Paintball Magazine Paintball.Media Magazine May 2016 | Page 94

owned and shot several of the company’s products, from
a Line SI Bushmaster pump and later a Bobcat semiauto in
the mid-nineties, to a Bushmaster 2000 and then an LCD
Bushmaster while playing ten-man tournament paintball
on Hyperball fields and air ball fields with bunkers
connected by air tubes. Later, ICD was a regular sponsor
and supporter of the CFOA Tournament Series (with which
I was employed) when the league enjoyed its golden
years touring the southeast drawing hundreds of teams.
Throughout the nineties and early twenty-first century,
you couldn’t pick up a paintball magazine without finding
ICD advertisements and as they brought new models out,
I played paintball with them, shot photographs of them
and reviewed them for various publications. Now, in 2016,
here we are again with ICD releasing a new paintball gun
causing me to pace back and forth in front of the door
waiting for the UPS driver like a lonely puppy anxiously
awaiting his owner’s return from work. At least now we
have things like the internet and smart phones so I could
keep clicking on the tracking number and refreshing the
page until, finally, an ICD PRP showed up.
After years getting used to opening boxes containing
new paintball guns and finding things like 9volt or AA
batteries (and sometimes both), tubes of grease, bags
of Allen wrenches and owner’s manuals including page
after page on electronic programming, flashing lights,
trigger pulls and tournament modes, the PRP was a
smile-inducing return to something simpler – a paintball
gun in a box with a down-the-barrel velocity adjusting tool
and a barrel. Shut up and go play paintball: I like it. As
for the marker itself, the PRP is very light, cut and milled
from aluminum and weighing one pound, 13 ounces. It
really shouldn’t weigh much considering how simple
and compact its Nelson-based operating system is, and
the milling cuts and Delrin pump handle go a long way
towards shaving every ounce of unneeded material away
for a sleek, cut and carved look.
A clamping, vertical feed neck is included and while it
doesn’t clamp, a quick twist of an Allen wrench allows the
owner to affix whatever feed system they desire, whether
a diminutive “pump” hopper, a full-sized tournament
hopper like a Rotor, Empire Z2 or a Pinokio (which is a
bit odd considering they are bigger and weigh more
than the marker in most cases) or even an angled stick
feed. I opted for a Pinokio Speed, as its light weight and
small size don’t overpower the marker but its capacity still

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allows me to shoot about 180 paintballs without reloading
so I can still use my regular pack and pods. With a tiny
tank like a 45, 4,500 and a small, light hopper, a player
can walk onto the field with a PRP weighing barely five
pounds, though some may find such a setup too small
for a comfortable and ergonomic shoulder and opt for
something slightly longer. I found that even with my short
arms (think Tyrannosaurus) I was most comfortable with
the PRP when used with my Pinokio Speed and a 68 cubic
inch, 4,500psi bottle. The marker is so small that when set
up in such a manner, the hopper was still below the top
of my head when shouldered, making a tight, small, light
and maneuverable package.
Air powers the ICD PRP via a bottom-line, grip framemounted bottle adapter featuring a lever on/off/purge
feature and a hose-free design. No Macro-line or steel
braided external hoses here, just thread in a bottle, flip
the on/off switch and it’s time for click-clack bang. The
metal .45-style grip frame to which the on/off adapter is
fitted is clad in large but attractive and distinctive ICD grip