What started as a game in the woods with a few friends and some SplatMaster paintball guns turned into an empire.
Our story
We began as paintball players. Our love of the game led us down this path almost 40 years ago. What started as a game in the woods with a few friends and some SplatMaster paintball guns turned into an empire… one of the most innovative and influential companies in the history of the sport.
We didn’t start as a company, but we were always a team.
We played paintball at the local level until we saw an ad for the first ever Wolf’s Lair 20 Man tournament with a cash prize! We joined with about 15 other new players and placed 2nd to the PMI Piranhas, a powerhouse from Chicago. We won a bag of cash ($10K) but more importantly became hooked on the sport of tournament paintball. Soon after we formed the All Americans and worked our way up the ranks. In the Line SI series, we made our first Sunday, then first top 4, then 3rd, 2nd and finally First Place at the 1991 Masters Championship in TN. We were on top of the world. Over the next two decades the AA’s would win almost 100 tournaments, a dozen World Championships and two NXL Championships (as Philadelphia Americans) in 2003 & 2004.
Smart Parts was founded in 1989 in Bill Gardner’s garage..
To develop products for the team, and more importantly for the sport of paintball. And the next section change to The AA’s inspired the innovation knowing that if we could. The AA’s inspired the innovation…if we could have more accuracy or a better marker, we would play better and win more. The more we won, the more products we sold. The drive for an advantage over the competition led to some of the most innovative and significant products in the history of the sport. It all started with the rifled barrel. In an effort to improve accuracy, Bill Gardner drilled holes in his barrel and honed it to a mirror finish. Soon the AA’s were shooting the Smart Parts barrels and started to win. This made others want to buy them and Smart Parts began to flourish. We packaged our barrels with the best markers at the time, the Auto-cocker and the Automag and continued to win tournaments. The team and the company were flourishing but we knew we could do better. I remember at one of the major events listening to Tom Kaye and Bud Orr declare that paintball markers had “evolved” as far as they could and that there would never be advancements beyond the Automag and Autococker. We knew better and soon introduced the first electro-pneumatic paintball marker ever… The Shocker. This changed everything.all use this PWR design.
We needed a bigger building
Smart Parts moved from a small 5500 sq foot warehouse in Latrobe PA to a large 100,000 sq foot manufacturing center less than a mile away. The Shocker with the addition of new innovations like the Freak Insert barrel system, (another invention by Bill Gardner), the Impulse, the Nerve and Renegade Clothing led to a massive investment in US manufacturing, design, development & manufacturing. In 2004 the ION was introduced and took Smart Parts to a new level. The ION at $299 closed the gap between the high-priced electronic markers and the low-end mechanical markers and this enabled players to compete regardless of how much their marker cost. In the first year, Smart Parts sold over 100,000 ION and expanded by adding the 108,000 sq foot assembly, sales and Paintball Facility in Greensburg, PA – The All American Paintball Park.
By 2006 Smart Parts employed over 250 employees in manufacturing, assembly, engineering, sales, shipping and customer support and supported hundreds of US suppliers and over a thousand paintball dealers, stores and fields worldwide.
Sales reached over $35 Million. That money was invested
in manufacturing, facilities, new product development, teams, paintball
leagues and the promotion of the sport (ESPN and getting paintball on TV).
Others wanted to get in on our success.
Others wanted to get in on our success. Smart Parts was the most innovative company in the history of the sport and patented most, but not all of our inventions. But that still didn’t prevent copycats from using our designs. Some licensed the technology, others just flat out stole it. The choice was to let them steal our technology or to fight back. This led to numerous lawsuits, some initiated by Smart Parts and others initiated by both WDP and DYE. While we prevailed in all cases, it came at a big cost both financially and in terms of our reputation…they did a good job of smearing us while ignoring the fact that THEY were stealing our technology. (For more on that, see the link in the Shocker Story as it is a good read).and expanded by adding the 108,000 sq foot assembly, sales and Paintball Facility in Greensburg, PA – The All American Paintball Park.
In 2008, the Luxe Marker was introduced under the DLX brand, an off shoot of Smart parts.
However, the 2008 recession and Government TARP bailout would lead to the downfall of Smart Parts. Despite healthy sales and a 20-year banking relationship, PNC BANK decided to not renew over $15 Million in loans that were used to purchase the machinery, buildings and product development. This was despite Smart Parts having never missed a payment or been out of covenant. A brilliant example of what happens when our government screws up and gives the banks the power to choose winners and losers.
We were down but not out. Smart Parts was gone, but our knowledge, desire and fighting spirit were not. We started over and began taking back our market. It was an uphill battle because many of those competitors stepped in and took market share. We continued to develop and innovate and re-designed the Shocker, Luxe and Freak brands.
We have teamed up with some the best minds in paintball like John Chambers and Jerod Bushman of Method Development. Together with our team of engineers, designers and developers like Hans, Ed, Luke, Lee-Anne, Ryan and Bill Gardner we are extremely excited about the future. The gloves are off, and we plan to take back our market. We have a new philosophy that will help us support our dealers, teams and customers in new and innovative ways. We invite you to give us a fresh look. Give our products a try and decide for yourself. We are confident that you will like what we have to offer.