On September 21st, 2014, I stopped by SC Village to first meet with Rose Hudson, secretary for the Sat Cong Headhunters (c. 1984/85-89), Bud Orr, of WGP, and Dennis Bukowski of SC Village, on the Sat Cong Headhunter’s history and then stick around and play a few games in Decay of Nations. I’ll have more on the Sat Cong Headhunters in the next few days.
After Bud, Rose, Dennis and I talked about the Headhunters’ history I joined Bud as he accompanied Robert Lane and Jeff Randall, of Niche Paintball, in their booth. With Rob, Jeff and some help from Tim Firpo, of paintballtek.com, as soundman we recorded the video above, asking Bud some questions about early WGP history and focusing on Rob’s Sniper 1 pump.
Over the past 6 months in phone calls and internet messages back and forth, Bud has been correcting me as I piece together some of WGP’s early timeline on Sniper 1s, WGP’s Nelson pumps, the barrel plug, the Ammo Box, and more.
 |
 |
One of the subjects from this timeline I’ve been researching are the WGP reversible feed Sniper 1s. Rob’s ex rental Sniper 1, which he had at the Niche Paintball booth, is one of these bodies.
I’ve been trying to find more details on these reversible feed Sniper 1s, especially how they factor into the larger production run of Worr Game Products’ Sniper and Autococker serial numbers and body styles. Details have been scarce, with the only printed photo I’d been able to find was an ad for The Command Post, printed in the March 1989 issue of APG. Tim Ellwood, business partner in the Command Post responded in email about this Sniper 1, stating:
”I remember those Bud Orr’s were some of the very first ones made. We were kinda the ”Big Dog” and everyone sent us early stuff so we would put it in the catalog.”
Robert Lane tells the store of his Sniper 1, pictured in the video above, remembering back to 1989:
“At this time, Sc Village was selling off a few of their sniper rentals and a friend of mine, (much older to a 15 year old at the time…probably 24), was on a sponsored team who I tagged along with, and he picked one up.
Every saturday, this gun would be siting on the tailgate of his truck and it would never get used (since my friend was sponsored by TASO at the time). He’d let me use it, after my begging and begging, and eventually, he sold it to me for $200 while at War Zone in Southern California (no longer exists).
It was not as pretty as the new Sniper [2s], but I sure felt like I was in the club…until I went to SC Village and was snubbed by all the guys with the newer Snipers…LOL!…and their fancy sight rails!…I had the rental gun!”
Find Rob’s entire write up at http://customcockers.com/forum/showthread.php?39284-Sniper-1-379
Details are pretty hard to find about the reversible feed bodies but here is what I’ve been able to dig up:
•They were produced between 1987-1989. Serial stamps fall in different styles and prefixs and underbody stampings differ based between bodies indicate that some were made or stamped at different times.
•Some reversible feed bodies were machined along with regular very early bodies, maybe 1987?
•Some were cut from the same batch of blem bodies that were used to make the 62 caliber snipers. These likely came out randomly with examples being Rob’s serial 379, likely dating 1988, and the R2662 body pictured above that is engraved for Top Gun and was likely from 1989.
•Maybe in the case of Rob’s body and the Top Gun bodies, Bud needed a few more rentals so he machined a couple of the blem bodies to work as reversible feeds before the majority of the blem bodies were to be used as 62 Cal.
•The 62 cal bodies would have coincided with the standard run at about serials 700-1000 serial based on the fact they used the transitional frames and are pictured in Action Pursuit Games in the August 1989 issue so they date to about Spring to May of 1989.
Here is another old photo off mcarterbrown that was posted by Tony at RCPaintball. Ton’y name on mcb is American Paintball.
Another story/theory that Dale “Sugarstump” Price brings up in an old mcb post is that some reversible feed bodies were stolen unserialized.
Dale writes:
“Bud made a few of these in his garage in the very beginning. They had the reversible feedport set up. If I remember correctly they were stolen from him, and he never made any more, in the hopes they would show up somewhere and that feature (the feedport) would make them easy to identify. Once we were talking about it and he said he thought they had most likely tossed them in a lake somewhere, never to be seen again… That could explain why there isn’t a serial number on it, they were stolen before Bud stamped it in.”
If this were the case they could have trickled in to WGP and been serialized later at that time?Find that post on mcb at:
http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/what/8398-prototype-sniper-2.html
I’ll have another article on the Niche Nemesis Autococker up in a couple days. The video is online now though and can be view below:
