Tippmann

Tippmann Sports LLC

Company type	LLC
Industry	Paintball Pneumatic Sewing Machines Industrial
Founded	Fort Wayne, Indiana (Early 1980s)
Headquarters	Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
Key people	Jimmy Tippmann Jr.
Products	Model 98 98 Custom Custom Pro A-5 C-3 Flatline Barrel System Response Trigger System
Revenue	Not Known USD (2005)
Operating income	Not Known USD (2005)
Net income	Not Known USD (2005)
Number of employees	120 (2005)
Website	www.tippmann.com

Tippmann Sports is a manufacturer of paintball markers and accessories. It is a family owned business run from Fort Wayne Indiana, and also manufactures pneumatic sewing machines, as well as some industrial products under the name of Tippmann Pneumatics.

History

In the 1980's Tippmann was known as, Tippmann Arms Company. As an Arms Company, Tippmann produced scaled down .22 cal replicas of military machine guns. In 1986 gun laws changed, and owner of Tippmann Arms Company, Dennis Tippmann, was looking for new buisness. Dennis noticed the growing popularity of paintball and started to develop paintball markers with his knowledge from developing machine guns.

First Markers

The first Tippmann paintball marker on the market was the SMG60. The SMG60 fired .62 cal as a full automatic. The SMG60 used a side feed system using a stripper clip and a screw on constant air (CA) tank now known as a threaded CO2 tank. It was also the first production paintball marker ever to reach the shelves. As paintball calibers became standardized, Tippmann developed the SMG68 which used .68 cal paintballs and only produced a few of them. The SMG68 is now worth more then $800 USD. The next Tippmann marker was the, Tippmann 68-Special, which was semi-automatic and used a hopper, then called the Ammo Box, that could contain up to 40 paintballs. Tippmann also released a product which converted the SMG68 into the 68-Special. Tippmann went on to produce other notable paintguns, such as the Pro-Am which used a solid machined aluminum receiver, the Factory F/A which used the first force-feed system and a fire rate limiter to shoot semi and full automatic, and the Model 98 which used a cast aluminum design to retain quality but lower prices

Current Paintball Markers

Custom Pro

The Tippmann Custom Pro is an upgraded version of the 98 Custom, coming out of the box it includes a double trigger(two-finger trigger), a drop-forward which moves the tank down and forward, changing the center of gravity making the paintball gun balanced and an 11-inch high-performance stone-honed barrel. The paint on the Custom Pro is also scrath resistent. Although it is approximately $30 USD more than the 98 Custom, all these accessories separately would cost a recreational player about $75 USD.