pneumag history

Got a project I need some help on.

A guy on Facebook asked me about the history of pneumags, and I started to think that this might make for an interesting topic for a video I could post on YouTube. It would be nice to have all the history in one place (especially one that's easier to search than AO). The only problem is that my knowledge is pretty limited. I really didn't get into the pneumag scene until 2008-ish, which was well after all the drama over the PTP patent and the hAir trigger and probably a bunch of other things I don't even know about. I'm sure it's not really helped by the fact that pneumags were "underground" for a long while because of the patent, and few people were comfortable sharing information about them openly. The first time I asked about pneumags, for instance, I was immediately told that no one was willing to share information about it because of the patent, and I should just give up on it. But then I got a few private messages from people who gladly sent me files and hyperlinks to everything I needed to make my own. They just didn't want to share it publically on the forum for fear of legal issues.

Anyway.......all this is to say that if you were around and you remember anything about those early days, I'd love it if you can share about it, especially if you know names and dates. I've made a Google Doc here that anyone can edit, so feel free to write stuff in there. Or you can add your thoughts here and I'll put them into the Doc for you.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

If you do add something directly to the Doc, please sign your name after so I can give everyone credit. This isn't my story, really, but it's definitely an interesting one, and I think it would be cool to have it all collected as a coherent piece of history.

Edit on 4/11/2023
I've changed the Doc to read only. You can leave comments directly on the Doc if you want, or post comments here.

why isnt lukes trex in there?
luke's lpr forgrips, or lpr in general
my lpr for grip "troll".
or zaps cheater.
or the guys over time who have offered pneumatic parts to make your own builds?

am i missing something here? surly you have been around long enough to put that info up

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Originally Posted by knownothingmags

why isnt lukes trex in there? Luke would have the best info on timeline, hopefully he can shed some light on that?.
luke's lpr forgrips, or lpr in general Luke would have the best info on timeline, hopefully he can shed some light on that?.
my lpr for grip "troll". Yours? Then you would have the best and most accurate info. Care to share?
or zaps cheater. What is/was Zaps Cheater? When was it out there? Do you have some more info?
or the guys over time who have offered pneumatic parts to make your own builds? Were there some custom parts out there?

am i missing something here? surly you have been around long enough to put that info up If you have info on these, offer it up. I know I would be interested...

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It would be nice to have a central list of the advances in pneu operations, and their timelines.


Walker

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Originally Posted by Walker

It would be nice to have a central list of the advances in pneu operations, and their timelines.


Walker

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gotcha. cool when i get a chance ill see what i can do from my end.
just as a point of ref, whats the big dig into this now?

If you've been following this thread since the beginning, you'll notice that I deleted a few posts between Luke and myself that were...off topic. And I've changed the Google Doc to read-only, though anyone can still leave a comment.

Anyway...

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Originally Posted by knownothingmags

What's the big dig into this now?

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No real reason. It's just that I've gotten lots of questions about it over the years, and I don't know (or can't remember) all the details, like the Troll. Don't know how I forgot about that. Sorry.

But that's kinda exactly the point of why I asked for help. The pneumag is such a weird thing. It's not one product that came and went. It's an idea that has grown and evolved over the years. Personally I think it's a really interesting story. But I came in sooooo late in the game, that's why I need help.

So.....yeah. Please help me remember products, dates, kits, who sold what....all that stuff. Just start posting stuff and I'll do my best to keep the Doc updated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by knownothingmags

Am I missing something here? Surely you have been around long enough to put that info up.

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Lol...I know. right?

The Doc is sparse partly because it's still a work in progress. I'll add more as I get the time. But it's also sparse because I honestly can't remember a lot of stuff. My long term memory is pretty bad. Had too many concussions as a kid, I guess.

FYI:
Pneumagger and Sk8ermog were some of the very first here to create them. They both inspired me, I was probably the 3rd one to create and post them here on AO.

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Originally Posted by Loguzzzzzz

FYI:
Pneumagger and Sk8ermog were some of the very first here to create them. They both inspired me, I was probably the 3rd one to create and post them here on AO.

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Great info. Thanks. I knew pneumagger was an early pioneer, but I forgot about Sk8termog.

Any idea who was the first to put an LPR inside of a frame?

I think Doc Nickel was the 1st one that I ever saw. You can send him an email on when he did that to find out when. I do know that this was either before the advent of thr Xvalve or widespread use of them. I believe that he took inspiration from the various PA assisted phantoms and snipers that he and others have done, and someone said, "do this to my mag!".

But this was well before any of the zap cheater and the like, and well before luke was even involved in paintball, I do believe. This had to be around 2003, maybe as early as 2002.

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Originally Posted by Nobody

I think Doc Nickel was the 1st one that I ever saw. You can send him an email on when he did that to find out when. I do know that this was either before the advent of thr Xvalve or widespread use of them. I believe that he took inspiration from the various PA assisted phantoms and snipers that he and others have done, and someone said, "do this to my mag!".

But this was well before any of the zap cheater and the like, and well before luke was even involved in paintball, I do believe. This had to be around 2003, maybe as early as 2002.

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Thanks. I didn't know Doc was involved with this. I'll send him a message on MCB. He's more active over there.

Also, I've updated the Google Doc more. I think I'm getting close to finished....maybe? I'm also getting to the point where I'm realizing that more pictures would be nice, but of course all the old pictures links are broken. So if anyone has pictures of any of the parts I'm missing, please post them here. That would be super helpful.

This doesn't make it fact, but I dont recall ever seeing anything about pneumags prior to Deadly Wind's hAir trigger, not even from PTP.
I believe PTP only mentioned their frame after DW filed his patent(?)

Also, IIRC the electrician posted his first pneumag build sometime after the patent fiasco started and after agreements between PTP and DW couldn't be made for the project to go to production.

DW took his hAir trigger to AGD and TK was interested but only if there was a patent in place and if DW made some changes to make it easier to tune.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention (AO's) rabidchihauhau who was shutting everyone down that tried to sell kits in the early years, including myself. He made claims on the forum he never sent out cease and desist letters which was just to say it wasn't an official letter. I know this to be fact because I was one of those guys that got a "warning note" (not a C&D letter, inside joke, but it's talked about in the old threads)

I dont recall if rabidchihauhau worked for PTP but IIRC he wrote the patent for them..

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Originally Posted by luke

This doesn't make it fact, but I dont recall ever seeing anything about pneumags prior to Deadly Wind's hAir trigger, not even from PTP.
I believe PTP only mentioned their frame after DW filed his patent(?)

Also, IIRC the electrician posted his first pneumag build sometime after the patent fiasco started and after agreements between PTP and DW couldn't be made for the project to go to production.

DW took his hAir trigger to AGD and TK was interested but only if there was a patent in place and if DW made some changes to make it easier to tune.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention (AO's) rabidchihauhau who was shutting everyone down that tried to sell kits in the early years, including myself. He made claims on the forum he never sent out cease and desist letters which was just to say it wasn't an official letter. I know this to be fact because I was one of those guys that got a "warning note" (not a C&D letter, inside joke, but it's talked about in the old threads)

I dont recall if rabidchihauhau worked for PTP but IIRC he wrote the patent for them..

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This is really great. Thanks for the help. So...the patent belonged to PTP, not Gforce? I'll fix that in the Google Doc when I get the chance.

Did PTP ever produce a frame? I tried searching for that but never found anything.

Proteam, Deadly Wind and G Force all had patents, I believe PTP had the earliest date of the three.
As I recall DW tried to work a deal PTP but the royalties were far to steep to make the project doable.
G Force came sometime later claiming he had a patent and released his frame. I'm pretty sure he never actually completed the project and left owing people parts, I just dont remember the exact details all these years later.
Don't take it as fact, but in my memory at least Deadly Wind was the first on the scene with a pneumatic frame for the Automag regardless of patents and patent dates. He only got his patent when AGD ask him to and after the project had already been made public.

I dont think PTP ever made a frame

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Originally Posted by rawbutter

Great info. Thanks. I knew pneumagger was an early pioneer, but I forgot about Sk8termog.

Any idea who was the first to put an LPR inside of a frame?

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It may have been me actually It was in Intelli-frame I made for a friend the fitting went out the side and I had a tee in the ASA, one went into the frame and the other went to a modified classic valve that was able to shoot consistently over 12 bps.

Another guy that was very early on and probably made the most public information thread was cyberave68. Look for him too!

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Originally Posted by Loguzzzzzz

Another guy that was very early on and probably made the most public information thread was cyberave68. Look for him too!

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Good idea. I'll send him a message.

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Originally Posted by luke

Proteam, Deadly Wind and G Force all had patents, I believe PTP had the earliest date of the three.
As I recall DW tried to work a deal PTP but the royalties were far to steep to make the project doable.
G Force came sometime later claiming he had a patent and released his frame. I'm pretty sure he never actually completed the project and left owing people parts, I just dont remember the exact details all these years later.
Don't take it as fact, but in my memory at least Deadly Wind was the first on the scene with a pneumatic frame for the Automag regardless of patents and patent dates. He only got his patent when AGD ask him to and after the project had already been made public.

I dont think PTP ever made a frame

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Hmm...interesting. I might send an email to DW and PTP to see if anyone there remembers anything.

I am trying my best to make sure this history is accurate, for the record. I know the Google Doc probably still has mistakes in it, but this is the rough draft stage. If there's anything that I can't confirm with enough certainty, I can instead summarize the idea or gloss over it or something and just say that there aren't enough eye witnesses around to corroborate the information.

I do not recall the airwalk frames having mounting for pneumatics. Atleast none of the ones i owned.

Magnus M90 was a frame that pneumatics bolt into. The fabco clippard style along with threading for a lpr. That was 2008 or 2009.

There was also the Logic EM Ripper electro pneumatic frames. Don't recall when they started that project. Just remember p8ntball4me stepping in andcompleting it for logic after years of delays.

Luke, did you ever get any nasty letters after releasing the T-Rex? Or were all the patents expired by that point?

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Originally Posted by rawbutter

Luke, did you ever get any nasty letters after releasing the T-Rex? Or were all the patents expired by that point?

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I never got any nasty letters myself and dont remember seeing or hearing anything like that going on.

I dont recall the exact timeline but during the time the dust was settling around the patents I was planning on selling kits and offering to do builds. I had started machining MPA-3's so they would fit into the Intelli without machining the frame and also found you could buy stainless round bar in metric that fit the MPA3 perfectly. (At that time everyone was using screws as a ram) I was also flirting with the idea of manufacturing a grip frame that was setup for the MPA3 and MSV2.

When I mentioned on the forum what I was intending on doing rabidchihauhau private messaged me and said I would be infringing on the PTP patent, no threats, nasty words, or anything of the sort. I dont know if rabidchihauhau was acting on his own or if PTP was behind it. Based on comments I've read I wasn't the only one that got the 'C&D message' from rabidchihauhau. I dont remember if he worked for PTP or if he was just the guy that wrote the patent, but he was involved somehow. After that I pretty much washed my hands of everything related to pneumags.

In July of 2014 Forrest contacted me and ask if I happened to have a Zap Cheater he could borrow to measure (someone contacted him about manufacturing them) I didn't, but I had reverse engineered the cheater years prior just for ****sandgiggles. Long story short Forrest ended up asking me to take over the project and manufacture the cheater myself. I did decline because I didn't much care for how the cheater was engineered so I set out to design my own, eight months later and a bag full of prototypes, I released the T-Rex (3/3/15)

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Originally Posted by luke

a bag full of prototypes

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Lol. I get that. I have a small box full of failed SPAR valves.

Thanks for that extra info. I'll add it to the Google Doc when I have the chance.

Punisher's Customs also had one (or at least pictures of what allegedly was one) in the early 2000s, too.

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Originally Posted by Fred

Punisher's Customs also had one (or at least pictures of what allegedly was one) in the early 2000s, too.

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Do you have a link for these pictures?

I checked the wayback machine for his website but nothing came up.

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Originally Posted by luke

Proteam, Deadly Wind and G Force all had patents, I believe PTP had the earliest date of the three.
As I recall DW tried to work a deal PTP but the royalties were far to steep to make the project doable.
G Force came sometime later claiming he had a patent and released his frame. I'm pretty sure he never actually completed the project and left owing people parts, I just dont remember the exact details all these years later.
Don't take it as fact, but in my memory at least Deadly Wind was the first on the scene with a pneumatic frame for the Automag regardless of patents and patent dates. He only got his patent when AGD ask him to and after the project had already been made public.

I dont think PTP ever made a frame

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Gforce got the frames out. Still waiting for my LPR.....

We still never actually have seen the PTP one... apparently it was select fire IIRC what Forest told me years ago... he also told me it was 'lost' either in one of their many moves or he loaned it out and never got it back.

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Originally Posted by Dirge

Gforce got the frames out. Still waiting for my LPR.....

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I can mod a wgp lpr if you want to go that route.

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Originally Posted by captian pinky

I can mod a wgp lpr if you want to go that route.

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Already tried :)

It really wants something with a larger volume, like a Micro Rock.

I will be trying one of Luke's LPRs soon. Curious to see how that compares.

You could try making a reservoir on the down stream side.


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