The first time I met Jack Wada, of the Kamikaze Shooters, was at Sonny’s first So Cal Stock game, in December of 2012. We were playing as a private group at Hollywood Sports Park in Bellflower, Ca.
I immediately started asking Jack what he remembered about certain paintball products and we got onto the subject of Cal Ordnance. I had thought the round knurled Nelspot pump handles were made by Ted Yoshimura of Cal Ordnance, but according to Jack, they were actually made by OMMS.
I hadn’t seen any printed ads for these Nelspot pumps and thought they were likely produced in such small numbers I wouldn’t find anything.
But two years later I’ve finally come across a printed advertisement in the April 1986 issue of Front Line.
Notice all the early fields listed in this ad. I’d like to know more about L.A. Sho-Down? I also think the Combat Connections might have been a shop or field in Southern California and not Combat Connections out of Illinois? I’m also wondering why they’re referring to their pump as “an S&M device”?
Hard to believe Jack could remember an obscure details like the name of this pump handle after this long, but his roots in pump paintball, and especially pistol play, are as solid as they get.
Wada has been playing since 1986. He told me, “I started playing in 1986 at Indoor Warfare in Gardena. I was asked to join the [Kamikaze] Shooters in 1988.”
And he’s kept true to these roots most of this time and is one of the biggest proponents of pump pistol play in our So Cal Stock group.
- Jack Wada, shooting a stock class Buzzard, at Jungle Island, January 2015, for the So Cal Stock 12 gram challenge.
Back in January of 2013 (1-18-2013) Jack wrote me how the Kamikaze Shooters entered the paintgun arms race, with Annihilators and then Comp Guns, but almost immediately looked back:
“At one time the Shooters evolved into [the] hosing style of play, because of all the firepower modifications people were making for the pumpguns. [Our captain, Mark Tora] said he decided that the team should go back to the 12 gram style of play to make everyone a better player because you had to think, move and make that “one shot” kill and not rely on spay and pray. If you [can’t] hit someone and are wasting paint, then you need to move and get a better position or angle to take [them] out. That’s why, to this day even with my bad knees, I still try to take ground to get closer or an angle on you.”
Since meeting Jack, he’s taken the time to show me and talk to me about some of his other paintguns. One of his pistol that has always fascinated me, and really lends itself to the Kamikaze Shooter’s “One Shot Kill” style of play is his Stan Russell Rail Gun.
This unique, one off (?) pistol featured a hard chromed steel body, Tim Stone Grips, a back valve (Cal Ordnance?) 12 gram changer (with the middle of the changer knob hollow), an OMMS pump handle modified to for undercocking, a Carter style stick feed (collar on base is carter style) and an aluminum top rail with adjustable front sights. It’s also left feed.
I would guess Stan put this masterpiece together for Jack between 1987 and 1988. During the same Russell was having Marauders hard chromed.
Continuing on the “Shooter’s” style of play, Jack writes:
“We had a lot of talented players on the Shooters, we would play against each other all the time, either at Indoors [(Indoor Warfare in Gardena)] or out at Shiloh in the bushes. We would play 10 round only games from 1 on 1 up to 5 on 5, those were intense in the fact that everyone was moving just to get that kill shot then move on to the next target. When we got to the last guy it was a race to claim the kill!”
Jack said he purchased the OMMS pump handle on his Stan Russell pump from Gale Gough’s Areostar store and then took it to Stan to have it modified as Russell was putting together this pistol. Stan chopped off the back edges and cut the base for undercocking.
Jack later acquired a second OMMS knurled pump handle from a player, Marion Morrison. Jack couldn’t remember the team that Marion was associated with but does remember that he played in a kilt. This was before Jack played on the Kamikaze Shooters, and Jack estimates it at 1987-88. Marion might have been associated with OMMS?
Early last year (2014), Jack started building a Nelspot around his second OMMS pump handle. He ordered a body off BacciPaintball and started adding pieces to it.
Above is Jack’s set up with a backbottle CCI changer and what looks like one of his Wada feeds.
And the setup Jack finally settled on, a backbottle to a Rat Attack, the OMMS pump handle, a nelspot barrel extension, a Cal Ordnance site rail and an Armson OEG site on the top.
Another example of the OMMS pump handle I’ve seen recently was on Derrick Obatake’s Nelspot 007 Rail Gun that resides in Mike Chon’s collections at Paintball Gateway.
I’ve seen a few other OMMS knurled pump handles surface over the last few years, one was on Richard Yabuki’s Nelspot. Yabuki played with Navarone early on, and his Nelspot setup likely dates back to 1985-86.
Find more on Richard Yabuki, of Navarone at:
https://paintballhistory.com/richard-yabuki-remembers-days-navarone-c-1986-1987
And find tons of Nelspot parts on baccipaintball at:
http://www.baccipaintball.com/parts/pump/nelson.html
