Many thanks to z-paintball.com for lending us some of their photos.

The Team Effort Events' Zap International Amateur Open has been running for the past nine years and if you've ever attended this event, you know why. This is a who's who of paintball industry people, the largest amateur paintball tournament in history, and a lesson in how to do things right. On top of all of that, this event featured a National Paintball Supply East "Mega Sale" industry only super sale for store and field owners, a players' party, two industry parties, teams from around the world, tons of new products to view or purchase, and let's not forget, a huge paintball tournament.

New Products at the Zap Amateur Open

There were more new products at this event than you can shake a stick at, several of them were the talk of the show. Tippmann's Flatline Barrel System was certainly one of those products. The Flatline Barrel System is a curved barrel (really) made for the Tippmann Model 98.  As the paintball passes through the barrel, backspin on the ball causes the paintball to knuckle and/or rise.

Tippmann Pneumatics had a 180 foot netted target range set up for people to shoot stock guns and compare them to the Flatline enhanced gun. We fired both the stock gun and the Flatline model and the results were obvious to us. Paintballs shot from the Flatline gun hit the target with the paintball still rising, while the stock gun could not reach the target at all. From our observations the balls fired from the Flatline were inconsistent in accuracy due to the backspin on the ball, but they did fly MUCH further. We'll be testing the Flatline for a few months and do a full report here when we're done.

DA Enterprises were showing off their new Hyper Flow high pressure regulators. DA's regulators are available in five models including three 3000 psi and two 4500 psi systems.

Paintball Junkies showed their new line of paintball apparel. Their new satin jerseys are very unique with nice designs and a very cool look. They also have a line of t-shirts, pants, and more.

Paintball Junkies can be reached at 1.877.JUNKIES.

There were many other new products on display at both the trade show and the Mega Sale. WDP's new Angel was getting huge attention.  Proton-X from Pure Air Systems is a very unique product that was getting a lot of looks.  The Proton-X is a series of various size air tanks with unique valves that allow you to fill the tank with a bicycle type of pump.  The tanks screw directly onto your gun's C02 tank adapter.

AKALMP was showing their new electronic semi-auto at the show as well.  Their new gun (Excaliber) will be released later this fall. Scott Goggles had their new smaller mask and new visor--Sheridan had their new semi-auto, and Diablo was showing their new line of paintball colors. P8nt Magazine had their first issue on display at the the trade show and Raven's new goggles made their first public appearance.

Zap Amateur Open Results

As you may have expected the competition in this event was/is pretty fierce. The Zap Amateur Open is chock full of excellent amateur paintball teams, many of which are at the same skill level. The Mob took first place in the amateur five-man division and were followed by Adrenaline, Tagg Team and the Minutemen.

The five-man novice division was won by the Sharp Shooters who were followed by the Florida Predators, Team Sprinter, and ECM.

In the ten-man division P & L Paintball took first leaving Tagg Team, Inferno, and True Playaz in the second through fourth positions.

For complete up to the minute scores check out warpig's site right HERE.

Rate of Fire Meeting

A closed door meeting was held in Pittsburgh to try to finally put an end to the rate of fire issues that have been raised over the past year or so.  We like to call in the Angel "issue" since nobody cared how fast a paintgun fired until the Angel was released. Anyway here's a press release fro Tom Kaye, Bud Orr, and the rest of the gun manufacturers that attended this meeting.

Big News From Mars - No Word From Venus

August 4, 1999 - Mars, Pennsylvania - Many of paintball's leading manufacturers, spearheaded by Bud Orr of Worr Game Products, gathered today to discuss rate of fire and other firepower considerations facing the paintball industry. After some discussion the following definitions were agreed to:

#1 Semi-Automatic Paintball Marker: A device specifically designed to discharge paintballs by the external actuation of a trigger, which includes a pull and a release, and which operates such that it discharges one time per trigger cycle.

#2 Fully Automatic Paintball Marker: A paintball marker, which continues to cycle as long as the trigger is held in a firing position. In addition, the group agreed to the following resolutions to be enacted as soon as practical:

#1 No further production of semi-automatic markers capable of discharging greater than 13 balls per second.

#2 No further production of fully automatic paintball markers.

While this group did not include every manufacturer in the industry, this agreement represents a great commitment by the principal North American manufacturers of most of the effected products and is part of an ongoing process.

More Zap Amateur Open Photos

Tippmann 180-foot target range.

Bob Long in the National Truck.

Angel tech theatre.

Speedball Field sponsored by Extreme Rage Paintball.

National Paintball East's T-2 Truck.

Doug Zander and the Benchmark staff.

Check back here often for Zap Amateur Updates, more photos, and game coverage.