Range on Paintball Guns

[l33tpaintballer]

Personally I feel the most disappointing aspect of paintball is the limitation of range. Is there anything that can be done to increase the range of my paintball gun? Does lowering the pressure really increase the range? I've heard some people tell me that a longer barrel shoots farther and that a shorter barrel shoots farther. Personally I'm leaning more towards the shorter barrel shooting farther because of how the paintball is at its maximum speed 8 inches into the barrel so it no longer needs to deal with the friction from the barrel. Am I correct in my assumptions?

Another thing I noticed was that at AKALMP's website they claim that lowering operating pressure increases range. Once again, is this a valid claim?

Please post your thoughts

[X_Brolly_X]

I you took two markers, both shooting 280 fps, both markers will have the same range. A talon shooting 280 will go as far as an angel at 280. The only thing that can change that is a flatline barrel that puts a backspin on the ball, and they are only made for tippmanns, and there is also one for an autococker, but you have to get a new body to. Here are the facts I know about barrels... If you have a realy short barrel 8" a medium barrel 12" a realy long barrel 16" all of them will go the same distance, but with a 16" barrel you will be wasting efficiency and not gain acuracy, and same with the 8" (you might loose some acuracy with an 8"). Hope that helps.:D

[PaintballerX]

X_Brolly_X, you couldn't be more wrong about most of what you just said.

[X_Brolly_X]

??? Ok.... Tell me what was wrong with what I said...

[PaintballerX]

Originally posted by X_Brolly_X
I you took two markers, both shooting 280 fps, both markers will have the same range. A talon shooting 280 will go as far as an angel at 280.

That's a terrible comparison, as the Talon rarely shoots farther than 75 feet in most of my experience with it. But you're mostly right, if a Tippmann and a Spyder go up against each other, they will both shoot about the same distance.

The only thing that can change that is a flatline barrel that puts a backspin on the ball, and they are only made for tippmanns, and there is also one for an autococker, but you have to get a new body to.

...Or you could tilt your marker up a bit.

Here are the facts I know about barrels... If you have a realy short barrel 8" a medium barrel 12" a realy long barrel 16" all of them will go the same distance, but with a 16" barrel you will be wasting efficiency and not gain acuracy, and same with the 8" (you might loose some acuracy with an 8").

Nope, nope, and nope. 16" barrels have their place in Sup'Air and the like. Check http://techpb.cjb.net for a basic idea of how wrong you are. :)

Hope that helps.:D

If by "help" you mean "help to confuse with misinformation", then it probably does.

[l33tpaintballer]

Ok you said they would shoot "about" the same distance. Why would one shoot further than the other

[X_Brolly_X]

What I said about 16inch barrels are true! I did not say they were bad for sup air!!!? I did say you will lose some gas efficiency and not gain acuracy. Also, if your talon was shooting 280 fps over a chrono, then it would shoot just as far as an angel shooting 280 fps over a chrono. And about "Or you could tilt your marker up a bit." thats kind of a stupid thing to say, I'm shure he realized that you can get more range by lobing it than by shooting straight. So realy... I was right about everything... And I am pretty confused as to why you would think I was wrong.
:confused:

[X_Brolly_X]

Originally posted by l33tpaintballer
Ok you said they would shoot "about" the same distance. Why would one shoot further than the other

One would not shoot faurther if they were both shooting 280 fps over a chronograph...I think PaintballerX is confused...

[PaintballerX]

Originally posted by X_Brolly_X


One would not shoot faurther if they were both shooting 280 fps over a chronograph...I think PaintballerX is confused...

In a magical world where everyone floated on clouds of candy, that might be true. But, in all tests I have ever done, certain markers will always shoot slightly less or more distance. No two markers will shoot the same distance, even at the same FPS.

[PaintballerX]

And I mean the EXACT same distance, not a gigantic loss or gain of 50 feet. The most you'll notice is perhaps 10 feet.

[Chris Devers]

Guys, acceleration,ball to barrel match, gas efficency,wind speed, ball type, all have to do with range and accuracy. The reason a Talon would shoot about 25 feet compared to an Angel making 100+ is because

#1 The Talon is not adjustable as far as air input.

#2 The air hitting the ball is not a smooth,even, force.

#3 The barrel is rough and not straight.

Even when you chrono at the same speed, the Talons ball will curve,break, spin, etc and cause the ball to fall to the ground while the Angel sends one flying. Reason? The Angel costs 30 times more than a Talon! It is just better at delivering the ball.


If I have two Angels. Both have the same barrel,reg,air source; the distance will be very similar. Changing anything on a marker wil effect the ball in some way in the form of drag,speed,spin,arc,etc.

Am I right? :rolleyes:

[X_Brolly_X]

That can be caused by wind variation, kick on the gun, size of the balls, consitancy of guns etc... If a test was done in a controled environment with the only different variable being the marker, both markers using the EXACT same balls and barrels, and bieng held in place with a 2000lb clamp you would be suprised at how close they would come...

EDIT: In response to PaintballerX

[X_Brolly_X]

Originally posted by Chris Devers
Guys, acceleration,ball to barrel match, gas efficency,wind speed, ball type, all have to do with range and accuracy. The reason a Talon would shoot about 25 feet compared to an Angel making 100+ is because

#1 The Talon is not adjustable as far as air input.

#2 The air hitting the ball is not a smooth,even, force.

#3 The barrel is rough and not straight.

Even when you chrono at the same speed, the Talons ball will curve,break, spin, etc and cause the ball to fall to the ground while the Angel sends one flying. Reason? The Angel costs 30 times more than a Talon! It is just better at delivering the ball.


If I have two Angels. Both have the same barrel,reg,air source; the distance will be very similar. Changing anything on a marker wil effect the ball in some way in the form of drag,speed,spin,arc,etc.

Am I right? :rolleyes:

You are correct, my point was about distance, I realy did not count those variables.

[X_Brolly_X]

BTW, I was asuming that the talon was shooting 280. It also could have been any two guns.

[Jaster]

It may be a bad comparison between an angel and any BE product but it's still correct. (providing you could get any BE product to go that far) For sake of argument though it's a true point.
What X_brolly_X said about the barrel length is correct too. The longer the barrel the less efficient it will be but will be more accurate. Still will not change range of fire. Angling your barrel up will make your shot go further but the accuracy will suck. Besides I didn't think this was about lob shots it seemed to me it was about distance for a level shot. The only real way to get your shot to go as far as possible is a good match. If you have a good match your shots will be straighter (accuracy). Let's face it paintballs do not fly straight. Sooner or later in their travel they will curve. You could have a paintball travel 100 feet total but its straight line travel would only be about 80 feet or so. The trick is to get your balls to go as far as possible in a straight line before it curves off the flight path. When it starts to curve it doesn't really matter how far it will travel because you aren't going to hit anything, let alone what you're shooting at anyway.

[Jaster]

Oh ya, paintballerx is right too. Even in a perfect world the difference between shots wouldn't be more then a few feet.
l33tpaintballer, check out the barrel threads. There are a ton of arguments over this issue.

[Rugrat]

Originally posted by X_Brolly_X
I you took two markers, both shooting 280 fps, both markers will have the same range. A talon shooting 280 will go as far as an angel at 280.
In defense of Brolly, this is partially true. The Chronograph measures the velocity of the paintball after it has left the barrel but not its vector. If the paint fired from both markers is in the same velocity vector then Both paintballs will travel the same distance regardless of what shot the paintball.

[X_Brolly_X]

Ok, we are all correct.....sort of..... It would have been better for me to use something non BE v.s. Angel... That may have made my argument a little more compeling... The rampant hatred for BE here is kind of sad... I would hate to be the owner of BE here!:laugh:

[Shadow221]

any gun crono'ed at 280 and held level with the ground will shoot around 110 feet(depending how high off the ground). PBstar did a test with an angel, a bushmaster and a shocker. The 3 guns all had similar paint, barrel and bore match and all shot about the same distance.

http://www.pbstar.com/misc-tech/range-debate/

[l33tpaintballer]

Ok another factor just popped into my head. The quality of the paintball being shot. If a paintball had more mass then wouldn't it displace air more easily than one without much mass? Wouldn't this thereby increase range?

If the mass doesn't increase range, does the quality of the paintball? You have all been very helpful however I do NOT agree that ANY BE gun will shoot as far as an angel simply because the velocity is NEVER the only factor.

[VRJustin]

Ok, paintball is a matter of physics.... seeing as how i am a physics major.... I am actually qualified to say this.

First off lets say you hold a painball gun with the barrel exactly 5 feet of the ground at a complete horizontal angle. (0 degrees.)

There would be one main force working on the ball only. Gravity... which =-9.81 m/s^2. When the ball leaves the barrel it is no longer experience a force in the horizontal direction it has already gotten it's "push". What it does have is a starting velocity of say 280 fps which = V1x. This it's speed in the horizontal direction. Now you have to resolve the vector of the vertical direction, and we know that we are starting 5 ft up... and and we will eventually land at 0 feet due to gravity. since yf=y1+V1y*t-0.5*(gravity)*t^2 you could figure out the time it would take for the paintball to hit the ground roughly rounding the feet to meters (roughly 3 feet = 1 meter) then t=.412 seconds (approximently)
plug the time in to the formula xf=x1+V1x*t you get xf=39.3 m or 118 ft. So a paintball fired from 5 feet above the ground will go alomst 120 ft before it hits the ground. This test neglects a few factors such as air resitance and the force put on a paintball by wind. Also, bad paint to barrel match may actually cause the ball to have a veritcal velocity when it leaves the barrel which would increase or decrease velocity, but at the cost of accuracy. Please sticky this post so I don't have to hear this stupid question asked a million more times.

P.S. Maybe someday when I have more time I will get in to how the flatline works using rotaional inertia formulas but I don't have time now.

Justin God Of Paintball Physics

[Jaster]

For one it IS stickied. It's called everything you ever wanted to know about range and accuracy. Look in the barrels forum.

In laymans terms all he said was that any object not under it's own power (ie an airplane) will eventually hit the ground. If you can't wonder them with wisdom baffle them with bullcrap. Now how does all that mumbo jumbo you just spit out answer the original question of "Is there anything that can be done to increase the range of my paintball gun?" :D :D

[X_Brolly_X]

Originally posted by Jaster
For one it IS stickied. It's called everything you ever wanted to know about range and accuracy. Look in the barrels forum.

In laymans terms all he said was that any object not under it's own power (ie an airplane) will eventually hit the ground. If you can't wonder them with wisdom baffle them with bullcrap. Now how does all that mumbo jumbo you just spit out answer the original question of "Is there anything that can be done to increase the range of my paintball gun?" :D :D

ROFL

[Rugrat]

Hey Justin,
Along with the wind resistance you forgot to include parasitic drag of a sphere in your equation. That is why Dynamics equations break down in the real world.

Try this for ballistics,

http://internet.cybermesa.com/~jbm/ballistics/ballistics.html

[Congobongo]

you guys are all wrong, my 50inch tippman can snipe all of you 1mile away

[Congobongo]

http://home.attbi.com/~congobongo/50incher.jpg

[thebluenu]

AHHHHHHHHH THATS INSANE!!!! what a waste, hehe, you set that up for 300 fps, then you change to a short barrel, and your shooting 800..... heh if the ball can take the initial burst...

[Shadow221]

Originally posted by thebluenu
AHHHHHHHHH THATS INSANE!!!! what a waste, hehe, you set that up for 300 fps, then you change to a short barrel, and your shooting 800..... heh if the ball can take the initial burst...
you do know that pic is a fake right?:eyes:

[Taste_Me]

The barrel was a very poor photoshop job, it is joined a the glare on the silver part and the baldes of grass on the black

[flavor flav]

is this like the spiral porting that palmer puts on his barrels?

[Rugrat]

No, Flatlines actual have a curve in the barrel which causes the ball to roll.