This design eliminated the feeding problems found on the Automag by ensuring that the bolt was completely closed before the spool dump chamber emptied into the breach. Another advance utilized was making the pneumatic bolt "Pressure Venting". This meant that the bolt would "vent" instead of chopping a paintball. Here is Craig explaining how the Anti-Chop bolt worked:

The chamber on top filled and pushed the bolt forward closing the bolt, but if a ball was in the way, the bolt would stop and the air in the chamber would leak out, not allowing the bolt to chop a ball. At that point you would pull the trigger back again and the bolt would return to the open position allowing the blocking ball to drop again. As the trigger was released, the air chamber would open again pushing the bolt forward.

Marcus Neeley holding the Montneel LEGEND prototype in Jan-1993

Once Marcus and Mark Silar had a functional idea, everyone at Montneel became involved to fine tune the details, including Craig, and Moe Dumont. A main requirement by Marcus was that the design be built onto the existing Icon-Z platform. This means sharing the same Look and Feel, as well as utilizing as many common parts as possible (forward breach/bolt/feed receiver). This was done to keep costs low, while maintaining a high level of product visibility, such as the trademark Montneel "Square" body design.


At this time, NATIONAL PAINTBALL SUPPLY was the primary distributor for the Icon-Z paintgun. While delivering a batch of paintguns, Moe and Craig brought the LEGEND prototype to the owner of NPS, Gino. He was absolutely blown away with it. The fully pneumatic trigger meant it was likely the fastest gun in paintball at the time, combined with the unique anti-chop bolt, and relatively inexpensive production built on top of a well known platform. A contract was set where Gino would give Montneel $250,000 towards refining the design, in exchange for exclusive distribution rights.

Gino (something), and Bob Long

Gino took the prototype to Bob Long, of the Ironmen. He was equally enthusiastic, and wanted the guns right away. A sponsorship deal was arranged between the Ironmen, and NPS, but before anything firm was set, there was a suddenly a major problem. Montneel was facing severe subcontractor issues, and was unable to meet its production quota for NPS, angering Gino. At the same time, Gino was demanding lower wholesale pricing, as well as a sole distribution deal for the Icon-Z, to which Montneel refused.
The end result was Montneel ripping up the Icon-Z contract with NPS. This angered Gino, who then purchased the rights to the "ICON SPLATMASTER", then sued Montneel over name "Icon". Gino then discovered a Chinese-made Icon-Z clone in Europe, and imported here using the name "ICON". Montneel responded by pulling the LEGEND prototype as well, and breaking all contacts with NPS, and Gino.

The disaster meant that Montneel now had to market, and distribute there guns themselves, which no longer left any resources to work on the the LEGEND, and the project was cancelled. Later that year, the primary designer Marcus Neeley was unhappy with the direction the company was taking, and left the company. As part of the deal was given total rights to the LEGEND design.

Marcus left, and formed his own paintball company specifically to sell the LEGEND. However, the original prototype had some very serious flaws. Most apparent was the internal regulator was simply inadequate. It did not recharge nearly fast enough, and would self-destruct if even the smallest amount of liquid co2 entered the system. The on/off valve also had similar limitations. At the time HPA was still very rare, and the design really needed to function well with CO2.

Marcus Neely (left), Owner of Paintball Heaven (right), with son (middle)

Fortunetly, Marcus ran into a bit of luck. While looking for a production facility to produce his gun, he found Paintball Heaven in Bridgewater Massachusetts. They were best known for producing the rotary-bolt PHOENIX paintgun, until they ran into contractual problems with the designer Eric Scott, and were looking for a new project. Marcus, and the owner of Paintball Heaven realized they could take the well-made regulator from the PHOENIX, as well as its on/off valve, and adapt it into the LEGEND, effectively solving all the issues the original prototype had.

After a few months of testing, and fine tuning, the design was finally finished in early 1994. It was renamed the FALCON. Marcus, and Paintball Heaven was not worried about using technology from the Phoenix, since they were no longer sold. Below you can see the Phoenix, compared to the Falcon

PHOENIX (left), and FALCON (right)

PHOENIX (top), and FALCON (bottom)

The above picture was sent to me by Eric Scott. You can see from the picture above that the ON/OFF assembly, Regulator, grip, and spool system were all virtually identical. The minor differences were done to adapt the PHOENIX rotary-bolt system, to the Montneel-style bolt driven system. While this might seem like theft today, this practice of "borrowing" technology was very common in the early 90s. Back then, many companies were discovering that functional semi-auto paintguns were much harder to create then pump-guns. So it was common to take a design from another company, and rework it. So few designs were patented, or even trademarked back in those days, that this was a viable business plan. Companies like USI took this to a higher level by making cheap knockoffs off all the popular guns, accessories and equipment.

The gun was brought around at all the major paintball events. Distribution, wholesale, and dealer contracts were arranged. About 25 finished guns were produced to sent around for marketing, and testing purposes.

Below are some FALCONs seen at the 1994 World Cup

Everything looked very positive, then Paintball Heaven was approached by Crossman Airguns. They had already purchased Sheridan, and was looking to modernized its aging paintgun line. The FALCON seemed the perfect gun. So the design was licensed from Paintball Heaven to be further refined by Crosmann technicians. Crosman was also interested in selling the regulator used in the FALCON as a separate "add on" item, similar to the UNIREG.
The Crosman versions were named the Sheridan Equalizer paintgun, and Sheridan RG1 regulator. Crosman spent a great deal of money on marketing and development, promoting the gun heavily add paintball events, as well as sporting goods retailers.

Sheridan Equalizer (Crosman)

Just before the Equalizer, and RG1 was officially released, Crosman was suddenly hit with a lawsuit from Eric Scott, designer of the Phoenix paintgun. Unknown to Crosman, Eric Scott had patented the PHOENIX, including its regulator, and on/off valve back in 1992. The end result of the legal disaster was that Crosman had to break all contact with Paintball Heaven, and end its licensing deal for the FALCON. As Crosman already dumped in a great deal of money into the project, it had no choice but to then license the design from Eric Scott and avoid a potentially massive legal settlement..

Eric Scotts PHOENIX patent

The Sheridan Equalizer ended up being a failure. Crosman had modified the design to minimize fabrication, and production costs, which severely crippled the gun as a result. However, the PG1 regulator had moderate success, as the cheaper alternative to the UNIREG.

Paintball Heaven, and Marcus Neely were also faced with lawsuits. Eric Scott issued a "Cease and Desist" order" and as a result stopped production of the FALCON. None were ever sold to the public, though prototypes exist. However, since they already had arranged fabrication facilities to produce the gun, the decision was made to revise the FALCON design, and convert it to a more traditional blowback design, aimed at the high-end tournament market. This gun was called the "CHECKMATE", and was distributed by TASO.

Internals from CHECKMATE (top) and FALCON (bottom)

The Checkmate sold very well. It was marketed by Paintball Heaven as a "Better Mega-Z" at a time when Montneel was having a hard time meeting demand. They even managed to switch some Montneel distributors to switching to the CHECKMATE, including TASO. They even had pro-sponsorship deals arranged, including the FLORIDA TERMINATORS at one point..

Unfortunetly, the gun suffered from quality-control issues. Many guns left the machine shop completely non-functional. Repair work quickly ate into the profit margin, and suddenly in mid 1995, Paintball Heaven stopped production. Marcus quickly moved to Florida, and Paintball Heaven refused all warranty repairs.
Distributors, like TASO, were sitting on thousands of worthless guns. Eventually the supply was sold at auction when TASO itself went out of business. "New in Box" Checkmates show up on Ebay all the time as stockpiles are discovered in the backs of warehouses.

Paintball Heaven in Bridgewater still operated its paintball field, and proshop business, but suffered from massive debts originating from its Falcon, and Checkmate production. To salvage the business, the decision was made to sell all blueprints, designs, and equipment relating to the FALCON, CHECKMATE, and RG1 to CMI Paintball. CMI is best known today for its "TRU-FLIGHT" barrels. It was originally started in the late 80s producing nelson-style pumps, which were made up through the early 90s until the market died. By the mid 90s, CMI was desperately looking for modern paintgun designs to revise its business.
The CMI president, and engineer took the designs for the FALCON, CHECKMATE, and revised them into the AUTO-HOG, LS-2000, and R-2000 (respectively). All sold fairly well, and several thousand guns were made.

CMI LS-2000

Eventually, Eric Scott discovered that his designs were gain being used without his permission. When he complained to CMI, he was told "We purchased them from Paintball Heaven. We did not know they were already patented". In fact, CMI was able to gets its own patent for the LS-2000, despite being nearly identical internally to the PHOENIX.
In the end, CMI agreed to phase out production. By that time, the market had switched focus to mass-produced guns from Taiwan, making it virtually impossible to compete. Instead, CMI entered the niche "premium barrel" market, and has done fairly well.

The story does come full circle. After Crosman was burned on the Equalizer/Falcon mess, they were interested in a simple, "entry level" gun to replace it. They approached MONTNEEL to design, and produce that gun. During contract negotiations, Crosman discovered the problem that MONTNEEL was having with all the clones on the market, compounded by the fact that Montneel did not own any patents. Nervous of a repeat of the Equalizer disaster, then decided to end talks with Montneel, and instead worked with PMI. Specifically, they hired Brian Sullivan, who owned many patents, including the AT-85, and PMI Traccer.
Brian Sullivan already had a design for a new inline, with a unique hinged access system. Similar to the Brass Eagle Stingray, except this design was patented. The design was sold to Crosman, who released it as the SHERIDAN JTS. Fairly popular, and even sold at large retailers like Walmart, and KMart in the late 90s. Eventually revised, and expanded into the XTS model, Nemesis and the XGS "Pistol" version. SHERIDAN XTS

Big tanks to Bacci, Eric Scott, and Craig for all the nearly forgotten history and pictures!