PaintballX3 Magazine August 2013, PaintballX3 Magazine | Page 94

Product Review
much a semi-automatic paintball gun as an auto-cocking pump gun (Autococker, get it?), the Autococker retained the legendary closed-bolt, pump accuracy of the Sniper and provided enough rate of fire to more than compete with the mechanical semi-automatic paintball guns of the era. What happened after that was, well, history. Winning teams in the fledgling National Professional Paintball League shot the Autococker. Indeed, some of the greatest teams and many of the most influential players of all time shot Autocockers. The Ironmen, players like Bob Long, Dave Youngblood, Shane Pestana and Darryl Trent, all shot Autocockers along with some of the heavy hitters from Chicago Aftershock, Ron Kilbourne and his Bushwackers and many, many more that would take up at least a chapter or two of that book somebody ought to write. Even after the electronic paintball guns took over the game, the Autococker couldn’t be kept down, as hinge trigger frames and, later, electronic setups for the Autococker from companies like Planet Eclipse kept the marker competitive in the hands of teams like the Bushwackers and the Naughty Dogs for several seasons after other mechanical semiautomatics had been left behind. Fast forward a few years and at the highest levels of the game the Autococker isn’t anywhere to be found, replaced by markers like the Dye DM line, the Luxe, the LV-1 Ego and Geo from Eclipse and the Empire Axe and Vanquish. Sniper pump markers and Autocockers can still be found playing in the Ultimate Woodsball League or on recreational fields and in scenario games all over the place. Then, at the Paintball Extravaganza trade show before the 2013 season started, it happened: Empire debuted the Resurrection Autococker. Though Worr Game Products is long gone, gob-

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