DasBaldDog
05-10-2001, 03:25 PM
For the last 3 years, I have been playing paintball with my current weapon of mass destruction, a Model '97 Cocker. After a full three years, I decided that my stock barrel was just not working with the new style of PB I was playing (I had been playing short range fields but recently moved and only have long fields) My stock barrel did a fairly decent job and since I'm a college student, I didn't have alot of money to spend beyond merely playing. I turned to trustworthy http://www.pbreview.com to provide me with real life testimonies to the strengths and weaknesses of aftermarket barrels which I was considering purchasing. One thing I KEPT seeing over and over was the sentence "I have a so-in-so barrel on my (clearly open bolt paintball gun) and it doesn't quiet the gun at all." NO DUH. I defend this sport to every new person I meet but it's difficult because of all the people who don't think. If you have an open bolt paintball marker then a ported barrel will help but will NOT, I REPEAT NOT silence the gun (which is what some of you people are expecting). Those barrels help somewhat on closed bolts systems because all the gas is escaping through the barrel as opposed open bolts where alot of the gas goes through the rear bolt opening. My problem with the whole thing is that I know what the mistake is but some companies (especially small ones who market the low cost barrels) are getting the bad review because the users with open bolt markers are giving them bad reviews in those areas. If the smaller companies got larger and gave DYE and SMARTPARTS some competition, then maybe the boomsticks would costs less. But if people keep making these types of simple and non-thoroughly thought-through mistakes, then many newbies will be kept in the dark about what's really going on. Thanks for paying attention, both of you. lol