FORMER army commando Carl Underwood swapped one gun for another when he left the army and returned to his native Isle of Man to start Laser Mayhem.
Within days of returning to the island Mr Underwood had set up taster sessions which ran throughout the Easter holidays in a large caged area at Onchan Park racetrack.
‘I was in the army for 23 years from the age of 17 and have done tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia. I was based in Ireland for the last four years and started this two days after returning to the Isle of Man,’ he said.
The sessions have proved very popular with children of all ages.
‘The youngest has been about six but we had one lady in her 70s,’ Mr Underwood said.
‘She shot lots of people - mostly in her own team to be honest but she had a great time.’
Shortly the business will relocate to South Barrule at the Watertrough Park plantation near to the Ape Mann Adventure park and Mr Underwood plans to run weekend sessions as well as taking corporate and private bookings during the week.
‘I’ve had a lot of interest from various different businesses who are keen on doing corporate team building events,’ he said.
‘And of course the children love it because it is very similar to the computer games they already play but it gets them out into the fresh air rather than being up in their bedrooms.’
Mr Underwood, who lives in Onchan with his wife Tracy and three children, two boys aged 13 and nine and a 16-year-old daughter, said his own family had already tried it out.
‘They really enjoyed it so we are looking forward to getting it launched down at South Barrule,’ he said.
Players are equipped with special guns as well as full camouflage gear and camouflage paint, which no doubt comes into its own once the attraction is set up in the plantation.
The guns are life-like replicas of the real thing but instead of firing bullets they send out an infra-red signal which registers electronically if it finds its target.
To help this happen, the guns also have genuine red dot laser sights, so they can hit targets up to 400 yards away. In fact, Mr Underwood said they were so good, the Royal Marine Commandos use them when training for operations in Afghanistan.
South Barrule is a popular outdoor activities site and currently boasts Segway, Mountain Bike Trails, the Ape Mann Adventure Park and now Laser-Mayhem.