paintball caliber

[stockjockey]

Does anyone know the history of why paintballs switched from the .40 of the splatmatic days to the .68 caliber of today? .40 seems so much nicer because the hopper isn't as big, cheaper to manufacture, etc.

are there any markers besides the splatmatic avalible today that uses .40?

[tripnotemple]

.40 caliber paintballs are smaller, but because of their size, they are lighter ( so they won't travel nearly as far, and also have a tendency to bounce a lot) and the marking size is smaller. I'm not sure where along the line it happened exactly, but if I recall correctly, Tippman(??) or Sheridan (??) made a .68 caliber marker, with the exclusive paint to match. The larger size paint became popular with players. Since then manufacturers switched over to the larger size paint, other companies started producing their own .68 caliber paint, and now it's industry standard.

[pyropig]

I bought one of those .40 cal splatmatics and the damn thing keeps leaking air down the barrel and i can't seem to fix it. Although it is a interesting thing to own i wouldn't recommend it.

[AK47]

Well in the idea of safety, The same amount of air could propel the smaller ball alot fast wich can be a danger.

[splatterpunx]

there was no switch,they have been .68 from the get go,BUT there have been other sizes,obviously,the most popular was .62
the range problem was solved with higher fps,300 was a suggestion,not a rule some field's had a higher limit for 62 somtimes up to 350