The Creation of the Angel Paintball Gun

WDP was created in 1987 with the opening of the National Paintball Field. As the field grew in popularity, the company opened a shop. In order to increase the local demand for paintball equipment WDP began running paintball tournaments. Not satisfied with just woodsball tournaments, WDP designed & pioneered a new tournament concept originally called “Hyperball”. Hyperball or “Speedball”, as it is more commonly referred to, was originally setup as an arena paintball field constructed from corrugated plastic pipe and designed for a quicker game format. In today's Speedball games, the field is constructed with air inflated "bunkers".

The Angel paintball gun was first introduced in 1997 by WDP (changed to APS “Angel Paintball Sports” in 2007). The development of the Angel marker began 3 years earlier when John Rice joined the company. John considered CO2 a “dirty gas” and designed the Angel as a HPA-only (High Pressure Air) marker. The original Angel used several miniaturized components that would not withstand impurities of CO2. In conjunction with the release of the first Angel WDP also release the Gov’nair high pressure system. Although the Gov’nair system had its share of problems, WPD made the corrections and the Gov’nair system became a huge success. The system quickly spread over the world and help WDP make a name for itself.

The original Angel paintball gun also debuted as one of the first electronic marker on the market. The first Angel featured firing ranges of 15 BPS (Balls per Second), a number previously unheard of within the sport. To achieve this feat trigger speed was a determining factor. WDP wanted to design a firing sequence that anyone could shoot well, with little to no learning curve. The new light trigger allowed even novice players to achieve rates of fire that were previously unattainable, even by many professionals. The development of a super light trigger was unfamiliar to the WDP design team; early models of Angels were known to fire even by an accidental light breeze.

Over the years Angel paintball guns has been refined & modified but WDP (APS) with many new models and features released. The most current model is the Angel 1 Fly – based on the Angel 1 platform, but featuring many new performance enhancements which we will discuss at another time.