At our New Years stock class game on December 27th, I had the chance to take a look at Ted “2 Gunz” Hines’ Tidy Bowl pistol.
The Tidy Bowl is a short barrel Annihilator that Stan Russell and Earon Carter built, as they worked together at South Bay Arms between 1986 and 1988. Earon explained the name to me back in 2013 when I visited his shop but I’m still a little confused about it. Basically these were short barrels that were made for their buddies to mess around with, some have rails on top and some have other unique features.
When I saw Ted I pretty much dropped what I was doing and took my junky point and shoot camera out to record the above video. But I wasn’t really surprised to see that Ted had one.
Ted, who originally picked up the habit playing in the mid to late 1980s while living in Hawaii, played on well known teams such as Rough Riders and Team Ronin before he moved back to California in the early 90s. Ted bought this pistol off his close friend and fellow Team Ronin player, Stuart “Stu” Fishel.
According to Ted, Stu originally purchased this pistol from a Kamikaze Shooters player around 1991. It could have been on a trip that Ted and Stu took to California, hitting up the hottest spots in Northern and Southern California, or it could have been back in Hawaii.
And after thinking about it, Ted does recall the Kamikaze Shooters and Stu calling this pistol a Tidy Bowl. He told me, “I hadn’t heard the words Tidy bowl for so many years but that’s exactly what it is.”
I was blown away seeing this pistol! After seeing a few of the Tidy Bowls hanging on the wall at Earon Carter’s shop back in 2013 and 2014, I’ve been looking for more unique examples and more history on them.
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Looking over Ted’s example I noticed a few things right away.
•Bolt is a longer, non standard P-Series, first generation Annihilator Bolt.
•Brass finish with a possible steel feed neck. The low angle of the feed indicates a very early pistol.
•The side feed hole in the breech is a features I’ve seen on a few early Annihilators / Marauders, and on other Kamikaze Shooters’ guns.
•The Thumb rest, cast in brass by Derrick Obatake, on the pump arm is a feature that most Kamikaze Shooter Sheridans used.
•The lower tube is built off an EB pistol.
•The Quick strip notch is cut on the back left side, which was Tim McMurray’s method of cutting the quick strip.
•The hole for the original sight pin indicates the barrel was not cut down from a long barrel, but was originally built in this configuration by Stan and Earon.
Another feature that I unfortunately didn’t document was the aluminum valve. Tim at Paintballtek dot com helped Ted rebuild this while he had it out, and the valve was aluminum with only a single hole. This makes me thing there was a cut in the bottom of the body which allowed you to lock the valve in place? I’m not sure who built the valve, but I would guess Earon and Stan.
Overall a really cool paintgun and I hope I’ll be able to shoot it the next time I see 2 Gunz at Bacci Mountain!
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https://paintballhistory.com/tag/annihilator
