Paintball Magazine Paintball.Media Magazine October 2019 | Page 58
I’ve been saying it often lately: it’s a feel-good
time in paintball! JT is back on top of the pro
paintball podium thanks to the recent success
of X-Factor in the NXL, ten-man woodsball
and Hyperball are booming thanks to events
like the incomparable Iron City Classic and
mechanical markers are experiencing one
hell of a renaissance! I seem to remember a
time in paintball that most were convinced
nobody would buy a paintball gun that cost
over a thousand dollars – now there are
companies out there selling out preorders
of custom markers costing every bit of that
and then some! A company both at the
forefront of the resurgence of mechanical
“classic” paintball, and certainly a brand that
helped usher in that resurgence, is Simon
Stevens’ Inception Designs, and their Ripper
Autococker is a piece of hardware you simply
have to see and shoot to believe!
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My introduction to Inception’s Ripper
Autococker was an unintended one – of
course I was aware of their existence and
that they were gorgeously cut and lusciously
anodized, assembled by-hand from a
heaping parts kit of Inception’s proprietary
components, but I’d never played with one
and hadn’t given doing so much thought. I
have a bunch of Autocockers, not to mention
Automags, Eclipse markers, Empire guns
and just about anything I need to hit the
field. The only problem? I hadn’t brought any
of those guns or that gear to the 2019 Iron
City Classic – just my camera and a pair of
goggles. So when my good friend Michael
Karman and Northwest Rogue came to me
looking for a body (which was a qualification
I apparently met), I said yes but promptly
suffered a minor panic attack as I had no
gear to play the event with. I’m actually not
kidding so quit laughing.