GOG PAINTBALL
You literally can’t talk about GOG Paintball without first looking at the company’s roots, which extend far beyond the their decade-long history. Back in the late 1980s brothers Adam and Bill Gardner Jr formed what most consider to be one of the greatest paintball teams of all time—the All Americans. Originally called Sargent York’s All Americans, named in part after their original home playing fields, Sgt Yorks Paintball located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the name was shortened to the All Americans when the team’s home was moved to the Pittsburgh area.
The All Americans
Throughout the late 1980s the All Americans established themselves as a dominant team in the northeast region, winning events at Wolf’s Lair, Sgt Yorks and other local and regional fields. By 1992 the All Americans were consistently near or at the top of the yearly standings/rankings of the Lively Series, the largest pro/am tournament series at the world at that time. Run by Jim Lively and Sam Caldwell, the Lively Series was the go-to league for all of the top teams in the U.S. and beyond. The All Americans won the 1992 Lively Masters held yearly in Nashville, Tennessee and the domination started. The same year (1992) the All Americans also won the Lively Windy City Open and the first ever World Cup.
By 1993 the new National Professional Paintball League (NPPL) was formed and the All Americans were one of the league’s flagship teams. The All Americans, known as one of the “Big Three” in the 1990s, battled Aftershock and the Ironmen event after event, season after season for NPPL pro supremacy. In fact, for the first four years of the NPPL, not team other than the Big Three had won a single event. That streak was broken by Bad Company at the NPPL Pittsburgh Open in 1997.
As the game of tournament paintball progressed into the 2000s the All Americans evolved with it. In February of 2003 Richmond Italia and Mike Ratko introduced the National Xball League, a new format that had its roots in the first Nations Cup held in the summer of 2002. The All Americans would change their name to the Philadelphia Americans for the new league and they would go on to win back to back titles in the league’s first two seasons.
Over the years the All Americans/Philly Americans would roster dozens of the best paintball players in the game’s history. Players like Adam Gardner, 2E Barber, George Davision, Tom Maliszewski, Tim Montressor, Todd Hugo, Frank Connell, Phil Hamm, Darryl Trent, Spesh Robinson, Constantin Federov, Nori Gardner and Karen Barber, the first two pro female paintball players in history and dozens more.
Smart Parts
Meanwhile while the All Americans were honing their skills and collecting trophies in the early 1990s the Gardner brothers and their father Bill Sr., were putting together the necessary pieces to form their first paintball company, Smart Parts. The company known first for their spiral-drilled, rifled “All American” paintball barrels, would also introduce hundreds of products in the decade of the 90s and into the 2000s. The Freak Barrel Kit, the Max-Flo air system, Renegade Camo, Tear Drop Barrel—and paintball guns like the Shocker, Impulse, Ion, Vibe, Dynasty Shocker, Nerve, Russian Legion Shocker, Ion XE, the Shocker Sport, Shoebox Shocker and so many more.
GOG
In 2010 Smart Parts closed its doors and soon thereafter the Gardner Brothers started GOG Paintball. GOG’s first products included the eNVy, and its tactical version, the G1, true spool valve electropneumatic designed guns that have replaced the Smart Parts Vibe. The eNVy is a fully programable marker with the standard semiautomatic, full automatic, PSP mode and three-shot burst modes—all for right around $200. Their next marker was the eXTCy and in 2013 they followed that up with their popular eNMEy, which is still one of the hot markers on the market today. The eNMEy is available in both .50 caliber and .68 caliber versions and there’s also a field rental eNMEy available for field owners. And more recently GOG has released their next-level tactical marker the G-1M mechanical marker for those that play classic style paintball.
feature GoG product of the week:
GoG Shocker AMP Paintball Gun
A new generation of the legendary Shocker paintball gun platform has arrived! The Shocker AMP evolves the Shocker electronic paintball gun platform with greater performance and versatility than ever, and it's already been tested and found worthy on the paintball field in the hands of professional paintball players and teams like AC:Dallas and AC:Diesel!
GOG Paintball USA
100 Station Street
Loyalhanna, PA 15661