Stock Gun tournaments are played strictly with pump guns which hold a maximum capacity of 20 rounds of paintballs.  The stock guns are either vertical fed (which means that the paintballs are loaded by tipping the gun forward, and pumping the gun to allow one ball to be loaded per trigger pull) or direct (gravity) fed (which means that you are allow to attach a stick feeder to the feed nipple.  The air source is provided by a 12-gram C02 powerlet, which gives the player anywhere from 20-30 shots per C02, depending on the efficiency of the gun.  The players are allowed a maximum of 300 FPS with vertical feed, and 270 FPS for direct feed guns.  Players are allowed to carry unlimited paint and C02's onto the field, however, typically, the average player carries around 200 rounds, and 10 C02s.

        Due to the smaller turnout this year, all the teams were given the opportunity to play each of the teams "twice" in the series (which worked out to about 18 games per team), spread over a span of 2 days.  Each game was 10 minutes long, and had dual flags on each field.  One unique feature of Earon's tournaments were custom flags made for the tournament (from Superior Shirts).  Teams which "pulled" the flags on each game, were allowed to keep them for a momento of the victory.  Each flag had all of the sponsors and Earon's logo, a nice touch to give the players more incentive to pull the flag.

Combat Crew from Hawaii
photo Brent Johnson
        Teams which were present at the tournament included a majority of Southern California based teams, such as Broken Arrow (with 2 teams entered), Kamakazee Desert Ducks (a.k.a. Kamakazee Shooters), Team of Honor, Yella, Grizwalds, and Dragoons.  E-Ticket from San Diego, Yuma Rattlers from Yuma, Arizona, and Combat Crew from Hawaii were also present.  As far as staffing, there was a variety of great people running the tournament.  Earon Carter (and his daughters) and paintball pro Wes Wong from Carter Machine (tournament coordinators), Jerry (The Ultimate Ref) and his wife, Linda (chronograph official) from Warped Sports, made the tournament run fluid as usual.  Other paintball celebrities who were on hand inlcuded Dave Youngblood of DYE Products and Brian Binini from So. Cal's Ironmen just to name a few.

        With a variety of terrain and playing conditions, the fields were no less than extraodinary.  Playing on three different fields, one had a large ravine, running water going through the center of it (which separated the 2 flag stations), and an old outhouse on one of the tapelines (how's that for different).  Another field was on the side of a hill which had bunkers made of logs, rocks, and even a bridge which players could play underneath.  The final field contained high follage as well as log and rock bunkers.
 

        As the day pressed on, attitudes started to become an issue as teams duled for the top spots.  Teams which were doing well on Saturday started to slide down in the brackets.  As the tournament started to come to an end, tensions eventually dissolved, and hugs and handshakes were exchanged before the award ceremony.

Here are the final results:

1st - Dragoon
2nd - Combat Crew
3rd - Broken Arrow
4th - Kamakazee Shooters
5th - Team of Honor
6th - Yella
7th - E-Ticket
8th - Grizwalds
9th - Yuma Rattlers
10th - Broken Arrow 2
 

        The Dragoons won 5 of Earon's Buzzards, which were all polished out (great job guys!).  Trophies were awarded for 1st - 4th place.  Prizes from Carter Machine, DYE Precision, Unique Sporting goods, Check-It Products, Warped Sportz, and JT just to name a few.  There was an unique prize awarded for last place.  For those of you know who CCI is, Mike Casady donated 5 VSC Phantoms!  Guess who won those for coming in last....yours truly go one.

        On a final note from me personally, I would like to say that I was truly touched by Derek Obatake, Captain of the Kamakazee Shooters, who dedicated the Shooters win to Mark Tora and David Liu.  Dave, creator of the Desert Duck passed away recently, a deep loss to the stock community and to those who knew him.  Dave was one of the nicest people around, and will be missed.  I would like to dedicate this article to the members of the Kamakazee Shooters (David Liu, Derek Obatake, Mark Tora, Tim Stone, John Borgess, and Jack & Brian Wada), for their honor, respect, dignity, and for being some of the greatest guys to play against.

Great job Earon, Wes, Jerry, and the rest of the staff!  See you next year?

For more pictures from the Earon Carter Stock Class Invitational, goto the Photo Gallery

Sean Takeda
MPN Columnist