Gilbert “Gilly” Martinez and other members of the Mafia paintball team (est. mid 1980s), out of the San Fernando valley in Southern California, often talk about playing at an early Los Angeles County field named Southern Comfort.
I haven’t found much printed information on Southern Comfort so I was excited to find the advertisement pictured above which was scanned from the August 1987 issue of Frontline magazine.
According to Gilly, Southern Comfort began operating in 1985 and eventually became the home field for the Mafia. As one of the home teams, Gilbert Martinez, Danny Guardado and others on the team, helped out the field’s owner, Steve Buzick, also known as the Colonel.
Buzick was better known for his Rebline pumps, produced under his company, Confederate Army Supplies (CAS), which later went on to produce the Trojan semi automatic kit. The Trojan kit converted CAS’s Rebline and nelson pumps by other manufacturers into semi automatics using a rubber band recocking system.
I’ve also heard that Buzick/CAS was somehow associated with the Macho Fire paintgun, which fired .63 caliber football shaped projectiles.
Southern Comfort was, according to Gilly, the first field in the Los Angeles County, located east of where the 5, 118 and 210 highways meet, in the Lopez Canyon area.
Back in August of 2008, Gilly wrote on mcarterbrown:
“Steve [Buzick] also ran a field. His field “Southern Comfort” was THE OLDEST FIELD in LA County circa 1985. It was located on Baily Road behind the Lopez Canyon landfill in Sylmar California bordering the Angeles National Forest. A big fan of the South, his home team was aptly named “Stars and Bars”.”
Find this post on mcarterbrown at:
http://www.mcarterbrown.com/forums/pump-markers/47603-rebline-knowledge-base-7.html#post501898
Other southern California players have also offered insight into this historical field. Filiberto Sanchez, of War Party and Team of Honor, has explained that Southern Comfort eventually became a Field of Honor location. In the video above, Sanchez and other Team of Honor players, Mikey Chung and Keith Collins talk about Southern Comfort at around the 1 minute 10 seconds mark.
Todd Winokur describes playing at Southern Comfort in the above video, at 4:25, Winokur says, “When you went to Southern Comfort in the morning, the owner [(Steve Buzick)] would give a safety speech and he’d have a 20oz beer as he was giving the safety speech!”
I’m looking for additional information and photos of Buzick and if I find any I’ll be posting them. I’ve also been researching how Confederate Army Supply acquired the Nelson based pump, the VerbeekOlater, designed by Ron and Tony Verbeek, from Sudden Death, and turned it into the Rebline pump. Find some of what little info I’ve dug up about this paint gun at here.
And watch Gilbert and Danny Guardado explain what they remember about the VerbeekOlater, Conquest and a couple memories on Southern Comfort in the video above.
