Phantom Stock Class

Phantom Stock Class – Paintball Gun Review

I have always wanted to do a paintball gun review on the Phantom Stock Class marker. And by always I mean since I first shot one back in 1990. CCI the manufacturer of the venerable Phantom is based in my home town. I actually owned Phantom Serial #000012 up until 5 years ago, when I made the mistake of selling it. Never have I regretted selling a paintball gun as much as that historic marker.

Paintball Gun Reviews – the Format

The process of reviewing a paintball gun needs to be solid. If I allow my personal bias and friendships to influence my paintball gun reviews then I do you a disservice. I will rank each of 4 things on a scale between 0 and 5. Given that here is the criteria I will base all of my reviews on:

1. Initial quality – How well made is the gear? How good is the finish? How does it feel?
2. Reliability – This is based on long term durability out in the field and is often hard to determine from a short paintball gun review. How I will make this determination is based on the quality of materials used, and the percentage of returns, and defects.
3. Performance – Accuracy, rate of fire (if appropriate), ball breakage, upgradable (how many after market parts are available?).
4. Price – How well does the price equate to the performance?

My Phantom Stock Class – Paintball Gun Review

Time to get at it. I have a huge bias towards this particular paintball gun. It was my first real purchase as an informed paintball consumer, and it was made by a local business. I even played for Phantom Force for a few years, and yes we were sponsored by CCI, shooting Phantoms. So now that we have full disclosure I should also state that I bought the Phantom because it was the best marker available at the time, and I played for Phantom Force because they shot Phantoms.

To this day CCI makes one of, if not the best Stock Class Paintball marker in the world. It is a light and durable marker that has been upgraded and enhanced over the 20 years since it was first introduced. Over the years rather than creating a semi-auto and then an electro paint hose, CCI chose to take what they did well and do it even better. The modern Phantom Stock Class marker is about as refined and perfected as it can be.

I love having the opportunity to do this paintball gun review. The Phantom is a dream and I highly recommend anyone who plays stock class to purchase one.

1. 5 for Initial Quality. It comes out of the box, about as good as it gets.
2. 5 for Reliability. With a Stock Class marker there is very little that can go wrong. Even given that caveat the Phantom is as durable as they come.
3. 4 for Performance. This would be a 5 as the Phantom is one of the most accurate paintball markers on the planet, but I just cannot in good conscious give a stock class marker a 5 being that one of the factors I consider when doing a paintball gun review is rate of fire. Stock class is a much slower game so I knocked only 1 point off.
4. 5 for Price. the particular Phantom Stock Class pictured here is about $290. But there are less fancy models for around $200 and at that price this is a steal.

Overall the Phantom Stock Class marker averages 4.75 out of 5. Right now this is the top stock class marker in the world that is not a fully custom, one of a kind. I would say that it is the best of it’s category but In the future, I hope to do paintball gun review for other stock class markers and we will only know then.

I Want Your Paintball Gun Reviews

Want to share your paintball gun reviews with the world? Have a strong opinion and want the world to hear it? Do you love or hate your paintball gun? Well then, create a short (less than 2 minute or 500 words) video or post and send me an email with it attached. If it doesn’t totally suck I will post it on Paintball Gun Man.com in our paintball gun reviews section.

Your opinion does matter, and I think people respect the advice of others, from similar circumstances more than they do experts. I have personal feelings regarding the value of features that might be different for a new player, or a young player or you.

I want your perspective, and I think others do as well, so take a chance and write or record a review, I might just post it.

Paintball Gun Review Format

What I am looking for is a detailed explanation of the benefits, features and problems with your particular paintball gun. What do you get for it? At this time I have nothing to offer other than fame. In time I’d like to offer prizes for the most popular posts. The criteria you should address is:

1. Initial quality – How well made is the gear? How good is the finish? How does it feel?
2. Reliability – This is based on long term durability out in the field and is often hard to determine from a short paintball gun review. How I will make this determination is based on the quality of materials used, and the percentage of returns, and defects.
3. Performance – Accuracy, rate of fire (if appropriate), ball breakage, upgradable (how many after market parts are available?).
4. Price – How well does the price equate to the performance?

As I get my hands on particular paintball markers I will also be creating paintball gun reviews. First up is a review of the Phantom pictured in this post.

All our Paintball Gun Reviews

As you and I create paintball gun reviews links will be placed here to each post.

Phantom Stock Class Paintball gun review.

Uprising Paintball Video

The 2nd best part of Uprising was their paintball videos. The best part was playing with great ballers. I miss playing with these guys. Race, Chris, Bo, Drew, Phil and all of the Uprising crew just loved to grind. Ghetto Ballers, all of them. Some of the best non-pro players I ever got to play with. Of course Phil eventually played pro with the Naughty Dogs, so there you go. This paintball video shows the kids out playing like they always did.

I often wonder what they are all up to now? Practices with them were intense. They kept me going in the game years after I would have otherwise walked away, right up until I blew my knee out.

Race loved to make paintball videos of the team in action, he has a real gift for it, and consequently Uprising developed a strong following. They started Uprising Nation and Blacklist Videos (
paintball video production company).

I’ve been trying to track down most of the old videos Race made of Uprising, so it was fun coming across a few of them on YouTube, but I want the older ones.

Tracking Down More Paintball Videos

I really want to see more of the paintball videos from Blacklist but I’d also like to see videos that other people recommend, so if there is a video on YouTube or elsewhere that you think is just a show stopper leave a comment with it and share your find with others.

My Favorite Paintball Videos

Race and team have made some of my all time favorite paintball vidz, partially because I am in a few But regardless I am saddened by the demise of Uprising and what it has meant to the production of videos that had been occurring in their heyday…

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College Paintball Championship

This video is the Fox College Paintball Sports broadcast of the 2007 JT USA College Championships. This video starts about half way through the championship match between the University of Connecticut Huskies and the Penn State University Nittany Lions.

I am impressed with the level of skill the players on both of these college paintball teams demonstrate. However the Fox College Sports broadcast team blows. Most of the amateur video of paintball I’ve watched has better production values. However the play by play announcers do a pretty good job… So there you go.

College Paintball, my story

Back when I was in College we started a paintball club for Washington State University. We worked hard to get the College to allow us to promote paintball at all. Putting up a flier inviting people to come out to a game, or show up at a meeting was a big deal. Getting the university to recognize the paintball club, was, well, monumental.

We played only one season as the University club paintball team, however the university did allow us to sell concessions and stay a recognized student organization for 5 years.

Going through all of that just to get my college paintball team into existence, I am utterly blown away by the USA Paintball championships as they now stand.

More College Paintball Videos

I am interested in tracking down videos from all of the college paintball championships, held over the years. If you find one and want to share it, leave a comment with a link to the video.

I have stumbled across a stash of videos from a team I use to go play with, that I will be posting in the next few days. Good times.

Update: One of these paintball videos is now up.

Paintball Video – Millennium Series

This paintball video of the Millennium Series in Europe is a wonderful showcase for the greatest paintball tournament series in the world. The facilities, staff, and fans are phenomenal. I always loved going to the Euro events. So I went looking for vidz from past Millennium Paintball Series events and found this one from the 2005 Amsterdam event… Amsterdam and Paintball are a dangerous mix.

This paintball video starts a little slow, however it is well done and shows some of the best Euro ballers and US teams in action. This 22 minute paintball video is just a clip from a much longer movie the producers are making, at this point I guess they have already made the whole thing

Paintball History in Video Form

It is fun to stumble across these paintball videos from past events and relive the moments that have now become history. Triumph, glory, and tragedy, paintball has it all. Paintball videos like these are a great reminder of triumphs gone by, as well as the pain and sorrow of defeat. These are moments that will not return, they cannot be lived again, but through these videos we glimpse a moment that is full of emotion and adrenaline.

More Paintball Videos

If you have a great paintball video you want to share with the world, leave a comment with a link to the video. Even if it is someone else’s paintball video, on youtube or something, let me and the world know about it. You can of course more paintball videos here on Paintball Gun Man . One of my favorites is the Uprising Paintball Video.

Eclipse Paintball Video = Awesome

Eclipse does another great job with this paintball video series. Everything Eclipse touches, in regards to paintball, is gold, and this video series is no exception. This particular paintball video is broken into 4 chapters, to be nice to you I have decided that rather than breaking it into 4 posts I am just going to give all the in this single post.

In this paintball video we follow Edmonton Impact in their Rookie Pro season. They take on Dynasty for the first place spot at the Tampa open and Aftermath for the win at the PSP Chicago event.

Eclipse Paintball Video – Part 2

For their first season as professional paintball players they are Damned good! Edmonton Impact has nothing to be ashamed of for making the finals at these events, even if they don’t win the whole thing, it is really amazing how well they do. These paintball videos do a great job of showcasing their talent.

Eclipse Paintball Video – Part 3

Just watching these paintball videos makes me want to come out of retirement, but then again I was never as good as the players on Edmonton Impact, they are flat out ballers, even if they are Canadians ! Regardless it gets me itchy to play.

Eclipse Paintball Video – Part 4

Paintball Video Vault

Not really, it just sounded good. I want to see the paintball videos you think are the best. Leave a comment with a link to your favorite paintball video to share with the world. I am personally a fan of the Uprising Paintball Video and the Millennium Amsterdam Paintball Video. Or go to the Paintball Video section of Paintball Gun Man to see all of the videos I recommend.

Paintball Comic Strip

Here is another of my Psychedelic Squirrels paintball comic strips. Every paintball team I have ever played for has had their own way of identifying and passing the most critical information for a field or match. Over time some “bunker” names have become universal. If someone says  “the snake”, “dog house” and “Dorito” everyone knows which bunkers they are talking about, whether or not you have ever played the field.

Why have those names become universal? Heck if I know, but it probably has to do with the ease by which the name relays the shape and therefore it is easy to identify.

Back to the Paintball Comic

There is more than ten years between the last Psychedelic Squirrels paintball comic I posted and this one, you might have noticed many changes. Some of those obvious changes are that it is much simpler, which allows me to create them faster, everyone is wearing a full mask and goggles, and the colors are BRIGHT.

I actually spent quite a bit of time redesigning all of the characters to be easier to identify no matter how small I drew them, which meant making them simpler, and eliminating unimportant detail, which makes it faster to draw… Oh and I made it more legible… I always thought the old ones were hard to read.

Will there be another Paintball Comic?

I leave that up to you. I am not sure if I will continue doing this paintball comic, it takes a lot of my time, but I really do enjoy coming up with them, so who knows, maybe I will just create them as time allows, unless you talk me into creating them more often.

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My Paintball Comic Strip

Way back in the days of Yore, what ever that means, I had a paintball comic strip. And Before that I had a wildly successful regular comic strip. Well it was successful in that it ran in a few different papers daily, so maybe not wildly, or even truly successful, but it didn’t suck. Anyways that other comic strip was called Cold Coffee and was about a group of college kids who worked for a local coffee shop. I created the paintball Comic as a spin off from that. Only one character ever made the transition between the two worlds. Jamma, wasn’t the main character of the main strip, he was just a friend, a bit part.

About this Paintball Comic Strip

I always wanted a master to teach me the game of paintball, someone like Mr Miagi from Karate Kid to guide me through the game. Since I never had that mentor, I decided Jamma will in the paintball comic strip.

Why did Jamma and no other characters make the transition to the paintball comic strip? He was the only one crazy enough for the world I envisioned. Jamma always came into Cold Coffee as the over anxious fall guy, he fit this new strip well.

I introduce everyone to Griz, the old veteran paintball player, with wisdom and skill beyond measure. Of course Jamma will try his inner calm at every turn. I wanted to play off of these two characters, but over time everything changed including the name. Eventually the Paintball Comic Strip was renamed Psychedelic Squirrels.

More Paintball Comic Strips

White Board By Doc, the king of Paintball comic strips.
Psychedelic Squirrels Paintball Comic Strip at theFunniez.com