I have read every issue of APG that you have posted here. In the 80's, it was the only magazine that was dedicated to paintball. If you were serious about playing, you read it simply because there was nothing else. Unfortunately, we ended up losing the box that had all my old copies meticulously preserved when moving back from Germany in 1993, I was majorly bummed out 
Autotrigger was around in 1988, I had it on my Bushmaster (Line SI) pump, just hold the trigger down and pump as fast as you can, terribly inaccurate, but fun nonetheless.
The marker that Gramps is holding is the old Nightmare Ninja line from Brass Eagle.
I can remember laughing at the Golden Eagle when it came out, I thought it was the single dumbest thing that Brass Eagle had produced in it's history. All of the tourny players were using the extremely relaible AutoMag with the response trigger (fires once when you pull the trigger, fires again when you release it) in 1992 when the Golden Eagle made it's entrance, it was so hillarious. We even played against a team that was completely outfitted with Golden Eagles at the First French Open, can't remember they're name, but they were sponsored by Brass Eagle. They had a pretty funny opinion of their markers: "Yeah mate, we've got to shoot fast and hard off the break, we never know when these pieces of crap are going to break on us." Look at the eagle closely, see where the loader attaches? So that big crappy heavy bulk was mostly just that... bulk.
The first bulk loader I ever saw was in 1985, it was a Penzoil 10w40 oil can feeding a PGP, saw a few brake fluid bulk loaders as well. A couple years later it evolved into PVC pipe and then got really silly with the race for bragging rights in producing the biggest loader on the market, which lead to "The Whaler" which held 600+ rounds and added 5 pounds to your marker.
The M85 had a very short lived paintball experience, mainly because its rounds were so small that they were terribly inaccurate at anything over 50 feet, the same problem that the SMG60 and the crossman pistol suffered, not enough mass to break at range. There were also stories of the M85 being adapted to shoot real ammunition, which is always a bad thing when selling them to minors and adults "who like to play war games".
Yes, Dave Youngblood used to wear a suit and everyone used to shoot him including his own team. "Hey, who's the dork in the suit?" "Dunno, but I want to shoot him." "He's on your team." "So? What's that matter?" The jacket he is wearing was for a player party at the end of a big tourny, don't quite remeber which tourny at the time, but there were several well known players there who had these jackets specially made for the players party, they did look pretty cool all together, which was what Dave was all about, if it was cool and it would make you stand out, he was there doing it.
I love that guys face mask in the first issue, he looks like he came off the cover of an Iron Maiden albumn. Back then (82-87) most people played with $5 dollar shop goggles just like the blond in the first pic posted. Back then you were lucky to get hit only once all day, and it was usually in the back when you were running away from a big group of people baring down on you. Paint was EXTREMELY expensive, so you tended to conserve it. Seeing masks like this were the exception and not the norm.
Snipers... thats what all the new plaeyrs said, they were snipers. That's usually the role everyone new to the sport took as they were deathly afraid of getting shot. Then they played got shot and realized that it didn't hurt all that much and that they got alot more action by running around then camping in a tree for an hour or two waiting for someone to show up so they could snipe them. Yeah, we had guys wearing ghilli suits back in 1982, in the days where you had a bolt action marker that held 5 rounds where mobility was extremely important because you had effectively only one shot. You forced the other guy to shoot and miss then ran up on them and shot them at close range so you wouldn't miss. The guys with the ghilli suits usually only wore then once or twice and then started playing the high mobility game once they realized why there were getting pasted over and over again.
Yeah, looks like a squib, but it's not, if you look closely, you can see the elastic band that is attached to the soccer shin guard that is under the sleeve, it was done to guarrantee that the paintball breaks as that is a tough angle and had a high possibility of bouncing. Just like Dave Youngblood's picture with the silver spray painted goggles, its for the picture. Red paint was a very popular color in the 80's because it simulated blood. As the sport started to divest itself of the "weekend warrior" "war games", red was changed out for other colors because it simulated blood and was a safty concern, you couldn't tell if someone was actually hurt or if it was just paint.
Ah the memories. Man, I'm feeling old now...
-Evil Bob
Autotrigger was around in 1988, I had it on my Bushmaster (Line SI) pump, just hold the trigger down and pump as fast as you can, terribly inaccurate, but fun nonetheless.
The marker that Gramps is holding is the old Nightmare Ninja line from Brass Eagle.
I can remember laughing at the Golden Eagle when it came out, I thought it was the single dumbest thing that Brass Eagle had produced in it's history. All of the tourny players were using the extremely relaible AutoMag with the response trigger (fires once when you pull the trigger, fires again when you release it) in 1992 when the Golden Eagle made it's entrance, it was so hillarious. We even played against a team that was completely outfitted with Golden Eagles at the First French Open, can't remember they're name, but they were sponsored by Brass Eagle. They had a pretty funny opinion of their markers: "Yeah mate, we've got to shoot fast and hard off the break, we never know when these pieces of crap are going to break on us." Look at the eagle closely, see where the loader attaches? So that big crappy heavy bulk was mostly just that... bulk.
The first bulk loader I ever saw was in 1985, it was a Penzoil 10w40 oil can feeding a PGP, saw a few brake fluid bulk loaders as well. A couple years later it evolved into PVC pipe and then got really silly with the race for bragging rights in producing the biggest loader on the market, which lead to "The Whaler" which held 600+ rounds and added 5 pounds to your marker.
The M85 had a very short lived paintball experience, mainly because its rounds were so small that they were terribly inaccurate at anything over 50 feet, the same problem that the SMG60 and the crossman pistol suffered, not enough mass to break at range. There were also stories of the M85 being adapted to shoot real ammunition, which is always a bad thing when selling them to minors and adults "who like to play war games".
Yes, Dave Youngblood used to wear a suit and everyone used to shoot him including his own team. "Hey, who's the dork in the suit?" "Dunno, but I want to shoot him." "He's on your team." "So? What's that matter?" The jacket he is wearing was for a player party at the end of a big tourny, don't quite remeber which tourny at the time, but there were several well known players there who had these jackets specially made for the players party, they did look pretty cool all together, which was what Dave was all about, if it was cool and it would make you stand out, he was there doing it.
I love that guys face mask in the first issue, he looks like he came off the cover of an Iron Maiden albumn. Back then (82-87) most people played with $5 dollar shop goggles just like the blond in the first pic posted. Back then you were lucky to get hit only once all day, and it was usually in the back when you were running away from a big group of people baring down on you. Paint was EXTREMELY expensive, so you tended to conserve it. Seeing masks like this were the exception and not the norm.
Snipers... thats what all the new plaeyrs said, they were snipers. That's usually the role everyone new to the sport took as they were deathly afraid of getting shot. Then they played got shot and realized that it didn't hurt all that much and that they got alot more action by running around then camping in a tree for an hour or two waiting for someone to show up so they could snipe them. Yeah, we had guys wearing ghilli suits back in 1982, in the days where you had a bolt action marker that held 5 rounds where mobility was extremely important because you had effectively only one shot. You forced the other guy to shoot and miss then ran up on them and shot them at close range so you wouldn't miss. The guys with the ghilli suits usually only wore then once or twice and then started playing the high mobility game once they realized why there were getting pasted over and over again.
Yeah, looks like a squib, but it's not, if you look closely, you can see the elastic band that is attached to the soccer shin guard that is under the sleeve, it was done to guarrantee that the paintball breaks as that is a tough angle and had a high possibility of bouncing. Just like Dave Youngblood's picture with the silver spray painted goggles, its for the picture. Red paint was a very popular color in the 80's because it simulated blood. As the sport started to divest itself of the "weekend warrior" "war games", red was changed out for other colors because it simulated blood and was a safty concern, you couldn't tell if someone was actually hurt or if it was just paint.
Ah the memories. Man, I'm feeling old now...
-Evil Bob
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