Paul and I visited Colin Thompson in San Diego on Tuesday March 4th, after stopping by Carter Machine in Chula Vista.
I’ll hopefully do some thorough interviews with Colin but for this trip we were pressed for time so I wanted to just go over some of my basic questions with Colin and show him a few paintguns with questions about them.
Colin started working part time as an Airsmith for Dave Bassman at Bassman’s Malibu Conquest in either 1985 or 1986.
Colin met Dave through Dungeons and Dragons and as Colin told us, “Bassman was my Dungeon Master,” which meant he organized the games.
During this time Colin was working in Los Angeles high rise building installing Alarm System Packages.
Conquest originally ran Nelspots which Colin began working the “kinks” out of. He modified these nelspot for performance and ease of use and his first product was a knurled thumbscrew (c.1986).
Later he made Colin Guns (nelspots with the barrels replaced) and after that Ghosts. Colin had Randy at Sigma Engineering do his Machining. Randy had previously done machining for Ross Alexander and Jerry Dobbins at Line SI.
During the mid 90s Colin put together batches of pumps which were named Force Recon’s and typically came in wild colors. These Force Recons were made using left over parts his Paintball Connection time.
In the majority of Lapco pumps the Rails are flat on either side but on a few I’ve come across the sides have ball end mill marks pre anodizing. I thought these were stylistic marks but as Colin pointed out, the notch was used to hide a blems!
Such a cleaver way to correct a mess up and 20 years later I’m thinking they were made that way from the beginning. The pictured Force Recon is built off a Spectre / Specter body (no pump spring and less honing) and the frame is a later ranger Receiver with a lapco rail. The raised sight rail is I think the High Boy sight
Find Dan on google Plus at here
