So I actually had a couple of different things going on. So, at first, as with everyone at Boston Paintball, you start as a referee. So when I started, I was doing that. And since I knew the guys anyway, I would come into the shop and just hang out for a long, long time. I was also going to school at the time, taking some classes, and working other jobs on the side, too. So it wasn't really my primary like thing.
Ironically enough, when I started, one of their longtime employees had was leaving and he was kind of their computer guy. So, I think word got through the grapevine that I kind of knew what I was doing with computers. And at first it was, "Hey, we need to you to make a flyer. We want you to design t-shirts." And then I was working on the website. So I kind of did all of that.
My positions kind of evolved from there. So I was moved up front, and doing that a lot more than I was refereeing. I kind of evolved into a manager roll and learned pretty much the craft from the amazing guys like John Vitale and Anthony Vitale. So yeah, that's pretty much how I evolved into a working in a manager position.
From there, I rotated through different locations, and Boston had me managing or running locations. So I think I'm one of the only employees that's worked at every single location that they've had minus the downtown Boston location and an old Saulsbury location. Other than that, I pretty much worked at all of them.
In 2007 or 2008, I had the opportunity to buy some property and at the time, I was working still at Boston Paintball as a full time employee. But it just wasn't in the budget and they didn't really have what I needed salary-wise to get the property and start my life with with my now-wife. We were trying to move on out of our one bedroom apartment. So I got another job through a friend that was also an employee of Boston Paintball. It was just part-time job working for a telecommunications company. So I was there and I was still doing part-time work at Boston paintball.
I was putting in really long days. I'd leave for work about 6:30 in the morning the other job and then go right from there to Boston, and I was usually there until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. I would do that a couple times a week. I was doing just their graphic design and product design, some really low level stuff. But I did that for like six or seven years. I guess it was kind of a nice transition in leaving Boston Paintball for a couple of years.
So, Anthony Vitale is the owner of our company He's been the owner and founder of Boston Paintball since its inception in 1992. The other owner is Matt. They are partners. Matt handles more the the money and business side of things. He's a little bit more detached from the day-to-day operations in terms of paintball stuff. And he's definitely more hands-on and more of a mentor to me than anything. He reached out to me and said, "We want to bring you back."
At this point, Boston Paintball was really just running fields. They were running an indoor field and an outdoor field, which I believe at the time they were just kind of getting up and running. And they also had another location that was an indoor and outdoor. So for about 10 years or so, they really dedicated their time and efforts and money to making a better paintball experience and getting more people into the game.
Now, the custom paintball experience obviously Boston Paintball started really with building custom guns. What put them on the map were the custom Autocockers [Editor's note: God's Chosen Gun], but that kind of died off obviously with acquisition of WGP by KEE, and soon after the second-hand support for that aftermarket died. So they transitioned and went into developing their fields and stores.
I was always a fan of Boston Paintball's custom work. It's really kept me involved in paintball. It's what I absolutely love. So when Anthony approached me and said, "Hey, we really want to start an online store. I'd like to bring you on board and do this."
At the time, I was doing a lot of heavy graphic design stuff for Boston paintball. So, I came back and launched the site for them.
Oh boy. So I actually had a couple of different things going on. So, at first, as with everyone at Boston Paintball, you start as a referee. So when I started, I was doing that. And since I knew the guys anyway, I would come into the shop and just hang out for a long, long time. I was also going to school at the time, taking some classes, and working other jobs on the side, too. So it wasn't really my primary like thing.
Ironically enough, when I started, one of their longtime employees had was leaving and he was kind of their computer guy. So, I think word got through the grapevine that I kind of knew what I was doing with computers. And at first it was, "Hey, we need to you to make a flyer. We want you to design t-shirts." And then I was working on the website. So I kind of did all of that.
My positions kind of evolved from there. So I was moved up front, and doing that a lot more than I was refereeing. I kind of evolved into a manager roll and learned pretty much the craft from the amazing guys like John Vitale and Anthony Vitale. So yeah, that's pretty much how I evolved into a working in a manager position.
From there, I rotated through different locations, and Boston had me managing or running locations. So I think I'm one of the only employees that's worked at every single location that they've had minus the downtown Boston location and an old Saulsbury location. Other than that, I pretty much worked at all of them.
In 2007 or 2008, I had the opportunity to buy some property and at the time, I was working still at Boston Paintball as a full time employee. But it just wasn't in the budget and they didn't really have what I needed salary-wise to get the property and start my life with with my now-wife. We were trying to move on out of our one bedroom apartment. So I got another job through a friend that was also an employee of Boston Paintball. It was just part-time job working for a telecommunications company. So I was there and I was still doing part-time work at Boston paintball.
I was putting in really long days. I'd leave for work about 6:30 in the morning the other job and then go right from there to Boston, and I was usually there until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. I would do that a couple times a week. I was doing just their graphic design and product design, some really low level stuff. But I did that for like six or seven years. I guess it was kind of a nice transition in leaving Boston Paintball for a couple of years.
So, Anthony Vitale is the owner of our company He's been the owner and founder of Boston Paintball since its inception in 1992. The other owner is Matt. They are partners. Matt handles more the the money and business side of things. He's a little bit more detached from the day-to-day operations in terms of paintball stuff. And he's definitely more hands-on and more of a mentor to me than anything. He reached out to me and said, "We want to bring you back."
At this point, Boston Paintball was really just running fields. They were running an indoor field and an outdoor field, which I believe at the time they were just kind of getting up and running. And they also had another location that was an indoor and outdoor. So for about 10 years or so, they really dedicated their time and efforts and money to making a better paintball experience and getting more people into the game.
Now, the custom paintball experience obviously Boston Paintball started really with building custom guns. What put them on the map were the custom Autocockers [Editor's note: God's Chosen Gun], but that kind of died off obviously with acquisition of WGP by KEE, and soon after the second-hand support for that aftermarket died. So they transitioned and went into developing their fields and stores.
I was always a fan of Boston Paintball's custom work. It's really kept me involved in paintball. It's what I absolutely love. So when Anthony approached me and said, "Hey, we really want to start an online store. I'd like to bring you on board and do this."
At the time, I was doing a lot of heavy graphic design stuff for Boston paintball. So, I came back and launched the site for them.
The Boston Paintball Reaper
What was the first custom designed marker that you had a hand in designing? What were you responsible for with that first design? Do you have any specific principles that you try to follow, like never repeating a pattern or going beyond producing a limited number?
It was working on a gun called the Reaper.
So we had made a custom, graphic ano gun that really started to be a thing. We did a custom GEO 3 that was to be used by one of our high-level divisional teams called the Reaper. We did graphic design on that I actually worked with a friend of a friend that worked over at DC Comics. So he came in and did the original artwork for it and then I did the coloring and then Bostonized it. I kind of converted the skull to a tribal, and things like that. And we were really were trying to flex our muscles a little bit and figure out how distribution would work, and really dipping our feet back into online sales.
We really didn't have an online store at the time. So at that point, we started developing Committed Paintball. Boston Paintball's motto has always been Committed since 1992. So we decided Committed would be very good name, a fitting name. So we decided to go that route.
Anthony actually invited me to go to Paintball Extravaganza at the time. That was back in 2012 and I was still at the other job. But what he said was, "We'd really want to bring you back. Why don't you just come, we can kind of go over some stuff and whatever your focus and direction for the site's going to be." And I just really said, "I want to do custom. I want to put us back on the map. You know, no one's doing custom right now." There was really nothing other than the Dark GEO. I think it was the only gun that was out at the time. So I thought it would be a kind of a good place to dip our feet back in the market wasn't all that saturated, and I didn't think it would be too difficult to do it.
So when we went, the Reaper had already been out for a little while on the online store, but we really wanted to populate the store with some stuff. We were kind of looking for a custom gun, a custom milled gun. It would be the first milled gun to be done since 2008 or 2009, somewhere in there.
It was working on a gun called the Reaper.
So we had made a custom, graphic ano gun that really started to be a thing. We did a custom GEO 3 that was to be used by one of our high-level divisional teams called the Reaper. We did graphic design on that I actually worked with a friend of a friend that worked over at DC Comics. So he came in and did the original artwork for it and then I did the coloring and then Bostonized it. I kind of converted the skull to a tribal, and things like that. And we were really were trying to flex our muscles a little bit and figure out how distribution would work, and really dipping our feet back into online sales.
We really didn't have an online store at the time. So at that point, we started developing Committed Paintball. Boston Paintball's motto has always been Committed since 1992. So we decided Committed would be very good name, a fitting name. So we decided to go that route.
Anthony actually invited me to go to Paintball Extravaganza at the time. That was back in 2012 and I was still at the other job. But what he said was, "We'd really want to bring you back. Why don't you just come, we can kind of go over some stuff and whatever your focus and direction for the site's going to be." And I just really said, "I want to do custom. I want to put us back on the map. You know, no one's doing custom right now." There was really nothing other than the Dark GEO. I think it was the only gun that was out at the time. So I thought it would be a kind of a good place to dip our feet back in the market wasn't all that saturated, and I didn't think it would be too difficult to do it.
So when we went, the Reaper had already been out for a little while on the online store, but we really wanted to populate the store with some stuff. We were kind of looking for a custom gun, a custom milled gun. It would be the first milled gun to be done since 2008 or 2009, somewhere in there.
LV1, the one that still lives at home
How did you decide to do the LV1 as the comeback marker? How did that come together with Planet Eclipse? Did you approach them? What was their initial reaction? Was there any fear in how the market would react, as it had been devoid of truly custom milled private label markers for around a decade at that point? What important lessons did you learn from that run?
So we met with a couple of different different companies. DLX was the first that we talked to about doing the Luxe, which had been out for a number of years at the time. And we went and talked to Planet Eclipse about doing the the LV, which was the brand new LV-1, which they just announced. It was the newest Ego and you know, I have a really good relationship with Planet Eclipse. We as a company knew them. They re in Rhode Island. We're in Boston. I'm friends with some of the salespeople there. Good, good working relationship with them.
And we started the groundwork for doing the first milled gun right there. They showed us a proof-of-concept, what they thought, and got the ball rolling from there. So we were kind of back-and-forth for a little while.
So we met with a couple of different different companies. DLX was the first that we talked to about doing the Luxe, which had been out for a number of years at the time. And we went and talked to Planet Eclipse about doing the the LV, which was the brand new LV-1, which they just announced. It was the newest Ego and you know, I have a really good relationship with Planet Eclipse. We as a company knew them. They re in Rhode Island. We're in Boston. I'm friends with some of the salespeople there. Good, good working relationship with them.
And we started the groundwork for doing the first milled gun right there. They showed us a proof-of-concept, what they thought, and got the ball rolling from there. So we were kind of back-and-forth for a little while.
The original LV-1 Ad
So was there any fear on how the market might react because it was going out on a limb. People look at it as a no-brainer now, but at the same point, nobody had done a custom run milled gun in about a decade at that point.
Yeah, I mean every time you do something, period, it's a risk. Anything you make, anything you do.
So now I had something to drive me for when I decided to make officially made the transition and leave my telecom job. I won't look at that (time in telecomm) as a bad time. I learned a lot about business. I learned a lot of database management. I learned a lot about business margins and calculations and stuff that I never would have otherwise. I didn't have that knowledge previous, so going into the actual business world and coming back out and bringing that that a new set of weapons with me back in my repertoire, it definitely helped a lot.
The one thing really was that I couldn't fail, right? Because now I left a job that was a little bit more secure. And I went to something where a lot of, you know, my livelihood, was based on his success. This cannot fail.
And it's a lot of money. I think it was well over $100,000 in the initial investment for the LV. And I had to go to the ownership and go, "Hey, we need to do this."
They looked me dead in the eye and go, "Alright, make it work."
Like that's, that's a lot of fun. Fast, you know? And it's a family environment, you don't want to fail your family. You don't want to have it fail. At the time, Boston was big, but you know $100,000 plus hit s a big hit. You can't fail.
So I approached it like that, and I just looked at my competition. I mean, the only other gun that was really out there and custom milled private label was the Dark Ego or the Dark GEO. And not a knock on Warped Sportz or anything. They've made amazing guns and, you know their history in the sport and iconic stuff.
But once they kind of dipped into the Planet stuff, I think that they, whether they didn't have the workforce or what, I think they were just got complacent. Maybe it's the way that Planet works when they mill your gun and go, "Alright, you can pick 20 guns and certain colors." and then you take delivery of them and then whatever.
So they were just taking the guns and selling them. So, they would have 20 in teal and purple and that's how they would sell it. But I kind of looked at it from a whole different dimension. I wanted to see how I can do better than them. In my eyes, they were my only competition.
So I decided, 'Hey, I can do the color swaps in these things and make twice as many colors, 10 times as many colors,' depending on how many I make. And then I used everything Planet had to offer for dealers and just the average person.
So they had this new thing called Portal at the time. And it gave me the ability to do splash screen, so I could do a little bit more branding on our screens, and I could tweak settings and and really refine the gun a little bit and elevate a little bit better than that it came out of the box.
Some things are really easy tricks that people have done in the past to debug settings. Maybe do a little trigger adjustment. Maybe polishing some components. But those were extra steps that everybody else just wasn't doing. And it is a lot more work. And add things, you know, like certificates of authenticity. We had a database built. So I really took everything they weren't doing, and I did it.
And to be honest LV-1 wasn't a huge success. It didn't sell out in 10 minutes like stuff we do now. That was a grind. We had 150 guns and it took it took a while to sell through all of them, but I think it really gave us an idea and a compass of what we should and shouldn't do. It was a good learning tool. But at the end of the day, it was a success in that it funded the next thing that was coming.
Yeah, I mean every time you do something, period, it's a risk. Anything you make, anything you do.
So now I had something to drive me for when I decided to make officially made the transition and leave my telecom job. I won't look at that (time in telecomm) as a bad time. I learned a lot about business. I learned a lot of database management. I learned a lot about business margins and calculations and stuff that I never would have otherwise. I didn't have that knowledge previous, so going into the actual business world and coming back out and bringing that that a new set of weapons with me back in my repertoire, it definitely helped a lot.
The one thing really was that I couldn't fail, right? Because now I left a job that was a little bit more secure. And I went to something where a lot of, you know, my livelihood, was based on his success. This cannot fail.
And it's a lot of money. I think it was well over $100,000 in the initial investment for the LV. And I had to go to the ownership and go, "Hey, we need to do this."
They looked me dead in the eye and go, "Alright, make it work."
Like that's, that's a lot of fun. Fast, you know? And it's a family environment, you don't want to fail your family. You don't want to have it fail. At the time, Boston was big, but you know $100,000 plus hit s a big hit. You can't fail.
So I approached it like that, and I just looked at my competition. I mean, the only other gun that was really out there and custom milled private label was the Dark Ego or the Dark GEO. And not a knock on Warped Sportz or anything. They've made amazing guns and, you know their history in the sport and iconic stuff.
But once they kind of dipped into the Planet stuff, I think that they, whether they didn't have the workforce or what, I think they were just got complacent. Maybe it's the way that Planet works when they mill your gun and go, "Alright, you can pick 20 guns and certain colors." and then you take delivery of them and then whatever.
So they were just taking the guns and selling them. So, they would have 20 in teal and purple and that's how they would sell it. But I kind of looked at it from a whole different dimension. I wanted to see how I can do better than them. In my eyes, they were my only competition.
So I decided, 'Hey, I can do the color swaps in these things and make twice as many colors, 10 times as many colors,' depending on how many I make. And then I used everything Planet had to offer for dealers and just the average person.
So they had this new thing called Portal at the time. And it gave me the ability to do splash screen, so I could do a little bit more branding on our screens, and I could tweak settings and and really refine the gun a little bit and elevate a little bit better than that it came out of the box.
Some things are really easy tricks that people have done in the past to debug settings. Maybe do a little trigger adjustment. Maybe polishing some components. But those were extra steps that everybody else just wasn't doing. And it is a lot more work. And add things, you know, like certificates of authenticity. We had a database built. So I really took everything they weren't doing, and I did it.
And to be honest LV-1 wasn't a huge success. It didn't sell out in 10 minutes like stuff we do now. That was a grind. We had 150 guns and it took it took a while to sell through all of them, but I think it really gave us an idea and a compass of what we should and shouldn't do. It was a good learning tool. But at the end of the day, it was a success in that it funded the next thing that was coming.
Believe it or not, it took more than 15 minutes to sell out
And what did you really learn from doing that run? What were you able to carry over the next project or the one after that?
Well, knowing that the only thing we had done Twister milling on for the most part previously and we were most known for was the Autococker, yeah (I learned about) moving that milling over to something more modern.
At this point, I wasn't as connected to Jack Wood, who's now one of my really, really good friends. I talk to him all the time and we actually play on the same paintball team together. So Jack is an icon. He's a hero to me and somebody that I look up to in the industry. And at the time, I did learn a lot about their process about how things work with manufacturing. And in terms of the LV, they presented us with something. And I tweaked some things, whether it be moving our logo or something like that.
It's very hard to criticize or tweak or change a design that's being presented to you by Jack Wood. You're getting something from the DaVinci of the sport. He and Simon are probably right up there with each other. So, it's hard to go there and go, "Hey, I want to change this or tweak this." A little bit of back and forth but not quite as much as maybe we do now. But once we kind of got the flow of things with the 3d contoured milling, where rides the lines of the gun, it definitely set it set us in the right course for what we want to do in the future on. I hope that answers your question.
Basically, what I was wondering is, is there anything that you learned there that you saw as a success with customers, like the certificates of authenticity, anything like that? That you figured,"Okay, this worked really well here. I can expand on this." Maybe do something like you did with adding stuff to packages, stuff like that?
Yeah, of course. So, I feel like when you're getting into a custom gun of any kind, it's an experience. Anybody can go to a store and just buy a stock gun and open it up and it's all the same thing every time.
I look at a couple of different companies outside of the industry. People that I looked at like a Joni Ives, the designer for Apple and Steve Jobs as well. When you when you open an Apple product, it's an experience. Right away, the phone is laid out, and it's front and center in the box and then everything is packaged a certain way. And it's uniform.
You know, I wanted people to open our gun and see a big sticker sheet. And those certificates always laid out the same way. And that that's to me, part of the experience. It doesn't seem like a major thing. But I think with the certificates...nobody was doing it at the time. And I think that that really, and it's a funny thing now, when guns have a certificate intact, it's like, "Wow, you got a twister that's 10 years old or whatever, and it's got a certificate." That adds value to the gun. You wouldn't think of that normally.
And guys put value on that, you know? It's a complete thing if everything's intact. The database I think was the biggest thing that I did. It kind of evolved from me having a way to track stuff internally for myself and a Google Drive to a thing where I could refer to stuff. But then I figured out a way to try to make it forward facing for the customer. And they could validate their builds.
Guys would put up a gun for sale on PBNation that I noticed and go, "Oh, this is a one-of-four." And there was no way to prove that was a one-of-four. You'd have to take them at their word. No companies were keeping records like that. So this way, you could say I have a one-of-one and you could prove it. I think that that helped a lot with validating our guns and ours and your claims on things. And I think it definitely cemented it as more of a high-end and prestige brand.
But that evolves with anything. I think that everything we do, we learn and we try to get better, you know? I think there are certain things that maybe we waste a little bit of time on, and we figure out either a way not to do those steps, or figure out a way to get in faster, or do them before you even get the guns.
With the certificates, we have gotten better. They are a lot cleaner and they have more information now. So people can validate exactly what colors that they had when they left the factory instead of just a serial number. So there's a lot of things like that, that we've definitely tweaked and evolved and we're evolving still. You know, we want to stream some of that information to maybe a standalone app someday or something like that. So yeah, we're always we're always evolving the brand.
Well, knowing that the only thing we had done Twister milling on for the most part previously and we were most known for was the Autococker, yeah (I learned about) moving that milling over to something more modern.
At this point, I wasn't as connected to Jack Wood, who's now one of my really, really good friends. I talk to him all the time and we actually play on the same paintball team together. So Jack is an icon. He's a hero to me and somebody that I look up to in the industry. And at the time, I did learn a lot about their process about how things work with manufacturing. And in terms of the LV, they presented us with something. And I tweaked some things, whether it be moving our logo or something like that.
It's very hard to criticize or tweak or change a design that's being presented to you by Jack Wood. You're getting something from the DaVinci of the sport. He and Simon are probably right up there with each other. So, it's hard to go there and go, "Hey, I want to change this or tweak this." A little bit of back and forth but not quite as much as maybe we do now. But once we kind of got the flow of things with the 3d contoured milling, where rides the lines of the gun, it definitely set it set us in the right course for what we want to do in the future on. I hope that answers your question.
Basically, what I was wondering is, is there anything that you learned there that you saw as a success with customers, like the certificates of authenticity, anything like that? That you figured,"Okay, this worked really well here. I can expand on this." Maybe do something like you did with adding stuff to packages, stuff like that?
Yeah, of course. So, I feel like when you're getting into a custom gun of any kind, it's an experience. Anybody can go to a store and just buy a stock gun and open it up and it's all the same thing every time.
I look at a couple of different companies outside of the industry. People that I looked at like a Joni Ives, the designer for Apple and Steve Jobs as well. When you when you open an Apple product, it's an experience. Right away, the phone is laid out, and it's front and center in the box and then everything is packaged a certain way. And it's uniform.
You know, I wanted people to open our gun and see a big sticker sheet. And those certificates always laid out the same way. And that that's to me, part of the experience. It doesn't seem like a major thing. But I think with the certificates...nobody was doing it at the time. And I think that that really, and it's a funny thing now, when guns have a certificate intact, it's like, "Wow, you got a twister that's 10 years old or whatever, and it's got a certificate." That adds value to the gun. You wouldn't think of that normally.
And guys put value on that, you know? It's a complete thing if everything's intact. The database I think was the biggest thing that I did. It kind of evolved from me having a way to track stuff internally for myself and a Google Drive to a thing where I could refer to stuff. But then I figured out a way to try to make it forward facing for the customer. And they could validate their builds.
Guys would put up a gun for sale on PBNation that I noticed and go, "Oh, this is a one-of-four." And there was no way to prove that was a one-of-four. You'd have to take them at their word. No companies were keeping records like that. So this way, you could say I have a one-of-one and you could prove it. I think that that helped a lot with validating our guns and ours and your claims on things. And I think it definitely cemented it as more of a high-end and prestige brand.
But that evolves with anything. I think that everything we do, we learn and we try to get better, you know? I think there are certain things that maybe we waste a little bit of time on, and we figure out either a way not to do those steps, or figure out a way to get in faster, or do them before you even get the guns.
With the certificates, we have gotten better. They are a lot cleaner and they have more information now. So people can validate exactly what colors that they had when they left the factory instead of just a serial number. So there's a lot of things like that, that we've definitely tweaked and evolved and we're evolving still. You know, we want to stream some of that information to maybe a standalone app someday or something like that. So yeah, we're always we're always evolving the brand.
PBE Prototype F-Series Autococker
The next release was the F Series Autococker, which was the first of the current run of new custom Autocockers released. How did you decide that it was viable, as there hadn’t been a mechanical Autococker released, again, in about a decade? That took some balls, as that’s not a small investment. Was it difficult to convince your boss and business partners to jump onboard? How did you handle sourcing parts for them? How did you figure out who to partner with as the anodizer for the project? How did you go about deciding who to work with on building and assembling them? When did you know that the Autococker run was a hit?
Oh boy, I need a stiffer drink for this question.
So I think that of all the things we've done, and I'm obviously proud of everything that we've achieved---everything from the smallest to the biggest thing, and I don't care whether it's a bottle or gun stand or a gun. I think that that gun---it really captured what we were all about, again, by going back to our roots. Literally back to our roots.
The Autococker---we'd always talked about maybe doing it again---but there still was no support for Autocockers themselves. So the question was always if we started it, "Do we have enough parts laying around in Boston in storage somewhere to even do it?" And then after the LV-1, we had a little bit of extra income, we had floated the idea. And LAPCO (LA Paintball Company), who did the original auto Cocker milling for us, had been in discussion with my boss, Anthony, about it. We'd gone back and forth. And I remember going to Anthony and saying, "You know, I really think we should we should do this." And I think that he was a little apprehensive.
I sometimes I have these crazy ideas that---you know, they work---but it sounds crazy when you when you say it. This was 2013 or 2014. There was no Inception making Autocockers parts. Inception was just getting into Axes and stuff at the time, doing bodies and barrels. So this this wasn't a thing. We talked LAPCO briefly about it. We actually talked to Paul at Extravaganza, where they had an old Twister that was sitting at their booth. And we'd agreed that we should do this, but we never really followed up. And I think that LAPCO would always get people locally that knew about the guns, and they would ask about twisters.
And then some discussion kind of got started, and we were talking about doing them anyways. I think, Custom Cockers or MCarterBrown, one of them, were underground niche Autococker sites---the salt of the earth, great guys over there---they were discussing about making a kind of a twister on another run. They were basically caught. They're talking, and I don't remember the gentleman's name exactly, but he was talking about literally making copies of the old Twister Autocockers to resurrect it---but not in Boston Paintball sanctioned way.
That got us back on track to talk to LAPCO and go, "Hey, you know, we don't want people to devalue our old guns. We really care about the heritage and the legacy and the prestige of the old guns. And just by making copies of old ones, it's gonna really saturate and devalue them. We'd like to make something totally different new." So almost the crowdsourcing from that interest, we kind of looked at that thread and went, "Wow, there are a lot of people that are interested in this." But I think a lot of the people, once they realized it wasn't an official Boston Paintball thing, were like, "Hey, I don't really want a part of that. I want a Boston Paintball thing." [Editor's note: He's absolutely correct in how this went down---I was very much in that exact thread on MCB, and once we knew it was not sanctioned, things changed drastically.]. So we said, "Okay, then we'll, let's do it."
So I remember going to Anthony's house. He lives about an hour south. He's more near Cape Cod, and I was more near New Hampshire. So I drove down to his house. I actually still have it in a notebook. I basically said, "What would you tell me---what you would build---for your dream Autococker if you could build it." And I had a ton of sketches that I had done, and some examples of other guns. I kind of put some stuff together. I said I think that we should do not just an Autococker. We should offer people choices.
So do it like a Tornado, f1 through f5. You can get a raw 'cocker body. A raw body kit with a custom frame. You could do your own ano. You could do a pump gun. You can do whatever, and everything in between. And he was like, "I love it!" You know, he was on board. 100%. I really was passionate about doing it.
Oh boy, I need a stiffer drink for this question.
So I think that of all the things we've done, and I'm obviously proud of everything that we've achieved---everything from the smallest to the biggest thing, and I don't care whether it's a bottle or gun stand or a gun. I think that that gun---it really captured what we were all about, again, by going back to our roots. Literally back to our roots.
The Autococker---we'd always talked about maybe doing it again---but there still was no support for Autocockers themselves. So the question was always if we started it, "Do we have enough parts laying around in Boston in storage somewhere to even do it?" And then after the LV-1, we had a little bit of extra income, we had floated the idea. And LAPCO (LA Paintball Company), who did the original auto Cocker milling for us, had been in discussion with my boss, Anthony, about it. We'd gone back and forth. And I remember going to Anthony and saying, "You know, I really think we should we should do this." And I think that he was a little apprehensive.
I sometimes I have these crazy ideas that---you know, they work---but it sounds crazy when you when you say it. This was 2013 or 2014. There was no Inception making Autocockers parts. Inception was just getting into Axes and stuff at the time, doing bodies and barrels. So this this wasn't a thing. We talked LAPCO briefly about it. We actually talked to Paul at Extravaganza, where they had an old Twister that was sitting at their booth. And we'd agreed that we should do this, but we never really followed up. And I think that LAPCO would always get people locally that knew about the guns, and they would ask about twisters.
And then some discussion kind of got started, and we were talking about doing them anyways. I think, Custom Cockers or MCarterBrown, one of them, were underground niche Autococker sites---the salt of the earth, great guys over there---they were discussing about making a kind of a twister on another run. They were basically caught. They're talking, and I don't remember the gentleman's name exactly, but he was talking about literally making copies of the old Twister Autocockers to resurrect it---but not in Boston Paintball sanctioned way.
That got us back on track to talk to LAPCO and go, "Hey, you know, we don't want people to devalue our old guns. We really care about the heritage and the legacy and the prestige of the old guns. And just by making copies of old ones, it's gonna really saturate and devalue them. We'd like to make something totally different new." So almost the crowdsourcing from that interest, we kind of looked at that thread and went, "Wow, there are a lot of people that are interested in this." But I think a lot of the people, once they realized it wasn't an official Boston Paintball thing, were like, "Hey, I don't really want a part of that. I want a Boston Paintball thing." [Editor's note: He's absolutely correct in how this went down---I was very much in that exact thread on MCB, and once we knew it was not sanctioned, things changed drastically.]. So we said, "Okay, then we'll, let's do it."
So I remember going to Anthony's house. He lives about an hour south. He's more near Cape Cod, and I was more near New Hampshire. So I drove down to his house. I actually still have it in a notebook. I basically said, "What would you tell me---what you would build---for your dream Autococker if you could build it." And I had a ton of sketches that I had done, and some examples of other guns. I kind of put some stuff together. I said I think that we should do not just an Autococker. We should offer people choices.
So do it like a Tornado, f1 through f5. You can get a raw 'cocker body. A raw body kit with a custom frame. You could do your own ano. You could do a pump gun. You can do whatever, and everything in between. And he was like, "I love it!" You know, he was on board. 100%. I really was passionate about doing it.
The last of the f5's
And we sat down and had to figure out where we were going to get the parts for the guns. For gun bodies, there were some that were sitting in a shipping container that LAPCO had, and he's like, "I need to get rid of these things. You know they are original wgp blanks. That's what they started life as and ANS just never took delivery of them. They're still my bodies." So I said, "Can we work with those? Can we mill them down? Is there enough meat?" And he was like, "Yeah, of course."
So I worked with the designers and a lot with Sergei. And it took months and months and months. We actually went through about 30 revisions of the gun before we got to something we felt like we could show. And we were going to show them at the paintball show again. I think it was 2015 or 16. And those were considered to be the PBE prototype guns.
It still was kind of a work in progress, but we wanted to show something, because we had we had already kind of crowdsourced this. We did a blind preorder on guns. We sold a concept. We sold what we think we should do to build a great Autococker, and sold the idea. And we sold a lot. We sold a lot of that idea. And people want to see what they what they bought.
So this is the hilarious thing. I had met a lot of people try to get through this whole process of building these guns. I had met Tim Firpo of PaintballTek. Tim, for those people that don't know, runs a repair service. Not just a repair service, but he works on the Holy Grail guns. I mean, he is one of the foremost experts in anything paintball and he's located about in Vacaville, California. So I met him at a Paintball Extravaganza the first time that I went, and I knew that he was a huge Twister collector. So I picked his brain for some stuff that I didn't know. And then I just said, "You know what, you work on these a lot. Do you want to build these things with me?"
Because originally, I was going to build them with Lappy. Lappy was one of the original techs that worked on the Original Expresses and Twister Autocockers. Lappy has a very, very time consuming job outside of the industry. He is in finance. And, you know, the amount of work that was going to be involved was nothing that we thought that he could really commit to. We didn't want to pull him away from what he was doing. Tim had worked enough in these guns. I sat with Lappy and worked on a couple of different twisters, including Twister #1 [Editor's Note: This is my gun. I just learned about this.] to get some some idea of how he worked. The craftsmanship and the polishing techniques and things like that.
So I could kind of use that information with Tim and put a process together to be able to actually produce these guns. I obviously wanted really, really high-end, premium parts. I felt that AKA was really what I wanted, and as luck would have it, AKA was purchased by a company that I know pretty well in Destructive Customs. They're in western Massachusetts. We were kind of are connected by a friend of a friend. And we ended up getting parts from them. They actually produced multiple parts for the Twister run---regulators, lprs, and things like that. And the rest of it we got through Palmer's because Tim had a good relationship with them. He used to work at Palmer's.
So Tim had taken the bodies that LAPCO had done---Tim obviously has a good relationship with LAPCO as well---and Tim took the bodies fresh from Ano, hopped on a plane, and flew to Paintball Extravaganza. I met him in Washington DC and we brought the guns to a hotel room and basically built the guns to display the next day at Extravaganza.
I don't think a lot of you know this little fact though. We didn't have parts to build a full Autococker. So we actually---sorry Empire---we 'borrowed' one of their guns from display downstairs. Yeah, and we gutted that gun and put all the components on it. It was never functional gun. It just had to look good. And Empire put that on display in their booth for Extravaganza. We didn't actually have a booth there. So one of our really good friends, John Dresser, was able to take some pictures, professional pictures, which were what everybody saw. That was on PBNation's front page, all the examples that we brought, and the rest was history.
I mean, it's sold out almost immediately after that. So again, you're working with just such a crazy effort, and working with so many people that you're able to kind of pull this off.
How did you how did you figure out that you were gonna go with Arc for Ano? They weren't exactly a company that had been around for many years at that point?
Yeah, anodizing is tough. So this project was very, very involved with a lot of moving parts, and literally the only thing I regret doing in this project was a lot of people to send their own parts in [Editor's note: I did this. I sent stuff in. He is talking about me and people like me here.]. We basically had it open-ended if you bought the highest-end Twister at the time. I think you could have got them as cheap as $1,000 if you did a blind pre-order. I think it raised to $13oo after the we showed the body. And from the feedback on the body from Extravaganza, we end up tweaking it a little bit more in the front to make a little bit cleaner. So we told people to send in some of their own parts and get them ano matched to whatever their gun was going to be. They can choose their own ano pattern three ways to whatever way they want. I think we've vastly underestimated how many people are going to take advantage of that. I'd say well, well more than half of the guns were going to be anodized and assembled. And at that point, I think is we made the decision to bring Tim in and fly him in and fly him out to build them.
So anodizing was gonna be a whole 'nother story. I had only at the time dealt with a couple projects. We'd only done the LV-1. And I'd done a couple of custom guns myself. Personal guns. So the only and companies I really had worked with were FX Anodizing and Arnold's Metal Finishing.
But we'd had to meet a certain window in Mario's timeframe to use his efforts. And he did do some of our first guns. He's great. But he was only one guy and I think he was transitioning to another shop at the time, so it was a a little bit of a bad time for him.
Arnold's can never really get you a solidified timeline, and they do other stuff outside of paintball. And I just didn't they had the versatility to do as much as we needed to do this amount of custom. There's a lot of hands-on work with customers and I just didn't want to put them in the middle of that.
So I worked with the designers and a lot with Sergei. And it took months and months and months. We actually went through about 30 revisions of the gun before we got to something we felt like we could show. And we were going to show them at the paintball show again. I think it was 2015 or 16. And those were considered to be the PBE prototype guns.
It still was kind of a work in progress, but we wanted to show something, because we had we had already kind of crowdsourced this. We did a blind preorder on guns. We sold a concept. We sold what we think we should do to build a great Autococker, and sold the idea. And we sold a lot. We sold a lot of that idea. And people want to see what they what they bought.
So this is the hilarious thing. I had met a lot of people try to get through this whole process of building these guns. I had met Tim Firpo of PaintballTek. Tim, for those people that don't know, runs a repair service. Not just a repair service, but he works on the Holy Grail guns. I mean, he is one of the foremost experts in anything paintball and he's located about in Vacaville, California. So I met him at a Paintball Extravaganza the first time that I went, and I knew that he was a huge Twister collector. So I picked his brain for some stuff that I didn't know. And then I just said, "You know what, you work on these a lot. Do you want to build these things with me?"
Because originally, I was going to build them with Lappy. Lappy was one of the original techs that worked on the Original Expresses and Twister Autocockers. Lappy has a very, very time consuming job outside of the industry. He is in finance. And, you know, the amount of work that was going to be involved was nothing that we thought that he could really commit to. We didn't want to pull him away from what he was doing. Tim had worked enough in these guns. I sat with Lappy and worked on a couple of different twisters, including Twister #1 [Editor's Note: This is my gun. I just learned about this.] to get some some idea of how he worked. The craftsmanship and the polishing techniques and things like that.
So I could kind of use that information with Tim and put a process together to be able to actually produce these guns. I obviously wanted really, really high-end, premium parts. I felt that AKA was really what I wanted, and as luck would have it, AKA was purchased by a company that I know pretty well in Destructive Customs. They're in western Massachusetts. We were kind of are connected by a friend of a friend. And we ended up getting parts from them. They actually produced multiple parts for the Twister run---regulators, lprs, and things like that. And the rest of it we got through Palmer's because Tim had a good relationship with them. He used to work at Palmer's.
So Tim had taken the bodies that LAPCO had done---Tim obviously has a good relationship with LAPCO as well---and Tim took the bodies fresh from Ano, hopped on a plane, and flew to Paintball Extravaganza. I met him in Washington DC and we brought the guns to a hotel room and basically built the guns to display the next day at Extravaganza.
I don't think a lot of you know this little fact though. We didn't have parts to build a full Autococker. So we actually---sorry Empire---we 'borrowed' one of their guns from display downstairs. Yeah, and we gutted that gun and put all the components on it. It was never functional gun. It just had to look good. And Empire put that on display in their booth for Extravaganza. We didn't actually have a booth there. So one of our really good friends, John Dresser, was able to take some pictures, professional pictures, which were what everybody saw. That was on PBNation's front page, all the examples that we brought, and the rest was history.
I mean, it's sold out almost immediately after that. So again, you're working with just such a crazy effort, and working with so many people that you're able to kind of pull this off.
How did you how did you figure out that you were gonna go with Arc for Ano? They weren't exactly a company that had been around for many years at that point?
Yeah, anodizing is tough. So this project was very, very involved with a lot of moving parts, and literally the only thing I regret doing in this project was a lot of people to send their own parts in [Editor's note: I did this. I sent stuff in. He is talking about me and people like me here.]. We basically had it open-ended if you bought the highest-end Twister at the time. I think you could have got them as cheap as $1,000 if you did a blind pre-order. I think it raised to $13oo after the we showed the body. And from the feedback on the body from Extravaganza, we end up tweaking it a little bit more in the front to make a little bit cleaner. So we told people to send in some of their own parts and get them ano matched to whatever their gun was going to be. They can choose their own ano pattern three ways to whatever way they want. I think we've vastly underestimated how many people are going to take advantage of that. I'd say well, well more than half of the guns were going to be anodized and assembled. And at that point, I think is we made the decision to bring Tim in and fly him in and fly him out to build them.
So anodizing was gonna be a whole 'nother story. I had only at the time dealt with a couple projects. We'd only done the LV-1. And I'd done a couple of custom guns myself. Personal guns. So the only and companies I really had worked with were FX Anodizing and Arnold's Metal Finishing.
But we'd had to meet a certain window in Mario's timeframe to use his efforts. And he did do some of our first guns. He's great. But he was only one guy and I think he was transitioning to another shop at the time, so it was a a little bit of a bad time for him.
Arnold's can never really get you a solidified timeline, and they do other stuff outside of paintball. And I just didn't they had the versatility to do as much as we needed to do this amount of custom. There's a lot of hands-on work with customers and I just didn't want to put them in the middle of that.
PBE Prototype
But there was a newer company called Arc Anodizing that had done some ano that I've seen and I was very, very impressed with it. I think specifically they had done a thunderstruck anodizing on a GEO. I think that's one of the guns, and there were a couple of others that impressed me. I reached out and shot him a message. Ryan Hall---and now everybody knows Ryan Hall---but at the time, I think he was a divisional player, and another gentleman was there with him. I think Aaron was his name. We said we needed to meet this price. It has to be with any way three color scheme, in any way that a customer wants. And I can't tell you how many parts it's gonna be. People can send them their own, and you can charge them whatever. It could be up to 100 guns. And Arc's a very small shop. They said yes. And I just said, "Alright, we'll take the chance. Let's take the chance on these guys."
You know and crazy thing is about a week after they said yes, Aaron was the other side of Arc left. So it was just Ryan by himself.
Wow.
And I remember reaching out to Ryan when I found out and I said, "You know, it's no shame to me, if you're by yourself, it's fine. I can find another option." And Ryan's like, "Nope, I'm gonna do it." I'm like, "Okay, dude."
So we then kind of shared a database and everybody got assigned a twister number that was on their gun. And I would just send the guns down to Arc. That gun was that number and they would reach out to Ryan with what they wanted. And Ryan basically handled 100 people, one on one, sending in their own parts, stripping and ano-ing, you know, whatever.
And I feel like that and he would send them back in batches. You know, I'd get 25 guns back, 30 guns at a time. And when they came back, I'd fly Tim out, and we'd build.
I think that that project did a lot for a lot of different people, not just Boston Paintball. Obviously, it put us kind of back on the map with people that are not, you know, mainstream players and high-end players. I think with players that been established---you guys went holy shit
You know and crazy thing is about a week after they said yes, Aaron was the other side of Arc left. So it was just Ryan by himself.
Wow.
And I remember reaching out to Ryan when I found out and I said, "You know, it's no shame to me, if you're by yourself, it's fine. I can find another option." And Ryan's like, "Nope, I'm gonna do it." I'm like, "Okay, dude."
So we then kind of shared a database and everybody got assigned a twister number that was on their gun. And I would just send the guns down to Arc. That gun was that number and they would reach out to Ryan with what they wanted. And Ryan basically handled 100 people, one on one, sending in their own parts, stripping and ano-ing, you know, whatever.
And I feel like that and he would send them back in batches. You know, I'd get 25 guns back, 30 guns at a time. And when they came back, I'd fly Tim out, and we'd build.
I think that that project did a lot for a lot of different people, not just Boston Paintball. Obviously, it put us kind of back on the map with people that are not, you know, mainstream players and high-end players. I think with players that been established---you guys went holy shit
F-Series #1 with Thunderstruck ano by Arc
And there's a lot of value in here, like the way that they're built. They're legitimately building custom guns! But I think that Tim got a little bit of exposure from it. Obviously I think Arc shot the moon. I think it really put them on the map. I think AKA, obviously, got a shot in the arm for them and put them back up. LAPCO was another. I think a lot of guys benefited from this whole project. Planet Eclipse too. We utilized a lot of their stuff, like their feednecks and their on/offs.
But yeah, I mean it really you know, the ano coming back was just amazing. It was like Christmas. We'd open boxes and go, "Wow, this is a Batman themed one." We didn't even know what we were gonna get in the boxes and we'd just get them and sort them all out. So, yeah, it's it was quite a journey.
I think I learned from that how patient the customers are, and how to handle and manage that. I think a lot of other companies have tried to do something similar stuff. I think the number one thing is always going to be communication. If someone hands you large sums of money, you need to show them where their money is.
So, that started this trend with me---Facebook live was a new thing at the time. They had just announced it with Facebook, and had just rolled it out. And I made it a point every week, whether I had news or not, to get in front of a camera and give people updates. That evolved into us doing live broadcasts until 2AM in the morning of us building guns. We'd build guns all night. You know, it'd be five, six, seven days in a row that Tim would fly in, stay at my house, and we'd build guns all night long, watch bad movies, have a couple beers, little bit of scotch maybe, whatever. And build guns. We figured it out.
After one week, he'd come out, and the next week, we'd get better and faster and more efficient. By the last week, we were able to take amazing pictures as we'd go, and stuff. Yeah...it was just an amazing, amazing feat that we were able to do that with two people. I mean, really, it really was.
Design Print that all of the F-5 Owners received
Where did you take your design cues from with the F-Series? Who was responsible for the modeling for the new milling? Was there anything that you learned from in that run, either that worked really well or that figured out that you wouldn’t want to try again?
Yeah, the number one goal was that if you look at it, you really know it's a Twister. It's identifiable. I think that the sunrise or clamshell one is definitely one of the more desirable and identifiable guns. But those fine lines, with some ano, get lost a little bit. So I wanted to kind of make that pop a little bit more. I wanted to spread them out and make them a little more aggressive, deeper cuts.
Mind you, you're working on a body that's already milled, right? They're Gen-x3 guns. You need to work around the lowest points of that gun. There are some spots that dip so low that you have to create new techniques, and LAPCO---I mean, they're smart guys. They figured out ways to make multiple passes, and blend some things. With the early ones, you see some bald spots because the milling stops. There just wasn't enough meat there, and they had to figure out a way to change it up.
But I wanted a mix between the only stuff that we had. We had the original 45 mill. The original, original OG Autococker. We had the sunrise. And at the time, the only other thing that we had was the LV. So we took advantage of the LV and how Jack and his design team, including Matt over there, how they contoured and rode the lines of the gun. So we'd go up and down the tubes. It wasn't just a hard line down the tubes. It would actually skeletonize the body and bring it down to the lowest, and add the milling on top of it.
And obviously, with the first runs, we had some really sharp points that were artery cutters. I mean we had to really scale some stuff back. And that's why you make prototypes, right? You make a couple of prototypes, and then you get to a production one.
That gun was the hardest gun. Because I was trying to reinvent and re-imagine something that was so important to our company---that I think was the hardest thing for me. I didn't want to make it look like a complete knock off. I wanted people to go, 'Holy shit, that's a Twister, but wow! This is definitely a new, next generation Twister.' And I think that we pulled it off. I think it was the perfect blend of everything. And if you put it next to an old school twister, you know that they're different but you for sure know that it's a newer gun with a lot more thought and technology put into it.
Yeah, the number one goal was that if you look at it, you really know it's a Twister. It's identifiable. I think that the sunrise or clamshell one is definitely one of the more desirable and identifiable guns. But those fine lines, with some ano, get lost a little bit. So I wanted to kind of make that pop a little bit more. I wanted to spread them out and make them a little more aggressive, deeper cuts.
Mind you, you're working on a body that's already milled, right? They're Gen-x3 guns. You need to work around the lowest points of that gun. There are some spots that dip so low that you have to create new techniques, and LAPCO---I mean, they're smart guys. They figured out ways to make multiple passes, and blend some things. With the early ones, you see some bald spots because the milling stops. There just wasn't enough meat there, and they had to figure out a way to change it up.
But I wanted a mix between the only stuff that we had. We had the original 45 mill. The original, original OG Autococker. We had the sunrise. And at the time, the only other thing that we had was the LV. So we took advantage of the LV and how Jack and his design team, including Matt over there, how they contoured and rode the lines of the gun. So we'd go up and down the tubes. It wasn't just a hard line down the tubes. It would actually skeletonize the body and bring it down to the lowest, and add the milling on top of it.
And obviously, with the first runs, we had some really sharp points that were artery cutters. I mean we had to really scale some stuff back. And that's why you make prototypes, right? You make a couple of prototypes, and then you get to a production one.
That gun was the hardest gun. Because I was trying to reinvent and re-imagine something that was so important to our company---that I think was the hardest thing for me. I didn't want to make it look like a complete knock off. I wanted people to go, 'Holy shit, that's a Twister, but wow! This is definitely a new, next generation Twister.' And I think that we pulled it off. I think it was the perfect blend of everything. And if you put it next to an old school twister, you know that they're different but you for sure know that it's a newer gun with a lot more thought and technology put into it.
That pile didn't last long
You obviously grew a strong relationship with Planet Eclipse after the LV, and have worked with them on several of their high-end guns. How do you decide when to work with them on a marker? When do you know that you’re going to do one of their markers? Do you approach them, or the other way around? What kinds of tweaks and special features can players expect in their new Twisters (for any markers)?
So, at the time, there rep that was there who was named Mark Lanzia. And I was really good friends with Mark. He came up and played in the New England Paintball League. He played on the Hurricanes for a while and then Jersey Authority. He was the Planet Eclipse rep from day one. He was in the US headquarters from the very beginning. So I would always get in his ear and he would never tell me if something was coming, but I got pretty savvy at kind of detecting and predicting market trends. I think that I look at everything in a way that other people don't. You can kind of predict when things are coming out, and not just by looking at what's being tested in the field. Planet is really good at hiding that stuff, and their testers are really good at keeping secrets.
But you can tell by trademarks being filed. You can tell by price and MAP adjustments, You can tell by when they run out of certain things, and don't replenish it. You can tell when the current generation of a gun is running out, and they're not restocking black, which is obviously the number one color. So if they're not making anymore black ones, there's a good chance that they're not making guns anymore. Or they're making special editions where it's specifically to gobble up parts that can't be used in the future. So I look at things in a little more of a four dimensional way than maybe a lot of people do. It's kind of what I need to do in my field (laughs) to make something that's ahead of the curve.
So I felt with the GEO line---that the GSL had been out for a little while and they hadn't tried to replenish anything. I had an inkling that something would be coming down the pipeline. And the CS1 was really a game changer. I mean that was a very aggressive departure from everything that they had done in the past. I think it was probably the biggest step forward that Planet had made. I know that people are hot and cold on it, but coming out of the GEO and into that...that gun is really a game changer.
It didn't use any parts from the old gun. They literally reinvented the wheel in every category. From the boards running on different voltages...it really was a fully redesigned gun from the ground up. When we want to pick a gun, I mean, Planet is making the high-end of the high-end. I think that they make a great balanced gun. They give me the versatility to tweak it, tune it. And we have a good working relationship, obviously. So when it comes to working on milling, I could work directly with Jack. And, at this point, we had gotten a little bit closer, so it was easier for me to reach out and go, "Hey, what are your thoughts on this, this, and this?"
The only real difficulty that we had with the CS1 was that we never---and nobody really had at this point---done a milling like that, in that pattern, on a cylindrical, single tube gun. With a cocker, or an LV, you have a lot of real estate to work with. With a CS1, we wanted to do different things, like go over the top of the tube, which they had never done, and figure out how to fan it out. We want our guns to be aggressive. To look like they're moving, not standing still.
So the CS1, I think that gun showed a little bit more of our versatility. I think that the LV1 body was still a little bit too close to an Autococker profile. I think by doing a CS and wrapping the top of the gun, that really showed that we were going the extra mile. And at that point, nobody was really doing custom milling. At this point, Warped had already...the Twister LV1 had really showed them the door. They didn't want to try and get in and match us with what we were doing with the extra work. Which is fine. They weren't in that game anymore anyways.
But yeah, the CS was a pretty easy decision. We want the flagship. We want something when it first come out in the first six months. We don't want to get into something at the tail end. So I feel like the stars kind of aligned on that one. Everything worked and everything fell into place. And that gun was a real winner for us.
So, at the time, there rep that was there who was named Mark Lanzia. And I was really good friends with Mark. He came up and played in the New England Paintball League. He played on the Hurricanes for a while and then Jersey Authority. He was the Planet Eclipse rep from day one. He was in the US headquarters from the very beginning. So I would always get in his ear and he would never tell me if something was coming, but I got pretty savvy at kind of detecting and predicting market trends. I think that I look at everything in a way that other people don't. You can kind of predict when things are coming out, and not just by looking at what's being tested in the field. Planet is really good at hiding that stuff, and their testers are really good at keeping secrets.
But you can tell by trademarks being filed. You can tell by price and MAP adjustments, You can tell by when they run out of certain things, and don't replenish it. You can tell when the current generation of a gun is running out, and they're not restocking black, which is obviously the number one color. So if they're not making anymore black ones, there's a good chance that they're not making guns anymore. Or they're making special editions where it's specifically to gobble up parts that can't be used in the future. So I look at things in a little more of a four dimensional way than maybe a lot of people do. It's kind of what I need to do in my field (laughs) to make something that's ahead of the curve.
So I felt with the GEO line---that the GSL had been out for a little while and they hadn't tried to replenish anything. I had an inkling that something would be coming down the pipeline. And the CS1 was really a game changer. I mean that was a very aggressive departure from everything that they had done in the past. I think it was probably the biggest step forward that Planet had made. I know that people are hot and cold on it, but coming out of the GEO and into that...that gun is really a game changer.
It didn't use any parts from the old gun. They literally reinvented the wheel in every category. From the boards running on different voltages...it really was a fully redesigned gun from the ground up. When we want to pick a gun, I mean, Planet is making the high-end of the high-end. I think that they make a great balanced gun. They give me the versatility to tweak it, tune it. And we have a good working relationship, obviously. So when it comes to working on milling, I could work directly with Jack. And, at this point, we had gotten a little bit closer, so it was easier for me to reach out and go, "Hey, what are your thoughts on this, this, and this?"
The only real difficulty that we had with the CS1 was that we never---and nobody really had at this point---done a milling like that, in that pattern, on a cylindrical, single tube gun. With a cocker, or an LV, you have a lot of real estate to work with. With a CS1, we wanted to do different things, like go over the top of the tube, which they had never done, and figure out how to fan it out. We want our guns to be aggressive. To look like they're moving, not standing still.
So the CS1, I think that gun showed a little bit more of our versatility. I think that the LV1 body was still a little bit too close to an Autococker profile. I think by doing a CS and wrapping the top of the gun, that really showed that we were going the extra mile. And at that point, nobody was really doing custom milling. At this point, Warped had already...the Twister LV1 had really showed them the door. They didn't want to try and get in and match us with what we were doing with the extra work. Which is fine. They weren't in that game anymore anyways.
But yeah, the CS was a pretty easy decision. We want the flagship. We want something when it first come out in the first six months. We don't want to get into something at the tail end. So I feel like the stars kind of aligned on that one. Everything worked and everything fell into place. And that gun was a real winner for us.
Red Twister CS1
Now, moving forward, if they have something new coming out, do they give you the head's up? Or do you just kind of know it's coming?
I usually can kind of telegraph it. I usually don't have any more inside information than anyone else. When it's time for me to know, they'll tell me.
I have field tested stuff for Planet Eclipse in the past. I am not at liberty to say what products, but products that are out now. I haven't seen anything that's not out. It wasn't anything big. Some of the cheaper stuff, and some of the accessories. But they do an excellent job at product development. They do an excellent job at testing to make that gun is going to be rock solid at release.
A lot of other companies will design in a bubble, I like to say. They don't really field test and sent them out there, so you have problems right out of the gate. It feels like you have beta testing on released guns. And then you have a 'plus' or a 'point something,' and 'Oh, it's an upgrade for free.' And they're just fixing the gun. They didn't plan for something to go wrong, and now they're just releasing updated things.
With Planet, they really have guns that are out there in the field that you don't even know about, that are camouflaged for 8 months? 10 months? Before they even see the light of day. I'm sure that they've testing things that have never even come out. That we don't even know about, you know? So, they're really good about sending it everywhere. They have really good testers. They get good feedback, and by the time it gets into the hands of the consumer, the gun is near perfect. And by the time it gets into my hands, it's so rock-solid that I have a good baseline to start tweaking and tuning and working on it, so I think really, to me, that's why they're such a good platform to work on.
We've worked with other companies in the past, but I feel like their (Planet's) platforms are so good, that they don't really leave a lot of room for improvement. I can tweak a little bit more improvement out of the guns, but they're so good already that they're not getting to the point that the guns can't get any better without a radical, radical redesign. We're talking next level technology that we probably don't even know about yet. Bolts and boards and battery technology, and who knows? Like stuff we don't even understand yet.
I usually can kind of telegraph it. I usually don't have any more inside information than anyone else. When it's time for me to know, they'll tell me.
I have field tested stuff for Planet Eclipse in the past. I am not at liberty to say what products, but products that are out now. I haven't seen anything that's not out. It wasn't anything big. Some of the cheaper stuff, and some of the accessories. But they do an excellent job at product development. They do an excellent job at testing to make that gun is going to be rock solid at release.
A lot of other companies will design in a bubble, I like to say. They don't really field test and sent them out there, so you have problems right out of the gate. It feels like you have beta testing on released guns. And then you have a 'plus' or a 'point something,' and 'Oh, it's an upgrade for free.' And they're just fixing the gun. They didn't plan for something to go wrong, and now they're just releasing updated things.
With Planet, they really have guns that are out there in the field that you don't even know about, that are camouflaged for 8 months? 10 months? Before they even see the light of day. I'm sure that they've testing things that have never even come out. That we don't even know about, you know? So, they're really good about sending it everywhere. They have really good testers. They get good feedback, and by the time it gets into the hands of the consumer, the gun is near perfect. And by the time it gets into my hands, it's so rock-solid that I have a good baseline to start tweaking and tuning and working on it, so I think really, to me, that's why they're such a good platform to work on.
We've worked with other companies in the past, but I feel like their (Planet's) platforms are so good, that they don't really leave a lot of room for improvement. I can tweak a little bit more improvement out of the guns, but they're so good already that they're not getting to the point that the guns can't get any better without a radical, radical redesign. We're talking next level technology that we probably don't even know about yet. Bolts and boards and battery technology, and who knows? Like stuff we don't even understand yet.
Twister Axe for a more budget-friendly option
The high-end Twisters are the standard of private label markers, and have been since they made their triumphant return. But they are not the only markers that you guys have produced. How did the Twister Axe come about? Why did it happen? What was the goal of that run? What did you learn about doing mid-level markers from that run? How did that project with GI roll into the Vanquish?
Yeah, so even though the Axe and the Vanquish are under the same umbrella, the actually weren't both produced for GI or Empire. The Axe is actually amazing because I had a pretty good relationship with Simon. And Simon at the time---this is when Inception was really starting to ramp up and they were doing some Axes at the time and starting to do some Autococker parts. This was before his made his first Autocockers (for Inception). And he said, "You know, I've got some blanks laying around if you guys want to do a small run." And for me---I love making really high-end stuff. It allows me to get creative and push limits and things like that. But I always want to try and expose people to our brand at a lower price point that otherwise might shy away. It's the same reason that Porsche made a Boxter, you know? Porsches were unobtainable until Porsche made this $40,000 Porsche. And that creates a customer that will eventually move from the Boxter to the 911.
Now, I wanted to make something that was cheap enough that people could get and do themselves. So, we worked with Simon and we made 60 bodies. So it was really small, really low-risk. Nothing to crazy. And working with Simon is awesome. He's, again, another idol, and now I get to call him my friend, which is awesome. And it's great to have these friends that you can go to with these crazy ideas, and they can tell you, "Well, that's shit. That's not gonna work." or "You can do it but you're going to have to do it this way." So for me, they're kind of my compass, a little bit, mentors in this crazy world.
But with the Axe, I wanted to be able to offer people raw bodies. I wanted people to get some anodized bodies, like body kits. And I would build a full gun if they wanted it. But they were at a price point that was sub-$300, which for a body is crazy. You can bolt it on your Axe, and now you can say that you have a Twister. You're a Twister owner.
So takeaways from that---we learned a lot from that. I think the reception was pretty good. We got a working relationship with Simon, which then lead to some other things later. But, yeah, everything we do I consider a success, because we learn something from it and evolve from it.
That being said, the Vanquish is a whole different story.
Hahahaha
No, no, I do consider the Vanquish a success. And we did learn a lot from the Vanquish.
Ugh. Ah, man.
So, at the time, Travis Lemanski was with Empire, and he obviously was the owner and coach of Infamous. And Billy Ceranski, now the President of GI, who are both really good friends with my boss---we've been a GI field or PMI associated field since the beginning of our company---they came to use to do an All-In weekend. Which is basically is when they bring all of their Empire gear, and players can come in, and they outfit them from head to toe with guns, goggles, and stuff. The guys go and play. It's a huge demo day, basically. And they had brought the Vanquish 2.0.
And we hadn't really done much with Vanquishes. You know, we were really pretty Planet focused. We had done a little bit with Dye too. In terms of GI, it was mainly lower end stuff with Empire. But they had pitched that they wanted us to do a custom gun, with the Vanquish. And they had brought the guns to be used by all the people that were at the field that day.
The guns were shipped on a tractor trailer, and it was ice cold. None of the guns worked out of the box because they were basically frozen solid.
Uggggggggggggggh.
So I remember walking into one of our back rental rooms, and they're just ripping bolts out of guns. Ripping springs out of guns. And just changing things. And, I'm just thinking to myself, man, I know that we're going to have this discussion about us doing these guns, but this is not a good vote of confidence. And to be honest, truth be told, the bolts that came in the 2.0---not the gt, not the v16---those bolts were a fuckin' nightmare. They're a headache. They really caused most of the problems with that system. They were just really temperamental and there's just a lot of user error involved. And it's hard when you're coming off a Planet Eclipse gun that dummy proof, you know? No one wants to tweak or tune their guns, you know?
So we had kind of talked about it, and I just said, "You know, I think we'll pass on it." And a couple of months later down the road, we had a Combine. So we did the Combine. We do the Combine events at Boston Paintball, and we have the pros come out, do the instruction, and teach all of the kids. We had Konstantine Federov, which is one of my playing idols, so it was great to meet him. We had Nick Slowiak. And we had Damien Ryan. And we had Ryan Greenspan. So it was a pretty good line up.
Yeah. Yeah. That'll do.
So Nick Slowiak had just gotten his Twister CS1. He had just picked it up at that event, and he had his brand new spankin' Ferrari. Brand new, no one had seen it. Just amazing, you know? Konstantine Federov had his custom Luxe, pink with the custom engraving on it. Ryan Greenspan had his custom ano'ed Ryan Greenspan edition GEO---I think he had a CS1 or maybe a 3.5 at the time. And then Damien had a stock Vanquish.
And Damien said it'd be really cool if you could do a custom gun. Plum Life was his brand at the time, and Infamous he played on. And I think that we buckled a little bit, and said, "Yeah, alright, we'll do some guns for Infamous or Plumb Life. We'll help you guys out and do the design, but we really don't want to get too into it. We don't want to really deal with the warranty for it or any of that stuff." So there were some back room deals done. I don't really know any of what was said or what was done. I wasn't privy to it.
And then, next thing I know, 100 Vanquishes show up on my loading dock.
Hahahahaha
Sooooooo, we actually worked with LAPCO again to work on the design and I wanted to include a couple of different things. Experiment a little bit with stuff I hadn't done before. So I took some inspiration. We weren't really going to do a twister on this. I didn't want to put the twister name on these guns, you know? This is kind of their own thing. We were trying to be in contrast and do it for them.
So I worked with LAPCO, we got the the CAD file from Empire, and we got to work with making these as small as possible. And then on top of it, we kind of loaded up a little bit of styling that I took from the side of a Ferrari. So a little bit of, you know, styling cues and some of the muffling from it. And then I added something called ergonomic styling.
So I really wanted to include a knurling grip patch on the guns in areas where your hands would naturally rest of your thumbs to get a little bit more control [Editor's Note: This would be several years prior to HK inventing it for their Invader]. So it was something we'd mess around with a little bit when we did the Autocockers. On the frames of the Autocockers, on the front and in the back. So the styling we added to the front and in the back of the gun so it looked really cool. And it was functional.
You know, we made a prototype. We kind of went out and field tested some stuff, saw how it felt, and tweaked some things. And then we got to milling and making some guns with Infamous milled in the side of them and processed in some Plumb Life for Damien.
We were pretty much three quarters the way through milling all the guns when we find out that infamous was leaving Empire and going to Valken. So they're not going to be shooting the Vanquish anymore.
And then Damien got furloughed from GI, so now Damien is now not employed so the Plumb Life friend wouldn't be using them either.
So now we're at a really weird crossroad, we got all of these guns that are already done, and we don't know what to do with them. So we thought to ourselves, "Okay, so I, I've tested the guns. They're pretty good." But then I come to find out that they have a new bolt for the gun that's being released called, and they didn't have a name for it at the time.
So originally, we were going to launch our guns with these bolts and that was going to be where they premiered this new bolt system that now you guys know as the V 16. My ad showed the gun with this bolt in it. And I named it the V 16. Because it was version 16 of the Vanquish. That's how many renditions we did to make the gun and the body. Empire took the name and named the bolt that. Then I couldn't name my gun that.
Yeah, so even though the Axe and the Vanquish are under the same umbrella, the actually weren't both produced for GI or Empire. The Axe is actually amazing because I had a pretty good relationship with Simon. And Simon at the time---this is when Inception was really starting to ramp up and they were doing some Axes at the time and starting to do some Autococker parts. This was before his made his first Autocockers (for Inception). And he said, "You know, I've got some blanks laying around if you guys want to do a small run." And for me---I love making really high-end stuff. It allows me to get creative and push limits and things like that. But I always want to try and expose people to our brand at a lower price point that otherwise might shy away. It's the same reason that Porsche made a Boxter, you know? Porsches were unobtainable until Porsche made this $40,000 Porsche. And that creates a customer that will eventually move from the Boxter to the 911.
Now, I wanted to make something that was cheap enough that people could get and do themselves. So, we worked with Simon and we made 60 bodies. So it was really small, really low-risk. Nothing to crazy. And working with Simon is awesome. He's, again, another idol, and now I get to call him my friend, which is awesome. And it's great to have these friends that you can go to with these crazy ideas, and they can tell you, "Well, that's shit. That's not gonna work." or "You can do it but you're going to have to do it this way." So for me, they're kind of my compass, a little bit, mentors in this crazy world.
But with the Axe, I wanted to be able to offer people raw bodies. I wanted people to get some anodized bodies, like body kits. And I would build a full gun if they wanted it. But they were at a price point that was sub-$300, which for a body is crazy. You can bolt it on your Axe, and now you can say that you have a Twister. You're a Twister owner.
So takeaways from that---we learned a lot from that. I think the reception was pretty good. We got a working relationship with Simon, which then lead to some other things later. But, yeah, everything we do I consider a success, because we learn something from it and evolve from it.
That being said, the Vanquish is a whole different story.
Hahahaha
No, no, I do consider the Vanquish a success. And we did learn a lot from the Vanquish.
Ugh. Ah, man.
So, at the time, Travis Lemanski was with Empire, and he obviously was the owner and coach of Infamous. And Billy Ceranski, now the President of GI, who are both really good friends with my boss---we've been a GI field or PMI associated field since the beginning of our company---they came to use to do an All-In weekend. Which is basically is when they bring all of their Empire gear, and players can come in, and they outfit them from head to toe with guns, goggles, and stuff. The guys go and play. It's a huge demo day, basically. And they had brought the Vanquish 2.0.
And we hadn't really done much with Vanquishes. You know, we were really pretty Planet focused. We had done a little bit with Dye too. In terms of GI, it was mainly lower end stuff with Empire. But they had pitched that they wanted us to do a custom gun, with the Vanquish. And they had brought the guns to be used by all the people that were at the field that day.
The guns were shipped on a tractor trailer, and it was ice cold. None of the guns worked out of the box because they were basically frozen solid.
Uggggggggggggggh.
So I remember walking into one of our back rental rooms, and they're just ripping bolts out of guns. Ripping springs out of guns. And just changing things. And, I'm just thinking to myself, man, I know that we're going to have this discussion about us doing these guns, but this is not a good vote of confidence. And to be honest, truth be told, the bolts that came in the 2.0---not the gt, not the v16---those bolts were a fuckin' nightmare. They're a headache. They really caused most of the problems with that system. They were just really temperamental and there's just a lot of user error involved. And it's hard when you're coming off a Planet Eclipse gun that dummy proof, you know? No one wants to tweak or tune their guns, you know?
So we had kind of talked about it, and I just said, "You know, I think we'll pass on it." And a couple of months later down the road, we had a Combine. So we did the Combine. We do the Combine events at Boston Paintball, and we have the pros come out, do the instruction, and teach all of the kids. We had Konstantine Federov, which is one of my playing idols, so it was great to meet him. We had Nick Slowiak. And we had Damien Ryan. And we had Ryan Greenspan. So it was a pretty good line up.
Yeah. Yeah. That'll do.
So Nick Slowiak had just gotten his Twister CS1. He had just picked it up at that event, and he had his brand new spankin' Ferrari. Brand new, no one had seen it. Just amazing, you know? Konstantine Federov had his custom Luxe, pink with the custom engraving on it. Ryan Greenspan had his custom ano'ed Ryan Greenspan edition GEO---I think he had a CS1 or maybe a 3.5 at the time. And then Damien had a stock Vanquish.
And Damien said it'd be really cool if you could do a custom gun. Plum Life was his brand at the time, and Infamous he played on. And I think that we buckled a little bit, and said, "Yeah, alright, we'll do some guns for Infamous or Plumb Life. We'll help you guys out and do the design, but we really don't want to get too into it. We don't want to really deal with the warranty for it or any of that stuff." So there were some back room deals done. I don't really know any of what was said or what was done. I wasn't privy to it.
And then, next thing I know, 100 Vanquishes show up on my loading dock.
Hahahahaha
Sooooooo, we actually worked with LAPCO again to work on the design and I wanted to include a couple of different things. Experiment a little bit with stuff I hadn't done before. So I took some inspiration. We weren't really going to do a twister on this. I didn't want to put the twister name on these guns, you know? This is kind of their own thing. We were trying to be in contrast and do it for them.
So I worked with LAPCO, we got the the CAD file from Empire, and we got to work with making these as small as possible. And then on top of it, we kind of loaded up a little bit of styling that I took from the side of a Ferrari. So a little bit of, you know, styling cues and some of the muffling from it. And then I added something called ergonomic styling.
So I really wanted to include a knurling grip patch on the guns in areas where your hands would naturally rest of your thumbs to get a little bit more control [Editor's Note: This would be several years prior to HK inventing it for their Invader]. So it was something we'd mess around with a little bit when we did the Autocockers. On the frames of the Autocockers, on the front and in the back. So the styling we added to the front and in the back of the gun so it looked really cool. And it was functional.
You know, we made a prototype. We kind of went out and field tested some stuff, saw how it felt, and tweaked some things. And then we got to milling and making some guns with Infamous milled in the side of them and processed in some Plumb Life for Damien.
We were pretty much three quarters the way through milling all the guns when we find out that infamous was leaving Empire and going to Valken. So they're not going to be shooting the Vanquish anymore.
And then Damien got furloughed from GI, so now Damien is now not employed so the Plumb Life friend wouldn't be using them either.
So now we're at a really weird crossroad, we got all of these guns that are already done, and we don't know what to do with them. So we thought to ourselves, "Okay, so I, I've tested the guns. They're pretty good." But then I come to find out that they have a new bolt for the gun that's being released called, and they didn't have a name for it at the time.
So originally, we were going to launch our guns with these bolts and that was going to be where they premiered this new bolt system that now you guys know as the V 16. My ad showed the gun with this bolt in it. And I named it the V 16. Because it was version 16 of the Vanquish. That's how many renditions we did to make the gun and the body. Empire took the name and named the bolt that. Then I couldn't name my gun that.
Have you seen me?
And then they went ahead and named the gun the GT, because the V 16 was the most powerful, biggest engine that was in the Bugatti at the time, right? So they named their gun the GT. So I said, "Well, what's higher than a GT?" So I named my gun the SS. So that's what the Vanquish SS came into. That's how the name happened.
So yeah, so we decided with the last quarter of the bodies, we were just going to twister mill them because, you know, what else can we do to at least we can move some guns that way? And we had a team that played for us called the Bay State Bandits. They were Semi-Pro team that were shooting Vanquishes that were local.
So I figured, "You know what, I'll do some twisters for these guys." And we did that. So, that team eventually disbanded. Some of them went to Infamous. Brett Messer, Sean Wyatt. Harrison Frye went to Thunder. And Rosati went onto NYX and Impact. So yeah, a great team a lot of great New England players that went on to do some awesome things.
But yeah, the Vanquish was interesting. So you know, the bulk of it was a little bit better, it was a grind. They were a lot harder to assemble and test than any of the Planet's stuff we'd done in the past. I would actually say this is going to sound crazy, but I would actually say that the Vanquish was probably---in a difficulty level and a headache level--- worse than the Autococker build. It was that time consuming and, you know, at the end, just took so long to move some of the stock. There really wasn't a whole lot of interest in the gun.
And, yeah, eventually worked our way through all of it. You know, I think that we did about as good a job as we possibly could have. But it's just a comedy of issues with the guns. I think we had 10-12 guns stolen from us at World Cup. But that was 12 that we had anodized. You know, just everything that could have went wrong kind of went wrong with that project.
We did learn a lot of things. The ergonomic styling takeaway was huge. It did work. You know, people liked that aspect of it. I think we strengthened our relationship with Empire on other fronts to do other projects with them down the road. But I think that we showed them, you know, what we could do if we were given the ability and the tools.
And a lot of people said you can't make a vanquish cool. I would beg to differ. I think we made about as cool as you possibly could. And those guns are still desired to this day. Now, eventually, we had to remill all of the Infamous guns and Plumb Life guns to mill the the names off of them. Yeah. And that's when I met Tyler Fare and Aesthetic Anodizing. He was first starting up. He also connections to some machinists in Canada. So we shipped all the bodies to him to clean up. That's where the SSX started. The X means we just crossed off the infamous that's where X came from.
So yeah, so we decided with the last quarter of the bodies, we were just going to twister mill them because, you know, what else can we do to at least we can move some guns that way? And we had a team that played for us called the Bay State Bandits. They were Semi-Pro team that were shooting Vanquishes that were local.
So I figured, "You know what, I'll do some twisters for these guys." And we did that. So, that team eventually disbanded. Some of them went to Infamous. Brett Messer, Sean Wyatt. Harrison Frye went to Thunder. And Rosati went onto NYX and Impact. So yeah, a great team a lot of great New England players that went on to do some awesome things.
But yeah, the Vanquish was interesting. So you know, the bulk of it was a little bit better, it was a grind. They were a lot harder to assemble and test than any of the Planet's stuff we'd done in the past. I would actually say this is going to sound crazy, but I would actually say that the Vanquish was probably---in a difficulty level and a headache level--- worse than the Autococker build. It was that time consuming and, you know, at the end, just took so long to move some of the stock. There really wasn't a whole lot of interest in the gun.
And, yeah, eventually worked our way through all of it. You know, I think that we did about as good a job as we possibly could have. But it's just a comedy of issues with the guns. I think we had 10-12 guns stolen from us at World Cup. But that was 12 that we had anodized. You know, just everything that could have went wrong kind of went wrong with that project.
We did learn a lot of things. The ergonomic styling takeaway was huge. It did work. You know, people liked that aspect of it. I think we strengthened our relationship with Empire on other fronts to do other projects with them down the road. But I think that we showed them, you know, what we could do if we were given the ability and the tools.
And a lot of people said you can't make a vanquish cool. I would beg to differ. I think we made about as cool as you possibly could. And those guns are still desired to this day. Now, eventually, we had to remill all of the Infamous guns and Plumb Life guns to mill the the names off of them. Yeah. And that's when I met Tyler Fare and Aesthetic Anodizing. He was first starting up. He also connections to some machinists in Canada. So we shipped all the bodies to him to clean up. That's where the SSX started. The X means we just crossed off the infamous that's where X came from.
Entity Matrix in the wild, meeting a twister cousin
You also resurrected the Entity Matrix. How did that happen? Why that specific marker? How did Dye react to the idea? I know that the owner of Aardvark hasn’t always had the best experiences with paintball. How did she and Aardvark react?
Yeah, as with most people that exit paintball, they usually don't leave on good terms.
So I did a lot of research into, and I'm obviously a collector and I'm a historian, I guess you can say, a paintball fan. You know, I'm a fan of iconic guns and milestones and the Entity Matrix is really heralded and regarded as probably the most recognizable and desirable collector's piece in terms of matrix technology.
You know, that's it. That's the gun that really used by the Ironman at the World Cup. You know, they went pretty much undefeated with that gun. They only used it for one event. It is very iconic. It was made by Aardvark at the time, which was the biggest shop, doing custom performance parts. Really, I don't wanna say that Aardvark was the father basically of the Matrix, but they created and refined the Matrix to what it is today. I mean, without them, there'd be no Matrix. When Diablo had it, Aardvark was the one that made the Matrix work. So really, I thought it very fitting.
You know, Dye---I very good relationship with Dye. And I think that if I give you, off the top of my head a check list, I've listed guys that I want to work with. And I think Billy Wing is obviously way up at the top of that list. At this point, I already worked with Simon and Jack and Sergey and LAPCO. And I worked with all these guys. And I think it was a two fold thing. I think they needed something that was unique. I think they were trying to try out some custom capabilities like engraving that they hadn't done in the past. I think that they needed to move, you know, a chunk of guns, which I don't think that's that big of a deal. They move them anyways. But I think that they wanted to do a little bit of cross promotion with us.
And originally they wanted us do a twister, but I wanted to start small. I wanted to see how a working relationship would go with them and start with a project like this. I just can't go twist the world and do every gun. You know, really, I mean, it would dilute the brand too, and I really need to pick and choose.
So I wanted to (work with them) and I wasn't all that familiar, to be honest with you, with the newer Dye guns. The M3 was something new, although it was very similar the M2. The last time I had owned and shot a Matrix is like a DM8 personally, so I didn't really have a whole lot familiarity other than working on a couple of guns to shop. I wasn't all that familiar with the guns.
So the process really started at Extravaganza, where most of these things start, where I pitched the idea that we could do some throwbacks to vintage Matrixes. Do like the NYX, the Toxic, you know, guns like that. And the Entity was the first one on the list, obviously. It was the easiest one to do because it was just really engraved on a stock body, so it's something we could easily do. So I really got to work with Billy and started down this road.
Yeah, as with most people that exit paintball, they usually don't leave on good terms.
So I did a lot of research into, and I'm obviously a collector and I'm a historian, I guess you can say, a paintball fan. You know, I'm a fan of iconic guns and milestones and the Entity Matrix is really heralded and regarded as probably the most recognizable and desirable collector's piece in terms of matrix technology.
You know, that's it. That's the gun that really used by the Ironman at the World Cup. You know, they went pretty much undefeated with that gun. They only used it for one event. It is very iconic. It was made by Aardvark at the time, which was the biggest shop, doing custom performance parts. Really, I don't wanna say that Aardvark was the father basically of the Matrix, but they created and refined the Matrix to what it is today. I mean, without them, there'd be no Matrix. When Diablo had it, Aardvark was the one that made the Matrix work. So really, I thought it very fitting.
You know, Dye---I very good relationship with Dye. And I think that if I give you, off the top of my head a check list, I've listed guys that I want to work with. And I think Billy Wing is obviously way up at the top of that list. At this point, I already worked with Simon and Jack and Sergey and LAPCO. And I worked with all these guys. And I think it was a two fold thing. I think they needed something that was unique. I think they were trying to try out some custom capabilities like engraving that they hadn't done in the past. I think that they needed to move, you know, a chunk of guns, which I don't think that's that big of a deal. They move them anyways. But I think that they wanted to do a little bit of cross promotion with us.
And originally they wanted us do a twister, but I wanted to start small. I wanted to see how a working relationship would go with them and start with a project like this. I just can't go twist the world and do every gun. You know, really, I mean, it would dilute the brand too, and I really need to pick and choose.
So I wanted to (work with them) and I wasn't all that familiar, to be honest with you, with the newer Dye guns. The M3 was something new, although it was very similar the M2. The last time I had owned and shot a Matrix is like a DM8 personally, so I didn't really have a whole lot familiarity other than working on a couple of guns to shop. I wasn't all that familiar with the guns.
So the process really started at Extravaganza, where most of these things start, where I pitched the idea that we could do some throwbacks to vintage Matrixes. Do like the NYX, the Toxic, you know, guns like that. And the Entity was the first one on the list, obviously. It was the easiest one to do because it was just really engraved on a stock body, so it's something we could easily do. So I really got to work with Billy and started down this road.
Committed's Dye Entity Matrix
I didn't really know the history in the bad blood really between between Aardvark and Dye at that time. So we kind of got going down the road. Once we got ready for release, you go through the whole process and ready to go. We put up the ad. And I see Aardvark post on a PBNation thread saying, this isn't, you know, just voicing a little bit of, I guess I don't wanna say disgust. But I think a little upset. Yeah.
So I got her number and I reached out to her. I thought it was the right thing to do, and we get to talking and she is an amazing, an amazing person. An absolute pioneer and genius in the sport. The stories that that she told me from all the way back to the Diablo and Draxxus days. You know, her own stuff, and refinements and working on guns at Skyball and things like that. And how things kind of shut down when Dye finally kind of owned the Matrix, and kind of took that stuff and then, kind of, served them to shut them down pretty much stop them from making anything else.
Yeah. I kind of felt like I needed to right a wrong a little bit. So the very first gun that we made, Entity #01, I gave to Aardvark. Usually I would take that gun for myself [and Boston Paintball] and I gave it to Aardvark. She actually said that no one's ever done that for her, been that nice to her in paintball. And that really meant a lot. She actually I think has it on display in her house and it's a really cool. One of the gold ones, so that was just really, really cool. And, you know, Drew Nelson that that worked there with her. I'm friends with him now too, and just learning their story.
And everything has a story. I want to know it. I want to know what I'm talking about. You know what, when I'm what I'm doing stuff, there's two sides. Everything. And I think it's sewed some old wounds that Dye had with them. I think that maybe that they created something of a working relationship in the future. Maybe Aardvark comes back now to collaborate with them. I feel like maybe I opened a door there, which is awesome. More important to me than selling any guns would be that.
That relationship was good. It wasn't what we get with Planet---Not in the sense that they're not professional or whatever. I just feel like the guns didn't move like a Planet gun does. They kind of sat for a while. The price point was a little on the high-side of a prestige gun. Not a knock on Dye.
This is just their business model. I don't feel like they protect the their brand all that much in terms of the secondhand market. I feel like they pay a lot of their players and teams in guns, so the market gets really flooded. It's hard to sell brand new guns at full price. To be honest, they devalue very quickly. So I think that was a good learning lesson. I think that we kind of learned that that might not be a good platform to do a Twister on. It doesn't really groove with what our typical, you know, mentality would be.
Not saying they're bad guns. They're great guns. It was awesome to work with them on it and we could do something small again like that in the future with them. But yeah, I don't perceive that that would be, unless something really changed with how they handle their pricing for their guns on the open market, would be at that we would probably do in the future.
So I got her number and I reached out to her. I thought it was the right thing to do, and we get to talking and she is an amazing, an amazing person. An absolute pioneer and genius in the sport. The stories that that she told me from all the way back to the Diablo and Draxxus days. You know, her own stuff, and refinements and working on guns at Skyball and things like that. And how things kind of shut down when Dye finally kind of owned the Matrix, and kind of took that stuff and then, kind of, served them to shut them down pretty much stop them from making anything else.
Yeah. I kind of felt like I needed to right a wrong a little bit. So the very first gun that we made, Entity #01, I gave to Aardvark. Usually I would take that gun for myself [and Boston Paintball] and I gave it to Aardvark. She actually said that no one's ever done that for her, been that nice to her in paintball. And that really meant a lot. She actually I think has it on display in her house and it's a really cool. One of the gold ones, so that was just really, really cool. And, you know, Drew Nelson that that worked there with her. I'm friends with him now too, and just learning their story.
And everything has a story. I want to know it. I want to know what I'm talking about. You know what, when I'm what I'm doing stuff, there's two sides. Everything. And I think it's sewed some old wounds that Dye had with them. I think that maybe that they created something of a working relationship in the future. Maybe Aardvark comes back now to collaborate with them. I feel like maybe I opened a door there, which is awesome. More important to me than selling any guns would be that.
That relationship was good. It wasn't what we get with Planet---Not in the sense that they're not professional or whatever. I just feel like the guns didn't move like a Planet gun does. They kind of sat for a while. The price point was a little on the high-side of a prestige gun. Not a knock on Dye.
This is just their business model. I don't feel like they protect the their brand all that much in terms of the secondhand market. I feel like they pay a lot of their players and teams in guns, so the market gets really flooded. It's hard to sell brand new guns at full price. To be honest, they devalue very quickly. So I think that was a good learning lesson. I think that we kind of learned that that might not be a good platform to do a Twister on. It doesn't really groove with what our typical, you know, mentality would be.
Not saying they're bad guns. They're great guns. It was awesome to work with them on it and we could do something small again like that in the future with them. But yeah, I don't perceive that that would be, unless something really changed with how they handle their pricing for their guns on the open market, would be at that we would probably do in the future.
Pile o' ID Twisters
You also jumped back into the TWSTR Cocker market again with the Inception Designs TWSTRS. What made you decide to go back to the cocker world? Was it the chance to work with Simon? Do you see any cockers in the near future, or do you see other projects other happening for the foreseeable future?
Yeah. Yes. Everything.
So I think that people really wanted...You know, I have a really bad habit of doing this when I'm in the moment.
So like when we finished the Autococker, the regular ones, I said, "Damn I never want to do that again. I'll never make another Autococker again." But thankfully, my wording was that I will never make another vintage Autococker again.
Because Simon's stuff is obviously different, the newer style, but I would always jump the chance to work with Simon on anything, right? So we had talked to Simon at, again, Extravaganza, which is where we always talk about this stuff. He had just released the Predator at the time, which definitely grooves will we do, you know? He's making a retro platform and he's putting it on something modern. That's my jam.
So, we talked to about doing it. And I felt it was far away enough from the F series guns that wouldn't devalue any of that. It's kind of its own animal. We were going to make a split of mins and full size guns, so it would be 75 and 75. So that makes it a really limited run. We're were going to do crazy ano on all of it. Do the database. Make it limited. Do the certificates and all that stuff.
So, yeah, we wanted something more like the LV1 or the 45. We didn't want to clamshell again. We wanted something that was more like an LV1. That's more we're going for...but we wanted something different. I kind of use this analogy. I think it makes the most sense. You could go buy a 1960s Dodge Challenger. It's a great, great car. But it doesn't have all the creature comforts. It feels very vintage. It's very clunky. It's very mechanical. It's great to take it out every now and then and go cruising with it. But you wouldn't commute to work in it every day. You know, you would go buy a brand new Challenger where it's got a warranty. You could go to the shop and get parts for it if you need to. Yeah, it's comfortable. It's not as problematic. And that's what we wanted to get with this run. With the revival of ICC, UWL events, the ICPL events, we wanted to catch a little bit of that. Where guys wanted a Twister Autococker, but obviously nobody that got an F Series gun would let people pry it from their cold, dead hands. With those guns, a lot of guys that have let them became wall hangers or collectibles. Some guys obviously go out and use them beaten into the ground, which is awesome. But they won't let them ,they will never let them go, for any price.
Yeah. Yes. Everything.
So I think that people really wanted...You know, I have a really bad habit of doing this when I'm in the moment.
So like when we finished the Autococker, the regular ones, I said, "Damn I never want to do that again. I'll never make another Autococker again." But thankfully, my wording was that I will never make another vintage Autococker again.
Because Simon's stuff is obviously different, the newer style, but I would always jump the chance to work with Simon on anything, right? So we had talked to Simon at, again, Extravaganza, which is where we always talk about this stuff. He had just released the Predator at the time, which definitely grooves will we do, you know? He's making a retro platform and he's putting it on something modern. That's my jam.
So, we talked to about doing it. And I felt it was far away enough from the F series guns that wouldn't devalue any of that. It's kind of its own animal. We were going to make a split of mins and full size guns, so it would be 75 and 75. So that makes it a really limited run. We're were going to do crazy ano on all of it. Do the database. Make it limited. Do the certificates and all that stuff.
So, yeah, we wanted something more like the LV1 or the 45. We didn't want to clamshell again. We wanted something that was more like an LV1. That's more we're going for...but we wanted something different. I kind of use this analogy. I think it makes the most sense. You could go buy a 1960s Dodge Challenger. It's a great, great car. But it doesn't have all the creature comforts. It feels very vintage. It's very clunky. It's very mechanical. It's great to take it out every now and then and go cruising with it. But you wouldn't commute to work in it every day. You know, you would go buy a brand new Challenger where it's got a warranty. You could go to the shop and get parts for it if you need to. Yeah, it's comfortable. It's not as problematic. And that's what we wanted to get with this run. With the revival of ICC, UWL events, the ICPL events, we wanted to catch a little bit of that. Where guys wanted a Twister Autococker, but obviously nobody that got an F Series gun would let people pry it from their cold, dead hands. With those guns, a lot of guys that have let them became wall hangers or collectibles. Some guys obviously go out and use them beaten into the ground, which is awesome. But they won't let them ,they will never let them go, for any price.
One of my ID Twisters. Thanks, T2!
So I felt that with Simon already having a little bit of saturation in the market, it was definitely a good idea to put out body kits. So you guys could build their own. Kind of like what we did the axes. You can tweak it yourself. You'll get your own or you can buy full blown guns. That I feel was a huge success. I feel like it's sold at the pace that it should have sold. That I didn't expect it to be a sellout immediately.
We we released that gun alongside the Entity Matrix when we launched the new Committed site. So I think we had a lot of things going for us. A lot of people came into the new site, checked it out. A lot of people came in to see all the new products and I think that we had it at the right time. And I think that we had a really good---and we still do to this day, it's even more powerful now---following that was so big that a lot of guys just bought it because it was a Twister. So it was good. And I think that that gun was better for people that want to be exposed to Autocockers without having to deal with the timing nonsense and a lot of the things that usually get people frustrated. So I think that we exposed a lot of people to Autocockers that otherwise wouldn't have tried an Autococker and mechanical guns. So I I find that to be probably one of the biggest successes that we did. That was good in the way that it was the perfect balance of not devaluing the old stuff and offering something to the market really wanted. And the price I think was right as well. So I think we did everything right. And working with Simon obviously is a no-brainer. So it was really, really a good project for us.
We we released that gun alongside the Entity Matrix when we launched the new Committed site. So I think we had a lot of things going for us. A lot of people came into the new site, checked it out. A lot of people came in to see all the new products and I think that we had it at the right time. And I think that we had a really good---and we still do to this day, it's even more powerful now---following that was so big that a lot of guys just bought it because it was a Twister. So it was good. And I think that that gun was better for people that want to be exposed to Autocockers without having to deal with the timing nonsense and a lot of the things that usually get people frustrated. So I think that we exposed a lot of people to Autocockers that otherwise wouldn't have tried an Autococker and mechanical guns. So I I find that to be probably one of the biggest successes that we did. That was good in the way that it was the perfect balance of not devaluing the old stuff and offering something to the market really wanted. And the price I think was right as well. So I think we did everything right. And working with Simon obviously is a no-brainer. So it was really, really a good project for us.
Thoroughly field tested Nimbus
You recently released the emek 3d printed bodies, jumping into the entry-level or low-cost market, allowing for players to get Twisters for their less expensive markers. Why jump into that market? Why that specific marker? How did you decide to do 3D printing? Did you have any experience with it previously? Have you been happy with the reaction? What was the goal for the brand in releasing that specific product?
Yeah, so, this one is amazing to me because the Emek---and this is absolutely not me shining you on--- the Emek is what my primary gun is. I fell in love with the Emek when they released that gun.
I felt like---I don't play all that much and I do have access to every high-end gun I could ever want---just for a casual day of play, I just take out an Emek. So it really started as me wanting to kind of trick out my own Emek. And I saw a gentleman that I'd actually been friendly with in the past. He was doing custom bodies. His name is Brian Keker---East Coast Anarchy. We went on to make a lot of other stuff together down the road. But I said to him, "Hey, I kind of have an idea. I'd like to field test some stuff, but why don't we get a body together? I'm going to Fulda Gap. I'd like to bring it with me and kind of bring it out to the field and test it."
At the time, we had the Twister CS2 just releasing, so I was gonna bring that with me as well. But I wanted to kind of field test this gun quietly, you know, so no one really knows. Jack was going to be there, so I really want to show off the body I was gonna work on. So we made the Nimbus body, which is basically a windowed Emek body that was 3D printed. I really wanted to take it out and take it on a safari, essentially to see if I could break it. Because fulda gap, as you know, is very rugged. You'll definitely smashed into the ground quite a bit and crawl and ram into walls. And yeah, it can take a beating.
So Brian and I worked on this for, you know, probably a month or two. And 3d printed it. It showed up. I clicked it all together and threw a bag. Didn't even test it. Nothing. Bolted together and went. I remember taking the CS to up for the first 10-15 minutes, realize 'Holy shit and I am shooting way too much paint," so I went back and tossed together the Emek and brought it out. And I used it for the rest of the weekend.
I absolutely fell in love with the gun. Jack was there and I just said, "This gun is amazing." You know for what for the price is and what you get. I immediately started, you know, really field testing that body. I played probably three times as much as I normally would, just to see if I could break it. And it survived Fulda Gap. It survived to the six eight months of me playing with it, handing it to any customer that wanted to go use a gun or whatever. And the gun just took it and it didn't break.
So then I started talking to Brian about making a twister. An actual like, you know, a legitimate, proper twister. So we had worked on that body for a while. I had actually used some of the components. So I dabble in small weight class battlebots stuff. When I was 3d printing some parts, and then I would take them out, bolt them on a robot, and go fight with them get hit with the titanium blades and stuff. And these things would hold up. So we were testing materials in all different ways, not just playing obviously, but other other avenues. So I'm very familiar with that type of that type of printing.
But Brian is a really smart guy. And the way that he he designs his guns, the way he designs his bodies, the way that the the print flow patterns are, it structurally is much more sound than somebody doing it at their house on a $200 3d printer. And these things hold up in there as a feasible retail item that you could sell, I mean, it's that good.
So we sat on this design for a while and we really didn't know what we were going to do with it. How are we gonna release it? And then COVID hit. Once COVID had everything shut down, and now all of a sudden, money that you would use to put these into production and make a bunch and have them in the shop to sell---that money's gone. You need it for survival now, right?
So, we immediately shifted. And I think that a lot of companies, you know, some companies pivot with stuff like this, and some companies don't. I have then pivoted Committed to change to a customer facing fulfillment setup with Shapeways. So, whereas I would go to Shapeways to order my my gun, the files are there, and I'd print it, and they'd send it to me. I'm not going to set it up, so the customer can order it. And they'll print it and ship to the customer. So I'm hands off. They're just buying the design that we know works . So I set it up with Brian and we launched it. And it seems like it was the perfect storm. Pardon the pun, to release that because there's people that just got stimulus checks. There are people that are bored at home are looking for a project to tinker with. So we sold a staggering amount of bodies.
You know and and to be honest, it was a really welcome supplemental income to help us get through COVID. And this was the first product that was that lower price that was a Twister product that came in like, you know, whatever it was, sub-200 bucks? Well, I don't even know what the price is up top of my head right now. But it was cheap. 140 bucks? So I mean, it's, it's a cheap, cheap option that you can bolt on and now they've got a really cool, cheap little shooter that they can go play with, give it to their buddy to go play with you know, and and it looks cool on their gear bag.
But that I feel like the Emek has turned into the new Ion. I think a lot of companies now, with the open sourcing that Planet has on those guns, that they're welcoming people to do some homebrew, cool stuff. Even even really high-end stuff like Simon's new FLE bodies and stuff for them, you know, so the sky's the limit with that platform. And I think again, and I love to praise Jack when I can, he created something again that I think that even the higher-ups at Planet didn't have the faith in the Emek being a success. And you know, Jack I think had the vision that it could be something more than what they thought. And now look, it's changed the industry. You know, it's changed rental fleets changed everything.
So obviously, editor's note here, but I think bang for buck gun made right now. They're phenomenal.
That's just what's in my that's my gear bag. Yep.
Yeah, so, this one is amazing to me because the Emek---and this is absolutely not me shining you on--- the Emek is what my primary gun is. I fell in love with the Emek when they released that gun.
I felt like---I don't play all that much and I do have access to every high-end gun I could ever want---just for a casual day of play, I just take out an Emek. So it really started as me wanting to kind of trick out my own Emek. And I saw a gentleman that I'd actually been friendly with in the past. He was doing custom bodies. His name is Brian Keker---East Coast Anarchy. We went on to make a lot of other stuff together down the road. But I said to him, "Hey, I kind of have an idea. I'd like to field test some stuff, but why don't we get a body together? I'm going to Fulda Gap. I'd like to bring it with me and kind of bring it out to the field and test it."
At the time, we had the Twister CS2 just releasing, so I was gonna bring that with me as well. But I wanted to kind of field test this gun quietly, you know, so no one really knows. Jack was going to be there, so I really want to show off the body I was gonna work on. So we made the Nimbus body, which is basically a windowed Emek body that was 3D printed. I really wanted to take it out and take it on a safari, essentially to see if I could break it. Because fulda gap, as you know, is very rugged. You'll definitely smashed into the ground quite a bit and crawl and ram into walls. And yeah, it can take a beating.
So Brian and I worked on this for, you know, probably a month or two. And 3d printed it. It showed up. I clicked it all together and threw a bag. Didn't even test it. Nothing. Bolted together and went. I remember taking the CS to up for the first 10-15 minutes, realize 'Holy shit and I am shooting way too much paint," so I went back and tossed together the Emek and brought it out. And I used it for the rest of the weekend.
I absolutely fell in love with the gun. Jack was there and I just said, "This gun is amazing." You know for what for the price is and what you get. I immediately started, you know, really field testing that body. I played probably three times as much as I normally would, just to see if I could break it. And it survived Fulda Gap. It survived to the six eight months of me playing with it, handing it to any customer that wanted to go use a gun or whatever. And the gun just took it and it didn't break.
So then I started talking to Brian about making a twister. An actual like, you know, a legitimate, proper twister. So we had worked on that body for a while. I had actually used some of the components. So I dabble in small weight class battlebots stuff. When I was 3d printing some parts, and then I would take them out, bolt them on a robot, and go fight with them get hit with the titanium blades and stuff. And these things would hold up. So we were testing materials in all different ways, not just playing obviously, but other other avenues. So I'm very familiar with that type of that type of printing.
But Brian is a really smart guy. And the way that he he designs his guns, the way he designs his bodies, the way that the the print flow patterns are, it structurally is much more sound than somebody doing it at their house on a $200 3d printer. And these things hold up in there as a feasible retail item that you could sell, I mean, it's that good.
So we sat on this design for a while and we really didn't know what we were going to do with it. How are we gonna release it? And then COVID hit. Once COVID had everything shut down, and now all of a sudden, money that you would use to put these into production and make a bunch and have them in the shop to sell---that money's gone. You need it for survival now, right?
So, we immediately shifted. And I think that a lot of companies, you know, some companies pivot with stuff like this, and some companies don't. I have then pivoted Committed to change to a customer facing fulfillment setup with Shapeways. So, whereas I would go to Shapeways to order my my gun, the files are there, and I'd print it, and they'd send it to me. I'm not going to set it up, so the customer can order it. And they'll print it and ship to the customer. So I'm hands off. They're just buying the design that we know works . So I set it up with Brian and we launched it. And it seems like it was the perfect storm. Pardon the pun, to release that because there's people that just got stimulus checks. There are people that are bored at home are looking for a project to tinker with. So we sold a staggering amount of bodies.
You know and and to be honest, it was a really welcome supplemental income to help us get through COVID. And this was the first product that was that lower price that was a Twister product that came in like, you know, whatever it was, sub-200 bucks? Well, I don't even know what the price is up top of my head right now. But it was cheap. 140 bucks? So I mean, it's, it's a cheap, cheap option that you can bolt on and now they've got a really cool, cheap little shooter that they can go play with, give it to their buddy to go play with you know, and and it looks cool on their gear bag.
But that I feel like the Emek has turned into the new Ion. I think a lot of companies now, with the open sourcing that Planet has on those guns, that they're welcoming people to do some homebrew, cool stuff. Even even really high-end stuff like Simon's new FLE bodies and stuff for them, you know, so the sky's the limit with that platform. And I think again, and I love to praise Jack when I can, he created something again that I think that even the higher-ups at Planet didn't have the faith in the Emek being a success. And you know, Jack I think had the vision that it could be something more than what they thought. And now look, it's changed the industry. You know, it's changed rental fleets changed everything.
So obviously, editor's note here, but I think bang for buck gun made right now. They're phenomenal.
That's just what's in my that's my gear bag. Yep.
Bonzai Heritage CS1
You’ve also consistently pushed the envelope in what comes with a marker in the special Heritage packages, and going above and beyond any expectations with them. How have you decided what to add in? Where have you taken inspiration from in the extras? What has been your favorite addition that you’ve decided to put into a Heritage addition? What has been the biggest pain in the ass, but worth it?
Oh, Jesus. Wow. So, it's all a pain in the ass.
I'm kidding.
It is. But that's okay.
So, I guess the heritage package is interesting because it all originally started out as, "Oh, we've got a bunch of mystery parts, and we need to figure out what to do with all this. Let's throw some vintage ano on it." And at the time, Planet wasn't doing vintage and they weren't doing fire splash and ice and electric skies and bonzai.
So when we did it on the LV-1. And we did one, and it was unheard of for a company to produce one or something. Yeah, in 2014 or 2015, so when we did the heritage, we said, here's a vintage Planet Eclipse that's polished fire splash. You know, it's a one-off it and comes with a barrel kit. It comes with all this stuff. Even the original heritage packages weren't elaborate. They had some barrel backs. It wasn't anything crazy. We were boring out the barrel backs for freak inserts. We were the first ones to really be doing that stuff, utilizing guys to do that.
But when we put them up and they sold out, people were calling up Planet Eclipse and going, "Hey, I want that fire splash gun." and they're like, "That's not us. You know, we didn't make that." So I think they got enough interest from that second hand that they ended up putting them into production again and doing it. And they have stopped doing it, since but they did small batches here and there of all their guns in fire splash and bonsai. I've even talked to Jack, and he said that was that was something that they didn't want to do. But people were asking about it so much that they just ended up doing it because it was leaving money on the table at that point.
And if you're allowing the customer to go and do it on their own, now they are voiding warranties and creating more headaches for Planet. So they felt that they might as well monetize it and control it if they can. And do it. So we're that's kind of where it started out, and it's evolved a lot.
We did it again on the CS1. We did the CS1 and the Twister, Axe, and the Twister F4 at the same time. That sucked. That was way too many guns, like that was a real headache. We utilized Arnold's Metal Finishing because they did the first run. So we just felt we wanted to kind of keep it uniform and do it again with them. They're really, really good to work with. They're good guys. They've been doing paintball stuff for a long time. But adding in accessories,---I'm trying to recall---I think for the heritage CS1's, we did an anode plate and the certificate was laser engraved, which I thought was really a premium thing. And just try to push them a little bit more, adding in more accessories and some limited edition prints, and things like that.
Oh, Jesus. Wow. So, it's all a pain in the ass.
I'm kidding.
It is. But that's okay.
So, I guess the heritage package is interesting because it all originally started out as, "Oh, we've got a bunch of mystery parts, and we need to figure out what to do with all this. Let's throw some vintage ano on it." And at the time, Planet wasn't doing vintage and they weren't doing fire splash and ice and electric skies and bonzai.
So when we did it on the LV-1. And we did one, and it was unheard of for a company to produce one or something. Yeah, in 2014 or 2015, so when we did the heritage, we said, here's a vintage Planet Eclipse that's polished fire splash. You know, it's a one-off it and comes with a barrel kit. It comes with all this stuff. Even the original heritage packages weren't elaborate. They had some barrel backs. It wasn't anything crazy. We were boring out the barrel backs for freak inserts. We were the first ones to really be doing that stuff, utilizing guys to do that.
But when we put them up and they sold out, people were calling up Planet Eclipse and going, "Hey, I want that fire splash gun." and they're like, "That's not us. You know, we didn't make that." So I think they got enough interest from that second hand that they ended up putting them into production again and doing it. And they have stopped doing it, since but they did small batches here and there of all their guns in fire splash and bonsai. I've even talked to Jack, and he said that was that was something that they didn't want to do. But people were asking about it so much that they just ended up doing it because it was leaving money on the table at that point.
And if you're allowing the customer to go and do it on their own, now they are voiding warranties and creating more headaches for Planet. So they felt that they might as well monetize it and control it if they can. And do it. So we're that's kind of where it started out, and it's evolved a lot.
We did it again on the CS1. We did the CS1 and the Twister, Axe, and the Twister F4 at the same time. That sucked. That was way too many guns, like that was a real headache. We utilized Arnold's Metal Finishing because they did the first run. So we just felt we wanted to kind of keep it uniform and do it again with them. They're really, really good to work with. They're good guys. They've been doing paintball stuff for a long time. But adding in accessories,---I'm trying to recall---I think for the heritage CS1's, we did an anode plate and the certificate was laser engraved, which I thought was really a premium thing. And just try to push them a little bit more, adding in more accessories and some limited edition prints, and things like that.
We did headbands as well. So, fun fact, Adam Cowels at OCD paintball. He's been with supporting the Twister from day one. He is an awesome guy. We've done Twister headbands that color match your guns with your serial numbers and stuff like that. And we included those. So we evolved here. You know, we work with companies and we included them in our projects going forward. And Adam's actually done that headband and included one in every run that we've done, and people could actually go to him and order headbands to match their gun. It's a pretty cool thing that Adam offers as a service.
You know, that run was big. That was a lot of guns. But I think that pushing the envelope and spending the money and making something that people will find value in and you'll get your return on it. Because nobody else is putting in that level of detail. Or care. You're seeing it a little bit more now, and Adrenaline's doing that level now. But I mean stuff that we've been doing for years and years and years.
It is a lot of time. It's a lot of detail oriented stuff. It's a lot of moving parts, but goddamn does it feel good when they're all done. And you see them all laid out. It's very cool. The Twister CS2 was an incredible amount of work. It is, by far, the most extravagant package that I've ever seen in anything paintball. I don't think that anything even comes close to the level of stuff that we did. The nice thing with these projects is that I can go out and find what I consider to be the best stuff and just include it. So you know, we went to parabolic and got barrel tips. We went to Staunchy, we got barrel backs for the inserts. I could build the ultimate barrel kit for the gun. GoPro mounts that are match ano'ed from HK. All these things that we throw in. Scented lube, we throw in. Custom headbands. Every accessory you can get for the gun. Barrel backs. Triggers. Everything. Custom tuning. Custom boot up screens. Printed cards. The case for those guns was incredible. It was big, heavy.
But I think of all the things that we did, I think I would say that the gun stand is probably the coolest thing that we've made. So we started with somebody that was working on it originally, and then we changed gears. Brian Keker, who did the Emek bodies, was now doing it. It was the single most expensive singular piece we've ever included. With any package. I don't even know the weight on it. You probably know the weight on it [Editor's note: I have one. It's huge.], but it's probably 10 pounds. Whatever. It is a 14 inch tall tribal that's ano matched your gun. It is a display stand. It isn't something you're gonna bring to your field. It is very much designed to have your gun mounted, you know, in room somewhere.
And that part was extremely expensive to produce and even harder to figure out how to pack in a box. And it made our anodizer want to jump off a bridge when he got the delivery. We said how big it was and that it had to ano match. So we used Arc when we did those. Ryan, luckily, has gone through headaches with us in the past, so I had faith he would do it right. But that package is also 2800 bucks. I didn't really have a whole lot of faith that it would sell quickly.
And boy, was I wrong. It's sold out and about I think it's all about 15 minutes. We did 15 at about $2800 and it all sold out in 15 minutes with no launch either. Facebook was actually down that day. So we just put it on the site and people did end up finding it. And in 15 minutes, buying them all.
So the heritage is is the chance that I get at the very end to really go crazy and build what I consider to be a dream package. Something that you could hold on to as a collector and know you have something that's so unique and so high end, that nothing else will ever come close to it. And and I think that's what the heritage package is.
You know, that run was big. That was a lot of guns. But I think that pushing the envelope and spending the money and making something that people will find value in and you'll get your return on it. Because nobody else is putting in that level of detail. Or care. You're seeing it a little bit more now, and Adrenaline's doing that level now. But I mean stuff that we've been doing for years and years and years.
It is a lot of time. It's a lot of detail oriented stuff. It's a lot of moving parts, but goddamn does it feel good when they're all done. And you see them all laid out. It's very cool. The Twister CS2 was an incredible amount of work. It is, by far, the most extravagant package that I've ever seen in anything paintball. I don't think that anything even comes close to the level of stuff that we did. The nice thing with these projects is that I can go out and find what I consider to be the best stuff and just include it. So you know, we went to parabolic and got barrel tips. We went to Staunchy, we got barrel backs for the inserts. I could build the ultimate barrel kit for the gun. GoPro mounts that are match ano'ed from HK. All these things that we throw in. Scented lube, we throw in. Custom headbands. Every accessory you can get for the gun. Barrel backs. Triggers. Everything. Custom tuning. Custom boot up screens. Printed cards. The case for those guns was incredible. It was big, heavy.
But I think of all the things that we did, I think I would say that the gun stand is probably the coolest thing that we've made. So we started with somebody that was working on it originally, and then we changed gears. Brian Keker, who did the Emek bodies, was now doing it. It was the single most expensive singular piece we've ever included. With any package. I don't even know the weight on it. You probably know the weight on it [Editor's note: I have one. It's huge.], but it's probably 10 pounds. Whatever. It is a 14 inch tall tribal that's ano matched your gun. It is a display stand. It isn't something you're gonna bring to your field. It is very much designed to have your gun mounted, you know, in room somewhere.
And that part was extremely expensive to produce and even harder to figure out how to pack in a box. And it made our anodizer want to jump off a bridge when he got the delivery. We said how big it was and that it had to ano match. So we used Arc when we did those. Ryan, luckily, has gone through headaches with us in the past, so I had faith he would do it right. But that package is also 2800 bucks. I didn't really have a whole lot of faith that it would sell quickly.
And boy, was I wrong. It's sold out and about I think it's all about 15 minutes. We did 15 at about $2800 and it all sold out in 15 minutes with no launch either. Facebook was actually down that day. So we just put it on the site and people did end up finding it. And in 15 minutes, buying them all.
So the heritage is is the chance that I get at the very end to really go crazy and build what I consider to be a dream package. Something that you could hold on to as a collector and know you have something that's so unique and so high end, that nothing else will ever come close to it. And and I think that's what the heritage package is.
Ttwo's Old Heritage LV-1
Out of all the markers that you’ve done, which is your favorite? Why? What design feature in any version of any marker has been your favorite? Are there any that you did in a marker, and thought, “Why didn’t I do this sooner? Why hasn’t anyone?”
Oh, wow. Um, that is a really loaded question. It's like asking me to pick my favorite child.
I'm always going to give this answer, and then I'll give you probably what the real answer is. My answer is always gonna be the next one. Whatever the next gun is is my favorite gun, right? It doesn't matter what it is. We're always trying to get better and we're always evolving. It's always getting better. Truth be told, I think they all really have a special place.
I think the Autococker, the F series Autococker, though, I really I feel like that one only because I felt it was a rite of passage for me at Boston paintball to do my own Autococker. I feel like Lappy and beforehand Mike Hood, Doug Hallenbrook, and, you know, even Falbe in the later years, I think they all cemented themselves as as architects and gunsmiths and airsmiths. And it's something that I felt, like I always kind of lived in their shadow. And I felt like that was something that I needed to do to feel somewhat their equal. I guess I don't know if I'll ever in my head feel like I'm equal with some of these guys because if it wasn't for them, I would never have the opportunity to do this. The company never would have grown to the point where I could do this. I mean, we're not even getting into all the graphic ano guns that I've designed for teams and guys like Thomas Taylor. And I've been able to do these amazing things.
They all feel so special. And I've started a life that had kids and all these things, and it's all blurred together. And I can remember designing and working on the Autococker in the lobby of a hospital room when my father was in the hospital. I can remember working on Thomas Taylor's ad for his gun while I was in another hospital room. My son was born the day before and my wife was sleeping. I remember being up at 2am, working on a poster. It's like my life is just intertwined with paintball for the past decade of custom stuff.
So it's, it's I can relate to all these great experiences, and that's why I think they're special because I've gone through events in my life while working on these things. And I think it brings a little bit in. But yeah, I think that I think that the the F series Autococker probably to me means the most.
But my favorite to shoot is the Twister LV-1. That one that's my favorite time to shoot. To be honest, that was our first step back in, and I think that really means a lot too.
Was there any design feature that really stands out on it's own?
Um, oh jeez.
I think that I try and do some things in every job that are a little bit different and experiment a little bit. I think that the ergonomic styling stuff that we did on the Vanquish. And then we carried it over, obviously, the CS2, and then we carried over onto the Cocker [Editor's note: Again, HK would go on to invent this in paintball years later on their own signature markers]. I think that was something pretty cool that I'm like, "Man, Why didn't anybody do this before that? Maybe some people have and maybe I've seen it, but maybe not as prominent is like we did it. But this blend of form and function to me is cool." I don't think enough people do it. I think they just go for like, "I want to make it look cool."
And it's okay, but is it functional? Is it functional though? You know what? Like the Necro Cocker, you know? The Necro looks really cool. But if you fall on it, you're going to die.
Hahahhaha [Editor's note: Seriously, falling on one may well kill you.]
Like that's, how do you really even hold it? Yeah. So I mean, I can appreciate all of that. But yeah, I think that's probably the one thing. Everything else---I've got a great canvas to work with already. With these guns, it's hard for me to go, "Man, Jack missed that. He should have done that." That's not a thing. We've obviously discovered things as we go and went, "Hey, maybe I should look into reinforcing this in the future, changing this." And then those changes quietly go in our future guns and stuff that you guys wouldn't even know about, really like that the average customer wouldn't notice, but it's stuff that we noticed.
Another thing that we've helped them troubleshoot is the portal. We help them troubleshoot board issues, but they've rolled out updates to that we don't take credit for it or anything. But it's like we're finding things that help them evolve their system. It's always this thing where I feel like when Jack like posts on PBNation for example, if that's even a anymore, he would post an ask, "What do you think of the gun?" And people would go, "It shoot lasers! It's amazing! It's perfect!"
He knows you're lying. There's always something and he's trying asking you because he wants to make something better. And I think that good feedback to help them make gun is better. And not being afraid to tell them something's wrong, that makes guns better. So, in terms of stuff that I've done---I start with a great base. So it's hard to change it.
Oh, wow. Um, that is a really loaded question. It's like asking me to pick my favorite child.
I'm always going to give this answer, and then I'll give you probably what the real answer is. My answer is always gonna be the next one. Whatever the next gun is is my favorite gun, right? It doesn't matter what it is. We're always trying to get better and we're always evolving. It's always getting better. Truth be told, I think they all really have a special place.
I think the Autococker, the F series Autococker, though, I really I feel like that one only because I felt it was a rite of passage for me at Boston paintball to do my own Autococker. I feel like Lappy and beforehand Mike Hood, Doug Hallenbrook, and, you know, even Falbe in the later years, I think they all cemented themselves as as architects and gunsmiths and airsmiths. And it's something that I felt, like I always kind of lived in their shadow. And I felt like that was something that I needed to do to feel somewhat their equal. I guess I don't know if I'll ever in my head feel like I'm equal with some of these guys because if it wasn't for them, I would never have the opportunity to do this. The company never would have grown to the point where I could do this. I mean, we're not even getting into all the graphic ano guns that I've designed for teams and guys like Thomas Taylor. And I've been able to do these amazing things.
They all feel so special. And I've started a life that had kids and all these things, and it's all blurred together. And I can remember designing and working on the Autococker in the lobby of a hospital room when my father was in the hospital. I can remember working on Thomas Taylor's ad for his gun while I was in another hospital room. My son was born the day before and my wife was sleeping. I remember being up at 2am, working on a poster. It's like my life is just intertwined with paintball for the past decade of custom stuff.
So it's, it's I can relate to all these great experiences, and that's why I think they're special because I've gone through events in my life while working on these things. And I think it brings a little bit in. But yeah, I think that I think that the the F series Autococker probably to me means the most.
But my favorite to shoot is the Twister LV-1. That one that's my favorite time to shoot. To be honest, that was our first step back in, and I think that really means a lot too.
Was there any design feature that really stands out on it's own?
Um, oh jeez.
I think that I try and do some things in every job that are a little bit different and experiment a little bit. I think that the ergonomic styling stuff that we did on the Vanquish. And then we carried it over, obviously, the CS2, and then we carried over onto the Cocker [Editor's note: Again, HK would go on to invent this in paintball years later on their own signature markers]. I think that was something pretty cool that I'm like, "Man, Why didn't anybody do this before that? Maybe some people have and maybe I've seen it, but maybe not as prominent is like we did it. But this blend of form and function to me is cool." I don't think enough people do it. I think they just go for like, "I want to make it look cool."
And it's okay, but is it functional? Is it functional though? You know what? Like the Necro Cocker, you know? The Necro looks really cool. But if you fall on it, you're going to die.
Hahahhaha [Editor's note: Seriously, falling on one may well kill you.]
Like that's, how do you really even hold it? Yeah. So I mean, I can appreciate all of that. But yeah, I think that's probably the one thing. Everything else---I've got a great canvas to work with already. With these guns, it's hard for me to go, "Man, Jack missed that. He should have done that." That's not a thing. We've obviously discovered things as we go and went, "Hey, maybe I should look into reinforcing this in the future, changing this." And then those changes quietly go in our future guns and stuff that you guys wouldn't even know about, really like that the average customer wouldn't notice, but it's stuff that we noticed.
Another thing that we've helped them troubleshoot is the portal. We help them troubleshoot board issues, but they've rolled out updates to that we don't take credit for it or anything. But it's like we're finding things that help them evolve their system. It's always this thing where I feel like when Jack like posts on PBNation for example, if that's even a anymore, he would post an ask, "What do you think of the gun?" And people would go, "It shoot lasers! It's amazing! It's perfect!"
He knows you're lying. There's always something and he's trying asking you because he wants to make something better. And I think that good feedback to help them make gun is better. And not being afraid to tell them something's wrong, that makes guns better. So, in terms of stuff that I've done---I start with a great base. So it's hard to change it.
Ttwo, winning stuff
Do you own any of the markers that you have helped create? Which ones? Why those?
You know, everybody would think I have this massive collection of all these guns, and I did at one point. But it's tough because I'm not playing as much. And I'd rather somebody take one of my guns and go enjoy it. I think that's kind of where I'm at on that specifically. I know I had an Autococker F Series that never got made for me. It was actually 007. It was going to be gold plated. We never end up making the gun. The Emek that I have, I shoot that.
But I have access to so many great guns that we've kept over the years. The Lv-1s and CS2s (In the Boston Paintball Clubhouse), I have access to all this. So for me, it's hard to warrant keeping something for myself. You know, some of the old Autococker stuff and some prototype stuff, sure. But nothing that I go out and play with really. I do have one Autococker over my bench downstairs is an original Autococker Clamshell/ Sunrise. It was on a calendar shoot that we did for a local radio station back in the late 90s and it was one of my close friend's. And I bought it from him years ago. I told him I never sell it unless I sold it back to him. I have no idea if it even works, it's been in the case for so long.
So yeah, I don't really keep anything myself. The only one I had was a heritage tradition Twister LV-1, which was an Italian one. I sold it to make a purchase new and other hobbies. So yeah, I don't I don't regret it because I know I went to a really good home and I know it's being well taken care of. I don't care.
You know, everybody would think I have this massive collection of all these guns, and I did at one point. But it's tough because I'm not playing as much. And I'd rather somebody take one of my guns and go enjoy it. I think that's kind of where I'm at on that specifically. I know I had an Autococker F Series that never got made for me. It was actually 007. It was going to be gold plated. We never end up making the gun. The Emek that I have, I shoot that.
But I have access to so many great guns that we've kept over the years. The Lv-1s and CS2s (In the Boston Paintball Clubhouse), I have access to all this. So for me, it's hard to warrant keeping something for myself. You know, some of the old Autococker stuff and some prototype stuff, sure. But nothing that I go out and play with really. I do have one Autococker over my bench downstairs is an original Autococker Clamshell/ Sunrise. It was on a calendar shoot that we did for a local radio station back in the late 90s and it was one of my close friend's. And I bought it from him years ago. I told him I never sell it unless I sold it back to him. I have no idea if it even works, it's been in the case for so long.
So yeah, I don't really keep anything myself. The only one I had was a heritage tradition Twister LV-1, which was an Italian one. I sold it to make a purchase new and other hobbies. So yeah, I don't I don't regret it because I know I went to a really good home and I know it's being well taken care of. I don't care.
Ttwo, with Battlebot
Are there any markers besides the Machine Vapor that were made in the past that you look at, and think, “I wish I could have gotten my hands on that?” Any that you think were cool as hell, again, obviously besides the Machine Vapor, and would have been fun to make a Twister or customize?
Oh my god. I would only want to get my hands on a Machine Vapor to throw it off a mountain.
So a gun legitimately that I wish I could have worked on, or still could? I feel like we made such good choices that I have no regrets over anything that we've made. I think the obvious one, the one that we haven't worked on is a Luxe. Much like Dye, I don't think that their business model falls in line with what we want to do. I was really good friends with Tim Montressor. And it's hard with him not being there. I am good friends with Russell, too. I talk to Russell quite a bit. But I just don't see, with their relationships with other custom manufacturers now, I don't foresee how we'd plug in or tap into that. We had tapped in too for a couple years, but we used that time to strengthen our relationship with Planet.
I think the one thing I would really want to give a try is the J4. I think the J4 Torque. They are an unbelievable group of guys. Very smart guys. I think that they were plagued by a lot of questionable design problems, not on their part. But when they put things into manufacturing, when it was out of their hands. And I think a lot of people made decisions on their behalf that really screwed things up. I like those guys a lot, and if they brought something to market that were reliable, it would be something that I would like to work on. There's a lot of meat on that body. I think the concept is awesome.
I think that, or maybe Field One. The Force is pretty cool. I like the technology in it. But, again, it's a gun that hasn't been out all that long yet. I don't know that it's quite proven---it falls under the J4 thing. I think that they need to establish that they're a solid platform before jumping on anything. But with Planet, we have such a good relationship there, it's hard to second guess anything that we've done. So yeah.
Oh my god. I would only want to get my hands on a Machine Vapor to throw it off a mountain.
So a gun legitimately that I wish I could have worked on, or still could? I feel like we made such good choices that I have no regrets over anything that we've made. I think the obvious one, the one that we haven't worked on is a Luxe. Much like Dye, I don't think that their business model falls in line with what we want to do. I was really good friends with Tim Montressor. And it's hard with him not being there. I am good friends with Russell, too. I talk to Russell quite a bit. But I just don't see, with their relationships with other custom manufacturers now, I don't foresee how we'd plug in or tap into that. We had tapped in too for a couple years, but we used that time to strengthen our relationship with Planet.
I think the one thing I would really want to give a try is the J4. I think the J4 Torque. They are an unbelievable group of guys. Very smart guys. I think that they were plagued by a lot of questionable design problems, not on their part. But when they put things into manufacturing, when it was out of their hands. And I think a lot of people made decisions on their behalf that really screwed things up. I like those guys a lot, and if they brought something to market that were reliable, it would be something that I would like to work on. There's a lot of meat on that body. I think the concept is awesome.
I think that, or maybe Field One. The Force is pretty cool. I like the technology in it. But, again, it's a gun that hasn't been out all that long yet. I don't know that it's quite proven---it falls under the J4 thing. I think that they need to establish that they're a solid platform before jumping on anything. But with Planet, we have such a good relationship there, it's hard to second guess anything that we've done. So yeah.
Custom Committed Headband and limited Skull Mask
Are there any markers that you think would be fun to go ham on in customizing, but don’t know if there is a market for what you do there?
I would actually like to do some sort of magfed gun. I think that it'd be something that I haven't done, that I don't know. I don't know that realm. It's kind of like how Jack had to design a gun that looks like a real gun when in the UK they don't have real guns. It's funny, when Jack was designing the MG, he plays for a team here in the States for scenario events, and here they have all sorts of fun guns that he can shoot down in North Carolina. So I think that he learned a lot interacting with the gun culture here in the United States. And I think that helped him in designing and perfecting that gun and the MG platform.
And with the MG platform and 3D printing, you can 3D print those bodies no problem. I mean I could still do something. I'm just familiar with that market all that much, so it would kinda be cool to have a little challenge. But there's nothing out there that makes me go, "Wow!" A Paragon, maybe? That was a really cool concept that never materialized. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
I would actually like to do some sort of magfed gun. I think that it'd be something that I haven't done, that I don't know. I don't know that realm. It's kind of like how Jack had to design a gun that looks like a real gun when in the UK they don't have real guns. It's funny, when Jack was designing the MG, he plays for a team here in the States for scenario events, and here they have all sorts of fun guns that he can shoot down in North Carolina. So I think that he learned a lot interacting with the gun culture here in the United States. And I think that helped him in designing and perfecting that gun and the MG platform.
And with the MG platform and 3D printing, you can 3D print those bodies no problem. I mean I could still do something. I'm just familiar with that market all that much, so it would kinda be cool to have a little challenge. But there's nothing out there that makes me go, "Wow!" A Paragon, maybe? That was a really cool concept that never materialized. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
On-body contoured milling on a Vanquish
Who do you see as your competitors? How do you feel when you see a design that obviously ‘took inspiration’ off something that you did well before them? Do your competitors get your competitive juices flowing, like you might in a game?
I, at the risk of sounding completely----I don't see anyone as our real competition. We have such a good community around our brand that I don't think that we compete with anyone for those customers. I don't think that anyone is making anything that would lure our guys away, to be honest. Getting new customers in and exposing them to our brand---that's the tough thing.
The obvious--Infamous is a competitor, but we're friendly with Infamous. I don't look at it as we really go head-to-head. I make custom stuff for Committed. We make tanks, they make tanks. We make a gun, they make a gun. We do custom googles, they do custom googles. But I don't think that we go after the same clientele. I feel like we are fishing in an ocean, so there is no shortage of fish for what we're doing.
I feel like everybody else on the outskirts, like an HK, I don't find them to be competition at all. I don't. I don't think that they're producing anything that makes me worried, to be honest with you.
I don't think that they have enough of a community around their brand. I think that some of their designs are pretty cool. The obviously work with Jack. They work with designers over at DLX, and they have some in-house designers. They do a lot of stuff really, really well. But I just think that there is a certain expectation that people have when you're buying a premium custom private label gun, you can't half ass it. I feel like with Infamous or us, you get that level of service. I feel like you don't that from the other side.
I feel like an Adrenaline does a really good job of that too. Freeflow does a great job too. I think those guys are great.
I feel like those guys put a lot of effort into it.
They do. And they engage with their customers. And not just here's a 30 second clip of dubstep, with quick cuts of the gun, now buy this Invader. They're actually interacting. They're engaged in the process. They care.
Like Angry Antle. I think Jason does amazing work. Guys like that. I think engagement is huge. And I think that if you're not doing it, you're doing your customers a disservice. That's why I do as many live videos as I can. I mean, Freeflow with literally just turn on a camera and build your gun in front of you. They'll build guns for 6 hours straight. That's the extra mile.
I think that you're not getting that from---there's a very hard line in the sand. And guys are either all-in, and they're committed and passionate about it, or they're not. And it's very easy to see who isn't. I mean, it's night and day.
And I applaud those other guys. The Freeflows of the world. Jason. Infamous. They are the ones that makes me elevate what I am doing. They are the ones that make me work harder. Because everyone else---they're just vapors to me. Pardon the pun. That's not even a question. But I feel everyone else---they put one foot in, dipped it in, and they don't want to jump in. They just want to put them out there. And if they don't sell, they'll just dump them on ANS and they'll be gone. That's why they're not competition.
I, at the risk of sounding completely----I don't see anyone as our real competition. We have such a good community around our brand that I don't think that we compete with anyone for those customers. I don't think that anyone is making anything that would lure our guys away, to be honest. Getting new customers in and exposing them to our brand---that's the tough thing.
The obvious--Infamous is a competitor, but we're friendly with Infamous. I don't look at it as we really go head-to-head. I make custom stuff for Committed. We make tanks, they make tanks. We make a gun, they make a gun. We do custom googles, they do custom googles. But I don't think that we go after the same clientele. I feel like we are fishing in an ocean, so there is no shortage of fish for what we're doing.
I feel like everybody else on the outskirts, like an HK, I don't find them to be competition at all. I don't. I don't think that they're producing anything that makes me worried, to be honest with you.
I don't think that they have enough of a community around their brand. I think that some of their designs are pretty cool. The obviously work with Jack. They work with designers over at DLX, and they have some in-house designers. They do a lot of stuff really, really well. But I just think that there is a certain expectation that people have when you're buying a premium custom private label gun, you can't half ass it. I feel like with Infamous or us, you get that level of service. I feel like you don't that from the other side.
I feel like an Adrenaline does a really good job of that too. Freeflow does a great job too. I think those guys are great.
I feel like those guys put a lot of effort into it.
They do. And they engage with their customers. And not just here's a 30 second clip of dubstep, with quick cuts of the gun, now buy this Invader. They're actually interacting. They're engaged in the process. They care.
Like Angry Antle. I think Jason does amazing work. Guys like that. I think engagement is huge. And I think that if you're not doing it, you're doing your customers a disservice. That's why I do as many live videos as I can. I mean, Freeflow with literally just turn on a camera and build your gun in front of you. They'll build guns for 6 hours straight. That's the extra mile.
I think that you're not getting that from---there's a very hard line in the sand. And guys are either all-in, and they're committed and passionate about it, or they're not. And it's very easy to see who isn't. I mean, it's night and day.
And I applaud those other guys. The Freeflows of the world. Jason. Infamous. They are the ones that makes me elevate what I am doing. They are the ones that make me work harder. Because everyone else---they're just vapors to me. Pardon the pun. That's not even a question. But I feel everyone else---they put one foot in, dipped it in, and they don't want to jump in. They just want to put them out there. And if they don't sell, they'll just dump them on ANS and they'll be gone. That's why they're not competition.
Naked Twister CS
Is there anyone out there that has impressed you, even in small runs like Angry Antle’s Infidel Shockers or the Kracken ‘cockers?
Simon.
I mean anyone who is trying to do something unique impresses me.
I am thankful and happy to call these guys peers. It's crazy that you can compare notes with these guys. I remember Jason called me a couple of months ago, and was picking my brain a little bit when he was talking about the Infidel. And damn man, he's been my customer since day one. I remember he used to fly in---he's an airline pilot. He flew into our location. He had a layover and came into our shop to pick out his ano pattern in person from an old vintage chip sheet. I mean that's the level of commitment he has to that, and to our process, and his carry over. I tried to give him ideas. Start small. Make it special. Don't take 50 guns. Don't do this, don't do that. You gotta start small. Everyone wants to take a big bite, but you gotta make it manageable. Now, I mean, Jason could sell 100 guns at this point. After the job he just did. He did such an amazing job with those 10. He could just focus on it. And now he can reinvest in his business, expand his customer base. The sky is the limit for him. I wish him all the best. He's great.
But everybody else---if you have faith and passion in your brand, I am a fan of you. Because you're going to make it better for everyone. To be honest, how shitty was custom for a decade? It didn't exist. And even 5 years ago, it wasn't a thing, you know?
So I think a lot of grassroots guys, like Jason, and Freeflow, they're the ones really driving this. I like to consider myself grassroots, but at this point, I don't know that people really look at it that way. I'm not a big operation. I mean, it's just me. And I do take on a lot.
But I don't have to worry about a 9-5 job like a lot of these other guys do. So I do have an appreciation for what a lot of these guys who have a regular job, that do this on the side, passion projects---I applaud all those guys. And it's good to see some guys coming back. Like Caesar (of P&P Supercocker fame) is making some guns again. I don't know---I haven't seen those guns. I heard Aardvark may come back at some point in some way. I don't know if that's accurate, but it's cool to see custom back again. It's a second golden age, a revival. I'm happy to be part of that, and motivate some of these other guys to do it.
Simon.
I mean anyone who is trying to do something unique impresses me.
I am thankful and happy to call these guys peers. It's crazy that you can compare notes with these guys. I remember Jason called me a couple of months ago, and was picking my brain a little bit when he was talking about the Infidel. And damn man, he's been my customer since day one. I remember he used to fly in---he's an airline pilot. He flew into our location. He had a layover and came into our shop to pick out his ano pattern in person from an old vintage chip sheet. I mean that's the level of commitment he has to that, and to our process, and his carry over. I tried to give him ideas. Start small. Make it special. Don't take 50 guns. Don't do this, don't do that. You gotta start small. Everyone wants to take a big bite, but you gotta make it manageable. Now, I mean, Jason could sell 100 guns at this point. After the job he just did. He did such an amazing job with those 10. He could just focus on it. And now he can reinvest in his business, expand his customer base. The sky is the limit for him. I wish him all the best. He's great.
But everybody else---if you have faith and passion in your brand, I am a fan of you. Because you're going to make it better for everyone. To be honest, how shitty was custom for a decade? It didn't exist. And even 5 years ago, it wasn't a thing, you know?
So I think a lot of grassroots guys, like Jason, and Freeflow, they're the ones really driving this. I like to consider myself grassroots, but at this point, I don't know that people really look at it that way. I'm not a big operation. I mean, it's just me. And I do take on a lot.
But I don't have to worry about a 9-5 job like a lot of these other guys do. So I do have an appreciation for what a lot of these guys who have a regular job, that do this on the side, passion projects---I applaud all those guys. And it's good to see some guys coming back. Like Caesar (of P&P Supercocker fame) is making some guns again. I don't know---I haven't seen those guns. I heard Aardvark may come back at some point in some way. I don't know if that's accurate, but it's cool to see custom back again. It's a second golden age, a revival. I'm happy to be part of that, and motivate some of these other guys to do it.
F-Series Autococker grip frames
What advice would you give to people who are trying to jump into the custom game? What do you think people underestimate about it? Or underappreciate about what you guys do? What are the biggest hurdles that you face that no one knows about?
Wow. You know, I got some advice when I first started, before I even made a Twister LV-1. It was in a forum, a private group. A brain trust, and Simon and Jack were in there. It was one of my first interactions with them. And Simon just said, "You have to just understand that you're not going to please everybody. Get that out of your hear immediately. If you can sell through what you made, then you did fine."
Tim likes this line, and we use it all the time. If you don't like what we made, then this one wasn't for you. I'll just keep making guns until, eventually, I'll make something that's good for you. I think that the hardest thing is trying to create something that's unique. I think that people don't like seeing things regurgitated, ripped off, and ground into the ground.
What has happened with the Ripper, for example, over the past 5 years is an absolute abomination. It's a disgrace. Jim Eaton created that design and made it famous on Autocockers and Angels, and on Bob Long guns obviously. And he got out of the paintball game. And for whatever reason, he was able to be lured back by Simon.
And Simon reached out to him and did it right. He said, "I want to use your design. I want to pay a royalty. I want to make you whole for it." And did the Axes and did the Autocockers [Editor's note: This simply did not happen through other designers for YEARS previously---kudos to Simon for doing that.].
And then, for some reason, HK decided that they were going to take it. And they don't care. And then throw it on a Luxe. So, kinda bad on DLX for doing that. Then they just threw it on everything. So now, you have a gun that was heralded as being one of the greatest guns of all times, and people here Ripper and it's almost synonymous for being cheap. And Jim Eaton didn't get a royalty on any of that, or even acknowledgement that it was his.
It's a shame that it happens, but those people aren't custom gun manufacturers. They're there for the cash grab. They don't care about the growth of custom. They'll just move onto the next thing.
So, I think, trying to create your own brand, sticking to your guns, trying to push innovation, being yourself, being unique----it's hard to do. I was lucky enough to have a starting point with a Twister. And we could evolve it and change it a little bit. And get creative, and work on side projects with the Entities and things like that. It's just really hard to be unique. But I would tell people, just start small.
That's all you need to do. You don't need to make 100 guns. You don't need to make 50 guns. If you can do 10 or 20, and do it well, you will gain lifelong customers. And they will buy anything that you do from there on out because they trust you.
And always stick to your word. If you say that you're going to make 100 of something, don't make 101. Don't fire up the machine and make another 200 when you sell out. People are buying it because it's limited. Because it's special. And if you start diluting that, it's not special anymore. And there's not limit on trim---if you think it's silly, and you think it's too much, it's probably just right. Certificates---it's probably a lot more work, but people really appreciate it, you know?
Listen to your customers and feedback, too. Don't brush them off like they don't know what you're talking about. They're the ones shooting the guns. They're the ones that you should be listening to. So that's my advice to people trying to get into this.
Wow. You know, I got some advice when I first started, before I even made a Twister LV-1. It was in a forum, a private group. A brain trust, and Simon and Jack were in there. It was one of my first interactions with them. And Simon just said, "You have to just understand that you're not going to please everybody. Get that out of your hear immediately. If you can sell through what you made, then you did fine."
Tim likes this line, and we use it all the time. If you don't like what we made, then this one wasn't for you. I'll just keep making guns until, eventually, I'll make something that's good for you. I think that the hardest thing is trying to create something that's unique. I think that people don't like seeing things regurgitated, ripped off, and ground into the ground.
What has happened with the Ripper, for example, over the past 5 years is an absolute abomination. It's a disgrace. Jim Eaton created that design and made it famous on Autocockers and Angels, and on Bob Long guns obviously. And he got out of the paintball game. And for whatever reason, he was able to be lured back by Simon.
And Simon reached out to him and did it right. He said, "I want to use your design. I want to pay a royalty. I want to make you whole for it." And did the Axes and did the Autocockers [Editor's note: This simply did not happen through other designers for YEARS previously---kudos to Simon for doing that.].
And then, for some reason, HK decided that they were going to take it. And they don't care. And then throw it on a Luxe. So, kinda bad on DLX for doing that. Then they just threw it on everything. So now, you have a gun that was heralded as being one of the greatest guns of all times, and people here Ripper and it's almost synonymous for being cheap. And Jim Eaton didn't get a royalty on any of that, or even acknowledgement that it was his.
It's a shame that it happens, but those people aren't custom gun manufacturers. They're there for the cash grab. They don't care about the growth of custom. They'll just move onto the next thing.
So, I think, trying to create your own brand, sticking to your guns, trying to push innovation, being yourself, being unique----it's hard to do. I was lucky enough to have a starting point with a Twister. And we could evolve it and change it a little bit. And get creative, and work on side projects with the Entities and things like that. It's just really hard to be unique. But I would tell people, just start small.
That's all you need to do. You don't need to make 100 guns. You don't need to make 50 guns. If you can do 10 or 20, and do it well, you will gain lifelong customers. And they will buy anything that you do from there on out because they trust you.
And always stick to your word. If you say that you're going to make 100 of something, don't make 101. Don't fire up the machine and make another 200 when you sell out. People are buying it because it's limited. Because it's special. And if you start diluting that, it's not special anymore. And there's not limit on trim---if you think it's silly, and you think it's too much, it's probably just right. Certificates---it's probably a lot more work, but people really appreciate it, you know?
Listen to your customers and feedback, too. Don't brush them off like they don't know what you're talking about. They're the ones shooting the guns. They're the ones that you should be listening to. So that's my advice to people trying to get into this.
Cowabunga
Committed has also worked hard to produce masks and soft goods in limited designs and runs. How did you decide to do the ninja turtle masks? What brought them on? Why the skull masks, or the Retro JT/Empire masks? How did they come about? Why those specific designs?
So it's funny that you bring up the Ninja Turtles. The Ninjas Turtles wasn't my design. This kind of started the whole soft goods process here. GI had a really bad habit of releasing things and not really having a whole lot of promotion ready for it.
So they had their first core event, which is like GI's Paintball Extravaganza, and they showed off the Ninja Turtle googles. You know, they had Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, all the goggles, and they didn't have any ad for them. They just showed the dealers, and said, "Hey, how many do you want?"
So when I heard we got 8 of each turtle, I said, "That's awesome! Where's the ad for it?" "Oh, that doesn't exist. You have to make it" They left it in the hands of the dealers. And I thought, "All right, cool.' and started making it. As I was making it, I thought it was kind of odd that they would make the 4 turtles when the average XBall line is 5 people. So I wanted to add something else, and looked through their product line. And huh. They make a purple and grey goggle. If you throw a silver lens in there, you got a Shredder, right?
So I got the idea. I was at home on my couch. I text my boss at 10:30 at night. I want to make a Shredder. I want this goggle. And he said, "Alright. That's fine. I'll check in with you in the morning." I check in with him at 10AM, 12 hours later, and he says, "I got those goggles for you."
"Ok, cool. How many?"
"I got all of them."
"All 8?"
"No, I got them all. 52."
"Ah, what?"
So I make a tweak to the poster. I put Shredder on it, put a little coin on it. You buy the goggle, you get a coin with a number on it. Nothing crazy. Design a strap for it. Laser engrave the individual numbers. And I toss it on the website. All the Ninja Turtles and Shredder.
But the ad that I made was the only ad made for the goggles. So people saw the ad, and all came to my site, bought the Turtles, and then bought all 52 of my Shredders. Immediately. They sold out in like 2 hours.
And then they started calling GI, asking to get the Shredder. They were like, that's not us. It's the same thing that happened with Planet with the Heritage guns. That's not us. That's them (Committed Paintball). Enough dealers called and thought that we got something that they couldn't get that they ended up getting a Splinter goggle, that was from a pulp and white that was laying around to appease the dealers. But that was out first foray into doing something that wasn't a gun.
It obviously opened a relationship with GI. And that lead to more work in doing other stuff. They went on to release the EVS. I wanted to do a design on it. I looked into some of their more iconic ones, like on the Grillz and said, "Hey, why don't we throw a zebra on it?" So I worked with them, tweaked the zebra, and obviously we got the exclusive on it. And that was huge. It sold like crazy. And then I resurrected another iconic one with the Skulls. We did that. That was huge. That sold out. Before JT really came back up, we did the retro goggles. Did the JT straps. Recreated all of it. That sold really well too.
So we've done pretty well with soft goods that are custom because they're limited and we stick to our word. We only make a handful, and then we don't reproduce them. A lot can be said for that. People know that there's a finality to them, and you're not going to reproduce them and all, they become scarce. And they sell a lot faster that way.
And we've had pretty good fortune. We did the Profilers---the white anniversary ones. They sold out immediately. So I've chosen good ones, and they haven't been duds. So yeah, I think it's worked out for us (laughs). I like working on soft goods. It's something to do between guns to help fill the time, you know?
So it's funny that you bring up the Ninja Turtles. The Ninjas Turtles wasn't my design. This kind of started the whole soft goods process here. GI had a really bad habit of releasing things and not really having a whole lot of promotion ready for it.
So they had their first core event, which is like GI's Paintball Extravaganza, and they showed off the Ninja Turtle googles. You know, they had Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, all the goggles, and they didn't have any ad for them. They just showed the dealers, and said, "Hey, how many do you want?"
So when I heard we got 8 of each turtle, I said, "That's awesome! Where's the ad for it?" "Oh, that doesn't exist. You have to make it" They left it in the hands of the dealers. And I thought, "All right, cool.' and started making it. As I was making it, I thought it was kind of odd that they would make the 4 turtles when the average XBall line is 5 people. So I wanted to add something else, and looked through their product line. And huh. They make a purple and grey goggle. If you throw a silver lens in there, you got a Shredder, right?
So I got the idea. I was at home on my couch. I text my boss at 10:30 at night. I want to make a Shredder. I want this goggle. And he said, "Alright. That's fine. I'll check in with you in the morning." I check in with him at 10AM, 12 hours later, and he says, "I got those goggles for you."
"Ok, cool. How many?"
"I got all of them."
"All 8?"
"No, I got them all. 52."
"Ah, what?"
So I make a tweak to the poster. I put Shredder on it, put a little coin on it. You buy the goggle, you get a coin with a number on it. Nothing crazy. Design a strap for it. Laser engrave the individual numbers. And I toss it on the website. All the Ninja Turtles and Shredder.
But the ad that I made was the only ad made for the goggles. So people saw the ad, and all came to my site, bought the Turtles, and then bought all 52 of my Shredders. Immediately. They sold out in like 2 hours.
And then they started calling GI, asking to get the Shredder. They were like, that's not us. It's the same thing that happened with Planet with the Heritage guns. That's not us. That's them (Committed Paintball). Enough dealers called and thought that we got something that they couldn't get that they ended up getting a Splinter goggle, that was from a pulp and white that was laying around to appease the dealers. But that was out first foray into doing something that wasn't a gun.
It obviously opened a relationship with GI. And that lead to more work in doing other stuff. They went on to release the EVS. I wanted to do a design on it. I looked into some of their more iconic ones, like on the Grillz and said, "Hey, why don't we throw a zebra on it?" So I worked with them, tweaked the zebra, and obviously we got the exclusive on it. And that was huge. It sold like crazy. And then I resurrected another iconic one with the Skulls. We did that. That was huge. That sold out. Before JT really came back up, we did the retro goggles. Did the JT straps. Recreated all of it. That sold really well too.
So we've done pretty well with soft goods that are custom because they're limited and we stick to our word. We only make a handful, and then we don't reproduce them. A lot can be said for that. People know that there's a finality to them, and you're not going to reproduce them and all, they become scarce. And they sell a lot faster that way.
And we've had pretty good fortune. We did the Profilers---the white anniversary ones. They sold out immediately. So I've chosen good ones, and they haven't been duds. So yeah, I think it's worked out for us (laughs). I like working on soft goods. It's something to do between guns to help fill the time, you know?
Twister Regulators, for the distinguished gentleman
How did you decide to do the more recent partnering with Powerhouse in making the first custom milled regs? And in the even more recent production of custom JT air tanks?
I felt like if we have the ability to customize anything, I want to do it. And I feel like Powerhouse is an unbelievable brand. I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor with them. I have a Gen 1. I got one of the first 100 regs that they had as a tester, and I used it for years, traveling and testing guns. And that regulator was so good, I never had any issues with it.
When we took on Team USA, we needed a fundraiser, and I said, "Hey, we should go to Powerhouse." I originally went to Ninja, and Ninja blew us off---Team USA. So we went to Powerhouse instead. And that started off a huge relationship.
But by doing that, we got into bottle manufacturing as well for Team USA. So it's a whole new market I hadn't been in yet, but I learned it through the Team USA program. We sold through those really quick. We were one of three dealers in the US---it was us, Pro Edge, and I think somebody out in California that was doing custom Powerhouse. And then we approached them about doing about a custom one for the Twister.
We wanted custom milling on the cap. I wanted a custom gauge on it. I gave them the all the artwork for the gauge. They had a gen 4 piston. I wanted that. We wanted cases. We wanted tools. We wanted a premium option.
They weren't doing colors at the time for the Powerhouse regs. It was just basically black. So, once again, Ryan at Arc Anodizing had gotten the Powerhouse contract to do all of them---obviously, relationship there. So we got into doing custom stuff for people. We did a run of colors. And again, it sold like crazy. We've sold, god, I don't even know how many at this point. They've sold really well.
I love working with really good companies. You know, Powerhouse is at the top of their game, just like Planet is at the top of their game. It's really easy to bring a good product to the market when you're starting with a good base. Those guys are really good to work with, like Courtney and Carl. All those guys over there are amazing. I can shoot them an email whenever, and we'll get it done.
Now, we're working on JT stuff with bottles and Powerhouse regs for those. I think that there's a need for custom items. People want to customize everything. Before, it was just your gun. Then, you could change your hopper color. And now, tanks. I mean, there are guys that want all red guns, with red regs, and red tanks, and red hoppers. The market is there. It exists. So you might as well capitalize on it if you can.
I felt like if we have the ability to customize anything, I want to do it. And I feel like Powerhouse is an unbelievable brand. I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor with them. I have a Gen 1. I got one of the first 100 regs that they had as a tester, and I used it for years, traveling and testing guns. And that regulator was so good, I never had any issues with it.
When we took on Team USA, we needed a fundraiser, and I said, "Hey, we should go to Powerhouse." I originally went to Ninja, and Ninja blew us off---Team USA. So we went to Powerhouse instead. And that started off a huge relationship.
But by doing that, we got into bottle manufacturing as well for Team USA. So it's a whole new market I hadn't been in yet, but I learned it through the Team USA program. We sold through those really quick. We were one of three dealers in the US---it was us, Pro Edge, and I think somebody out in California that was doing custom Powerhouse. And then we approached them about doing about a custom one for the Twister.
We wanted custom milling on the cap. I wanted a custom gauge on it. I gave them the all the artwork for the gauge. They had a gen 4 piston. I wanted that. We wanted cases. We wanted tools. We wanted a premium option.
They weren't doing colors at the time for the Powerhouse regs. It was just basically black. So, once again, Ryan at Arc Anodizing had gotten the Powerhouse contract to do all of them---obviously, relationship there. So we got into doing custom stuff for people. We did a run of colors. And again, it sold like crazy. We've sold, god, I don't even know how many at this point. They've sold really well.
I love working with really good companies. You know, Powerhouse is at the top of their game, just like Planet is at the top of their game. It's really easy to bring a good product to the market when you're starting with a good base. Those guys are really good to work with, like Courtney and Carl. All those guys over there are amazing. I can shoot them an email whenever, and we'll get it done.
Now, we're working on JT stuff with bottles and Powerhouse regs for those. I think that there's a need for custom items. People want to customize everything. Before, it was just your gun. Then, you could change your hopper color. And now, tanks. I mean, there are guys that want all red guns, with red regs, and red tanks, and red hoppers. The market is there. It exists. So you might as well capitalize on it if you can.
USA! USA! USA!
Some of the other big changes with Boston Paintball that have occurred while you’ve been there were the acquisition of BKI, running Team USA, and the electronic scoring system and tracking. Why did you guys decide to acquire BKI? How do you decide who to bring in as instructors? How does it impact the business? How much of bringing the program in was to preserve what they had been doing, and growing them the next generation of players? How much effort and planning goes into the camps and other work that BKI does?
So they're definitely not my arm of the company, by any stretch of the imagination. Working at Boston, you wear a lot of hats, right? You're a Swiss Army Knife. Anthony, obviously, is the overseer of all of this. From our field operations to our retail. Oversees custom, although I'm a very long leash, unless something drastic needs to be done.
Anthony has invested heavily in BKI, which is the player training program, from Grayson Goff a couple years ago. Grayson was getting out of paintball and into the stock market, or twitch streaming. I'm not sure what he does. But Anthony revived it.
We already ran the combine. We have all of these amazing pro players at his disposal, like Ryan Greenspan, Nick Slowiak,Nick Lovell, Greg Siewers, Marcello, and a million other guys. He essentially decided to make a youtube of player training. You've got access to hundreds if not thousands of hours of content to make you a better player.
Every time Anthony approaches something, he elevates it so much because his vision is amazing. What he sees something could be---and all of us chip in a little bit. I don't have a whole lot to do with BKI, minus some of the graphic work for them. His son. Anthony Jr, does all of the video editing. And Lori handles most of the logistics on the back-end, for the website and things like that.
Team USA is the same deal. We had a really good relationship with Bea Paxson. Bea is legendary, obviously. And Bea was looking for help with the combine, which we had branched out nationally. Bea had wanted us to hold the women's tryouts for the Women's Team USA at our combine.
We did some promotional stuff. Brought it to Cup. We were advertising it. And Tom Cole, who runs the NXL approached us, and asked, "If you guys are doing this, how would like to run the Under-19, the Under-16, the veterans?" At the time, obviously Tim Montressor ran the Men's side. It was almost autonomous. Whatever pros were over in Europe at the time. Just throw a jersey on them and they'd go play since they were already there.
But they basically handed us the Team USA program. We got on a plane to head to Florida to help out with something, and we left running the entire Team USA program. And just talking to each other on the plane, like, "Holy shit. What do we do?"
And, of course, Anthony approaches it professionally with grace, as always, and just says that we need to do this, this, this, and this. And then we did full-on tryouts for Team USA at the National Combine for all the programs. And we set up a 501c as a charity organization for fundraising for it. Set up it's own store and merchandising, and got it's own cash flow, all within a couple of months. I mean, I was busy on working on jerseys with HK, along with T-Shirts, logos, and tanks.
We were able to fund those teams to go to Amsterdam and compete, and pretty much every team podium'ed on their first time out---which is incredible. Yeah. On top of that, I was also working on Committed, and BKI, and running our tournament series, and the combine. On top of running our fields and store. So we're always juggling 50 things.
So they're definitely not my arm of the company, by any stretch of the imagination. Working at Boston, you wear a lot of hats, right? You're a Swiss Army Knife. Anthony, obviously, is the overseer of all of this. From our field operations to our retail. Oversees custom, although I'm a very long leash, unless something drastic needs to be done.
Anthony has invested heavily in BKI, which is the player training program, from Grayson Goff a couple years ago. Grayson was getting out of paintball and into the stock market, or twitch streaming. I'm not sure what he does. But Anthony revived it.
We already ran the combine. We have all of these amazing pro players at his disposal, like Ryan Greenspan, Nick Slowiak,Nick Lovell, Greg Siewers, Marcello, and a million other guys. He essentially decided to make a youtube of player training. You've got access to hundreds if not thousands of hours of content to make you a better player.
Every time Anthony approaches something, he elevates it so much because his vision is amazing. What he sees something could be---and all of us chip in a little bit. I don't have a whole lot to do with BKI, minus some of the graphic work for them. His son. Anthony Jr, does all of the video editing. And Lori handles most of the logistics on the back-end, for the website and things like that.
Team USA is the same deal. We had a really good relationship with Bea Paxson. Bea is legendary, obviously. And Bea was looking for help with the combine, which we had branched out nationally. Bea had wanted us to hold the women's tryouts for the Women's Team USA at our combine.
We did some promotional stuff. Brought it to Cup. We were advertising it. And Tom Cole, who runs the NXL approached us, and asked, "If you guys are doing this, how would like to run the Under-19, the Under-16, the veterans?" At the time, obviously Tim Montressor ran the Men's side. It was almost autonomous. Whatever pros were over in Europe at the time. Just throw a jersey on them and they'd go play since they were already there.
But they basically handed us the Team USA program. We got on a plane to head to Florida to help out with something, and we left running the entire Team USA program. And just talking to each other on the plane, like, "Holy shit. What do we do?"
And, of course, Anthony approaches it professionally with grace, as always, and just says that we need to do this, this, this, and this. And then we did full-on tryouts for Team USA at the National Combine for all the programs. And we set up a 501c as a charity organization for fundraising for it. Set up it's own store and merchandising, and got it's own cash flow, all within a couple of months. I mean, I was busy on working on jerseys with HK, along with T-Shirts, logos, and tanks.
We were able to fund those teams to go to Amsterdam and compete, and pretty much every team podium'ed on their first time out---which is incredible. Yeah. On top of that, I was also working on Committed, and BKI, and running our tournament series, and the combine. On top of running our fields and store. So we're always juggling 50 things.
More winning of the stuff
How did the real-time, electronic scoring system happen? How has the reaction been from teams when they can see their metrics? Have they been surprised as to seeing how neutral scoring would rate them?
So the real-time scoring is interesting. We have run the New England Paintball League for 20+ years at this point. Lori and Anthony have (run it). Still a little old school. Lot of paper. Nothing real-time. I had been pushing for years for real-time anything. Whether it's real-time inventory or real-time outage sheets, I told them that they could easily---when people go to the Boston Combine, with 50 or 60 people indoor with my desk right there---why don't I get a proof of concept together and I can make a way that can grade players and times and rank them, and get results in real-time.
Because what would happen previously is that you'd get all of these paper sheets, and the coaches would look like they were having an aneurysm and you couldn't tell what they wrote. You're deciphering things weeks later. The players would be looking for a report card months later. When (now), they could literally see what's happening. It would just take a little organization.
I used, essentially, a modified teacher grading system that's pretty readily available, and I tweaked it quite a bit. I took into account how certain drills were graded for speed or time or targets or whatever, and that all flowed to create a grade or a rank. You would literally know who the best players were on-demand, as it happened. And the system worked so well in Boston when we ran it the first time, that we knew we would use it again a few weeks later down in Florida (at the National Combine).
The problem was that I wasn't going to Florida. So we had to figure out how to do it with a google spreadsheet with multiple people using it and inputting into it. And it really worked out unbelievably well. We used that to get players better, targeted information. We then used that information to select players at the combine the following year.
So, again, it's evolution. I was able to make something that was good and functional, and we were able to merge two intellects together and evolve it. And now it's pretty much the gold standard. Now, it's something that we also have under lock and key. It's something we have that no one else can offer. Our clinics are second to none due to some of the things that we've done over the years. It's something that I'm really proud of, but something that not many people know that I've worked on. But it's something that I think has really changed the way that we do business, for sure.
Were there any complaints from people? People who thought that they were better than they were?
Of course!
Was there anyone that was just like, "Holy shit!" Either way, worse or better than they had thought? Was there a guy or girl that was criminally underrated until this came through?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's paintball, right? Any given Sunday. Anybody can shine. I don't want to name people and pick them out. But we had a lot of people who were on Team USA, that were on previously, who thought that they were going to walk on. And when you look at them side-by-side with some younger talent, you realize that they're just not even close to the same level. And numbers don't lie. So it's easier to detach from that emotional level, where you're going, "Holy shit. You're a legendary player that played for years." Not thinking, "Holy shit, this guy hasn't picked up a gun in 20 years." It's easier to go, "Listen, this is what it is. This is what we're basing it on." Luckily, I don't have to make those decisions. I'm not there. I'm not having those discussions. I can just crunch numbers from a couple hundred miles away. That's my job.
I think that actually highlighted a couple of players too, like Krista Titus. Not really a know player until she came out for the tryouts, and then ended up making the Women's Team USA. And it was purely because of the numbers.
There were some girls that were incredibly good. I mean I a fan, obviously, of Team USA, and some of these girls are unbelievable players. Like Sobbe Glass is an amazing player. Rozy McCurley is a phenomenal player. I would argue that she is the next Bea. That iconic. I mean, she's that good. That's Brad McCurley's wife. And that's not biased because Brad's a great player. She's a phenomenal player.
She went to that tryout---she had just had her son a couple of weeks before---
W00000w! [Editor's note: if you don't have kids, I cannot undersell how impressive that is. Having a kid is the equivalent of a woman's body going through a major car accident.]
And she was a top 3 player.
That's incredible.
Just an unbelievable player.
You just look at the situation. Bea wants to put the best 10 girls out there. And I don't think that she can detach herself from the emotional part. She doesn't want to tell people that she's played with that we want to put the best players out there, and maybe you're not the best player this year.
So I think that it's easier for us to do it. We're established and have a whole team of coaches and professional guys that were watching these people and grading them. Maybe that's just how it has to work. Maybe you have to detach yourself, you know? You look at an NFL team, and there are guys that are veterans that don't even make the cut sometimes. That's just what it is.
So the real-time scoring is interesting. We have run the New England Paintball League for 20+ years at this point. Lori and Anthony have (run it). Still a little old school. Lot of paper. Nothing real-time. I had been pushing for years for real-time anything. Whether it's real-time inventory or real-time outage sheets, I told them that they could easily---when people go to the Boston Combine, with 50 or 60 people indoor with my desk right there---why don't I get a proof of concept together and I can make a way that can grade players and times and rank them, and get results in real-time.
Because what would happen previously is that you'd get all of these paper sheets, and the coaches would look like they were having an aneurysm and you couldn't tell what they wrote. You're deciphering things weeks later. The players would be looking for a report card months later. When (now), they could literally see what's happening. It would just take a little organization.
I used, essentially, a modified teacher grading system that's pretty readily available, and I tweaked it quite a bit. I took into account how certain drills were graded for speed or time or targets or whatever, and that all flowed to create a grade or a rank. You would literally know who the best players were on-demand, as it happened. And the system worked so well in Boston when we ran it the first time, that we knew we would use it again a few weeks later down in Florida (at the National Combine).
The problem was that I wasn't going to Florida. So we had to figure out how to do it with a google spreadsheet with multiple people using it and inputting into it. And it really worked out unbelievably well. We used that to get players better, targeted information. We then used that information to select players at the combine the following year.
So, again, it's evolution. I was able to make something that was good and functional, and we were able to merge two intellects together and evolve it. And now it's pretty much the gold standard. Now, it's something that we also have under lock and key. It's something we have that no one else can offer. Our clinics are second to none due to some of the things that we've done over the years. It's something that I'm really proud of, but something that not many people know that I've worked on. But it's something that I think has really changed the way that we do business, for sure.
Were there any complaints from people? People who thought that they were better than they were?
Of course!
Was there anyone that was just like, "Holy shit!" Either way, worse or better than they had thought? Was there a guy or girl that was criminally underrated until this came through?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's paintball, right? Any given Sunday. Anybody can shine. I don't want to name people and pick them out. But we had a lot of people who were on Team USA, that were on previously, who thought that they were going to walk on. And when you look at them side-by-side with some younger talent, you realize that they're just not even close to the same level. And numbers don't lie. So it's easier to detach from that emotional level, where you're going, "Holy shit. You're a legendary player that played for years." Not thinking, "Holy shit, this guy hasn't picked up a gun in 20 years." It's easier to go, "Listen, this is what it is. This is what we're basing it on." Luckily, I don't have to make those decisions. I'm not there. I'm not having those discussions. I can just crunch numbers from a couple hundred miles away. That's my job.
I think that actually highlighted a couple of players too, like Krista Titus. Not really a know player until she came out for the tryouts, and then ended up making the Women's Team USA. And it was purely because of the numbers.
There were some girls that were incredibly good. I mean I a fan, obviously, of Team USA, and some of these girls are unbelievable players. Like Sobbe Glass is an amazing player. Rozy McCurley is a phenomenal player. I would argue that she is the next Bea. That iconic. I mean, she's that good. That's Brad McCurley's wife. And that's not biased because Brad's a great player. She's a phenomenal player.
She went to that tryout---she had just had her son a couple of weeks before---
W00000w! [Editor's note: if you don't have kids, I cannot undersell how impressive that is. Having a kid is the equivalent of a woman's body going through a major car accident.]
And she was a top 3 player.
That's incredible.
Just an unbelievable player.
You just look at the situation. Bea wants to put the best 10 girls out there. And I don't think that she can detach herself from the emotional part. She doesn't want to tell people that she's played with that we want to put the best players out there, and maybe you're not the best player this year.
So I think that it's easier for us to do it. We're established and have a whole team of coaches and professional guys that were watching these people and grading them. Maybe that's just how it has to work. Maybe you have to detach yourself, you know? You look at an NFL team, and there are guys that are veterans that don't even make the cut sometimes. That's just what it is.
This thing on?
Your promo game is top notch, with your social media game being best-in-class. Did you have any background in advertising or social media? How have you come up with your process? What principles guide what you do there? How do you think about your campaigns, from announcing a launch through delivery and support?
Do you want me to tell you the scary thing? In the majority of situations, I wing it a lot.
Haha.
I'm serious. I just trust my gut, and how I envision how I think that things are going to end up. And by putting the words out there, it makes me do it.
I have a vision. And I know what I want, and I know how to get from point A to point B. It's just taking a series of off ramps and side roads to get back on the highway. That's how projects work. Nothing is every going to be HOV lane the entire way. That's not fun and there's not a story to be told there. It's not that easy---some companies think it's that easy and ride the HOV lane.
If you don't adapt, you're not going to get any better. Your platform is not going to evolve. I look at other industries a lot in how I present my product. Apple's big. Ferrari. Have you ever seen a Ferrari commercial? Ferrari doesn't need that. Once you build up a community and reputation that you've lived up to, you don't need to advertise.
Now, I have spent a lot of time on camera, and on social media. I've made myself directly accessible. I don't spend time hiding behind a customer service department or a customer service email. Half my customers have my personal cell phone number. They'll text me or call me at all times of the day or night. My wife loves it.
I want to create a brand that's not going to devalue. I take a lot of pride in the fact that our brand has held value so well. Twisters traditionally have exceeded the retail value, and held there. For example, the Twister LV-1--- the average price of those right now is about $2200. That gun is 7 years old, and when it came out, it retailed for $1500. That's insane. No guns do that.
And even Twister CS1's, which have been out for many years now, still are right about retail. They're still $1500-$1600. Maybe $1800, depending on ano. Very few things that we've done have gone down in value, including soft goods and things like that. So I think that I hit the sweet spot in how many we build, and sticking to my word on that in validation. They know that we're not making more. They know that there's a limited amount. It's being truthful. I think that people owning a twister---it's a statement, more than just owning a gun. It's why people drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. They're not race car drivers. They're trying to make a statement. And it's a brand that you don't need to advertise.
Like sneakers. Jordans. Now, I don't understand the sneaker thing. But when sneakers drop and they're $100 and sell out, the next day they're $1000. For some reason, and I don't know how, I seem to have replicated that in paintball. And the only way that I have been able to is being really passionate about my brand. And I think that comes from me protecting the brand, and even caring about the secondhand market.
Most companies, once they sell a gun brand new, they couldn't give a shit what it sells for on the secondhand market. I care a lot. It makes it easier to sell that next gun a couple years later when customers see that gun holds it's value. It's an investment for these guys. Trust me. I see that.
And I keep calling them customers. It's almost insulting. These are my friends. These are guys that I've seen grow businesses. Grow families. I'm friendly with them. Today alone, I've talked with 5 or 6 different customers on my day off. Just about life or whatever. I feel like we have a connection. And they want to continue their story by buying a gun with us or supporting us, or following our facebook live or the Twisters Owners Group, they're adding a chapter to their own story, as we are to ours.
And I think that's the most important thing. There's a personal connection. It's more than just a gun. It's way more than a gun. I know that it probably sounds really silly to a lot of my competitors, but it is. And, to be honest, if you're not looking at it that way, you're not putting enough work into your brand. If you don't think of it as a personal connection. If you just look at it as a dollar, you kind of lost your way. That's my two cents on it.
Do you want me to tell you the scary thing? In the majority of situations, I wing it a lot.
Haha.
I'm serious. I just trust my gut, and how I envision how I think that things are going to end up. And by putting the words out there, it makes me do it.
I have a vision. And I know what I want, and I know how to get from point A to point B. It's just taking a series of off ramps and side roads to get back on the highway. That's how projects work. Nothing is every going to be HOV lane the entire way. That's not fun and there's not a story to be told there. It's not that easy---some companies think it's that easy and ride the HOV lane.
If you don't adapt, you're not going to get any better. Your platform is not going to evolve. I look at other industries a lot in how I present my product. Apple's big. Ferrari. Have you ever seen a Ferrari commercial? Ferrari doesn't need that. Once you build up a community and reputation that you've lived up to, you don't need to advertise.
Now, I have spent a lot of time on camera, and on social media. I've made myself directly accessible. I don't spend time hiding behind a customer service department or a customer service email. Half my customers have my personal cell phone number. They'll text me or call me at all times of the day or night. My wife loves it.
I want to create a brand that's not going to devalue. I take a lot of pride in the fact that our brand has held value so well. Twisters traditionally have exceeded the retail value, and held there. For example, the Twister LV-1--- the average price of those right now is about $2200. That gun is 7 years old, and when it came out, it retailed for $1500. That's insane. No guns do that.
And even Twister CS1's, which have been out for many years now, still are right about retail. They're still $1500-$1600. Maybe $1800, depending on ano. Very few things that we've done have gone down in value, including soft goods and things like that. So I think that I hit the sweet spot in how many we build, and sticking to my word on that in validation. They know that we're not making more. They know that there's a limited amount. It's being truthful. I think that people owning a twister---it's a statement, more than just owning a gun. It's why people drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. They're not race car drivers. They're trying to make a statement. And it's a brand that you don't need to advertise.
Like sneakers. Jordans. Now, I don't understand the sneaker thing. But when sneakers drop and they're $100 and sell out, the next day they're $1000. For some reason, and I don't know how, I seem to have replicated that in paintball. And the only way that I have been able to is being really passionate about my brand. And I think that comes from me protecting the brand, and even caring about the secondhand market.
Most companies, once they sell a gun brand new, they couldn't give a shit what it sells for on the secondhand market. I care a lot. It makes it easier to sell that next gun a couple years later when customers see that gun holds it's value. It's an investment for these guys. Trust me. I see that.
And I keep calling them customers. It's almost insulting. These are my friends. These are guys that I've seen grow businesses. Grow families. I'm friendly with them. Today alone, I've talked with 5 or 6 different customers on my day off. Just about life or whatever. I feel like we have a connection. And they want to continue their story by buying a gun with us or supporting us, or following our facebook live or the Twisters Owners Group, they're adding a chapter to their own story, as we are to ours.
And I think that's the most important thing. There's a personal connection. It's more than just a gun. It's way more than a gun. I know that it probably sounds really silly to a lot of my competitors, but it is. And, to be honest, if you're not looking at it that way, you're not putting enough work into your brand. If you don't think of it as a personal connection. If you just look at it as a dollar, you kind of lost your way. That's my two cents on it.
Lots of Committed in one place
Who have you admired in the sport? Who have you looked up to or influenced you (I know that you mentioned Jack and Simon already)? Someone that you wish there were more of out there, or that more people either think should have or wish that they would have met? Are there any newer people that are doing their own thing and impressing you?
Tim Montressor.
It's not even a question. It's not even a close second.
That's a huge loss. Not even just as a player and his on-field accomplishments. He is somebody that transcended the sport. He was one of the most respected players. The most decorated players in the history of professional paintball. He was the best ambassador paintball ever had. He traveled the world as the face of paintball.
He's the nicest guy I've ever met in the industry. I've never not seen him smile. Ever. I've never seen him angry. I mean I'm he has been, but I've never seen it. I think that he was an amazing industry ambassador as well. I've dealt with him on a business level a couple of times, and he was an amazing guy.
I was lucky enough to go to Extravaganza this year. It was probably one of the worst events that I've ever been to, in terms of venue and stuff. The only highlight that I had was, in our travels the night before we had to leave, we stumble into a speak easy in Memphis at 2:30AM. And there's Tim. Smiling. With Russell Jackson, his right hand man who was always with him. And we spent the next 3 hours at that speak easy until about 5 in the morning. And we had to be at the airport at 6AM---just a disaster.
But you could just talk to Tim for hours. The guy was just so full of life. 4AM at a speak easy and the guy was full of life. Just crazy. He lit up every room. He commanded respect everywhere that he went. And I don't think that you could find a person that would say a bad word about him.
I think that one of my regrets is not working with him on something before he passed. That's definitely a regret that I have. I am extremely fortunate to have called him a peer and a friend in this industry. That was a huge loss. I would say that it actually hit me harder than family members that I've lost.
That's how much---and I said this the day that he died---this is going to affect paintball in a way that people don't even understand yet. From ICC. From a manufacturing standpoint. Everything. We're going to feel the effects of it for a long, long time. And we don't even know it yet, because our industry is still stalled out for the most part with Covid. And he obviously passed from Covid, from complications from it. So many people walked around saying, "Covid's fake. Nobody dies from Covid. I don't know anybody that's died of Covid." Everybody now knows somebody that died of Covid, because everybody knew Tim in some avenue. So I think that it shined a light on it a little bit, and made people in paintball take it a bit more seriously.
And who knows how that reverberated? Maybe somebody put on a mask who otherwise wouldn't? Or not go to the field when there's a hundred people there. I think that it maybe brought people down to Earth a bit, and maybe made them check themselves. That's a huge loss. That's a big one.
Anybody else in the industry? I was very fortunate to meet Bob Gurnsey before he passed away. That was huge. I mean, he's the grandfather of all of this. Of retail paintball. He brought the game to public, so that was a big one.
There are so many great people that I've met that have contributed to paintball, but those are the two in my head that stuck out.
Tim Montressor.
It's not even a question. It's not even a close second.
That's a huge loss. Not even just as a player and his on-field accomplishments. He is somebody that transcended the sport. He was one of the most respected players. The most decorated players in the history of professional paintball. He was the best ambassador paintball ever had. He traveled the world as the face of paintball.
He's the nicest guy I've ever met in the industry. I've never not seen him smile. Ever. I've never seen him angry. I mean I'm he has been, but I've never seen it. I think that he was an amazing industry ambassador as well. I've dealt with him on a business level a couple of times, and he was an amazing guy.
I was lucky enough to go to Extravaganza this year. It was probably one of the worst events that I've ever been to, in terms of venue and stuff. The only highlight that I had was, in our travels the night before we had to leave, we stumble into a speak easy in Memphis at 2:30AM. And there's Tim. Smiling. With Russell Jackson, his right hand man who was always with him. And we spent the next 3 hours at that speak easy until about 5 in the morning. And we had to be at the airport at 6AM---just a disaster.
But you could just talk to Tim for hours. The guy was just so full of life. 4AM at a speak easy and the guy was full of life. Just crazy. He lit up every room. He commanded respect everywhere that he went. And I don't think that you could find a person that would say a bad word about him.
I think that one of my regrets is not working with him on something before he passed. That's definitely a regret that I have. I am extremely fortunate to have called him a peer and a friend in this industry. That was a huge loss. I would say that it actually hit me harder than family members that I've lost.
That's how much---and I said this the day that he died---this is going to affect paintball in a way that people don't even understand yet. From ICC. From a manufacturing standpoint. Everything. We're going to feel the effects of it for a long, long time. And we don't even know it yet, because our industry is still stalled out for the most part with Covid. And he obviously passed from Covid, from complications from it. So many people walked around saying, "Covid's fake. Nobody dies from Covid. I don't know anybody that's died of Covid." Everybody now knows somebody that died of Covid, because everybody knew Tim in some avenue. So I think that it shined a light on it a little bit, and made people in paintball take it a bit more seriously.
And who knows how that reverberated? Maybe somebody put on a mask who otherwise wouldn't? Or not go to the field when there's a hundred people there. I think that it maybe brought people down to Earth a bit, and maybe made them check themselves. That's a huge loss. That's a big one.
Anybody else in the industry? I was very fortunate to meet Bob Gurnsey before he passed away. That was huge. I mean, he's the grandfather of all of this. Of retail paintball. He brought the game to public, so that was a big one.
There are so many great people that I've met that have contributed to paintball, but those are the two in my head that stuck out.
Tim Montressor
If you had any advice for your younger self, who just rejoined Boston Paintball again, what would you tell yourself?
Buy bitcoin and retire.
I wouldn't tell myself anything. I would want to go, and take the same path that I took. Because I wouldn't want to change anything that I've done, to be honest. I think that I've only been able to accomplish the things that I have---both in paintball and outside of paintball---because of the trials and tribulations that I've had inside the difficulties that I've gone through. That's what you learn from. That's how you get better. I wouldn't want any shortcuts.
Other than, you know, buy bitcoin and be a bazillionaire. And buy Amazon stock.
No, I wouldn't change anything. I love my life. I love at the people in it. My customers. My co-workers. My friends. I wouldn't change anything. No way.
Buy bitcoin and retire.
I wouldn't tell myself anything. I would want to go, and take the same path that I took. Because I wouldn't want to change anything that I've done, to be honest. I think that I've only been able to accomplish the things that I have---both in paintball and outside of paintball---because of the trials and tribulations that I've had inside the difficulties that I've gone through. That's what you learn from. That's how you get better. I wouldn't want any shortcuts.
Other than, you know, buy bitcoin and be a bazillionaire. And buy Amazon stock.
No, I wouldn't change anything. I love my life. I love at the people in it. My customers. My co-workers. My friends. I wouldn't change anything. No way.
Gun Designer and PaintballTek
