Tombstone Paintball Park

Author: Sam Marquez

I was lucky enough to catch up with the busy Leon Styles Of Tombstone Paintball Park for a short interview about him and his new field.

Q: So how did you get into paintball?

A: It started 30 years ago when I was a mechanic in New Zealand. There was a guy who brought a 007 Nelsplot into the shop. He invited people to a local paintball event. He showed us his gun and shot it at a steel can, putting a dent into it. I was thinking, “hell no, I’m not playing with that!” But everyone in the shop went to the event and if you didn’t go, you were considered a girl….so I went. Boy, did I have fun. I basically fell in love with Paintball after that. So much that I ended up buying the field that the event was held at.
I looked at the 007 and decided that it shot to slow, so with typical "kiwi" ingenuity I unsodered the top tube, re-sodered it at an angle, placed a aluminium tube over the barrrel and voila, the first pump marker was invented, of course I did not patent that idea "sigh."

Q: Was that the only country you played paintball in?

A: Well, no, I moved to Australia and founded the Australian Paintball Association. Keep in mind that paintball was illegal so we had to keep everything underground. Secret meetings, heck, we were like renegades, the mobsters of paintball. I did travel to the U.S. for business, which I also took time to play paintball at S.C. Village. Because playing in the U.S was so nice, I moved to the U.S. I was able to take over Lion’s Den (paintball field in Escondido) because they hadn’t paid rent for years. I fixed up the field and made it better. But in the end, a casino bought the land and I had to move out.

I searched around and then founded Tombstone Paintball Park which I had made after the movie Tombstone. I had good years with the field until I ran into some bad luck. We were forced to move out due to eminent domain regarding the dam.

Q: What about this new Tombstone field? What makes this one special from other fields?

A: When I built this field, I want it to be just like Tombstone, but better and bigger, heck 3 times bigger. It’s easy to spot being only 2 miles from a major freeway. We provide both airsoft and paintball play. We have a variety of rentals from semi-auto spyders, 50 cal markers to 43 cal pistols. We have indoor and outdoor flushing bathrooms, lockers, waiting lounges, and hot food truck.

Q: Tell us about the fields and their layouts?

A: Well, there are 2 town fields, a trench field, the largest hyperball field ever built, it’s 300 x 100 feet. We have 2 airball fields, an X-ball field by Apex and a spyder cup 7-man field by Kingman. I also just finished 2 cool fields, 1 is called bandits tombstown, a war type play field and our premier field is Sigfried line, copied of the world war 2 defenses between paris and germany. Our field has 700 feet of trenches and 200 feet of tunnnels with smoke machines, camo netting, sand bags etc, Very authentic.

Q: What makes you really happy?

A: I’m happy to come back into the paintball world and I am surprised by the support of the vendors, sponsors and players.

If u haven’t seen it check it out it’s a awesome paintball field! Tombstone is located at 1350 Agua Mansa Road in Colton, CA