Accuracy Discussion

[mo7stanley]

I have been wondering how to get the best accuracy. First I want to define accuracy.

Accuracy is measured by how big or small of a grouping you have.

I have come up with four primary factors in the order of importance I think they are.

1. THE PERFECTION OF THE BALL.

Picture yourself as a paintball, you are flying through the air at 280 FPS that is about 190 MPH. Because the ball is not going faster than the speed of sound, there is little bubble around the ball. The molecules just in front of the ball are warning the other molecules up ahead to get out of the way. Kinda like ripples in a pond.

Because air is a form of liquid, you can see this demonstrated by filling the sink with water and sprinkling pepper on the top of the water. then stick your and in there and move your had through the water. Are the pieces of pepper moving away before your hand gets to them? Same deal here.

If the ball were going above the speed of sound there wouldn't be enough time for the air to move out of the way so the air would be moving directly over the ball and crush it or melt it because of the friction. (not really related to the topic at hand but kinda gives you an idea.)

Basically the best word I can say that this comes dow to is drag. If you have more or less drag on one side of the ball there will be a difference in thrust on one side, more than the other side causing the ball to spin and get off course. This affects accuracy because it is very random.

Therefore, the Paintball is probably the most important factor.

2. CONSISTENCY OF THE PAINTBALL GUN
In order to achieve accuracy your paintballs must land close together.

Consistency of your paintball gun is probably more vertical accuracy than side accuracy. This can be demonstrated by a ping pong ball. If you hit a ping pong ball with relatively slow speed it will fly fairly normally. However, if you hit it really hard the ball will fly up into the air.

This is because you increased the lift of the ball. So, if your ball leaves your gun at 200 fps it will land someplace other than a ball that leaves your gun at 280 fps.

3. SMOOTHNESS AND SLICKNESS OF THE BARREL

If your barrel isn't smooth on the inside, it would create turbulence for the ball going out of the barrel because the air would be flowing over an uneven surface creating turbulence in the air and destabilizing your paintball.

The reason you would want slickness is kinda has to do with the paint to barrel match. Basically, there would be less drag on the paintball if it was touching the sides. Thus, because there would be less drag on the paintball that matches the barrel, there would not be as much of a difference from a paintball that matched the barrel and a paintball that did not match it. This would allow for more variances with consistency of size of paintballs.

I am not saying oil your barrel. because that would be breaking the number one rule, consistent paint. you would have drops of oil on your paint making it uneven and destabilized.

Well those are what I came up with for primary controllable variables. I didn't really talk about porting of the barrel, I heard that it helps reduce the turbulence behind the ball and give it more stability.

Any thoughts or comments? Can you think of anything to add to this list that you can have control over? Did I get something wrong? This isn't from proved tests.

4. PAINT TO BARREL MATCH
I don't know too much about all the physics within the barrel. If your gun is perfectly consistent and you have the perfect paintballs, it theoretically would not matter what the paint to barrel match would be because you would end up with the same result every time. However, there is no such thing as a perfect gun and a perfect paintball so you have to compensate for it.

As I understand it, if there is not a good paint to barrel match, the ball bounces down the barrel, off the sides of the barrel. So, the goal is to minimize this bouncing. I think the paint should pass the blow test. However, there can be another problem if you don't have consistent paint.

If you have a good paint to barrel match on some of the paint but some of the paint doesn't match and is smaller, you will have more drag on the stuff that matches the barrel because it is touching the sides of the barrel making it harder for the paintball to get out of the barrel. Where as with the stuff that doesn't quite pass the blow test has less drag creating a difference in where the paintballs land.

So the less play room you have for the ball in the barrel the better.

[BigTarget04]

I pretty much just skimmed over your post and you pretty much have the jist of it.

[wordf0o]

Originally posted by BigTarget04
I pretty much just skimmed over your post and you pretty much have the jist of it.

[Downfall08]

Originally posted by BigTarget04
I pretty much just skimmed over your post and you pretty much have the jist of it.

[Radius]

Your comment about the barrel bouncing down the barrel if the bore/paint size is mismatched isn't true.

I use an oversized barrel to reduce problems when firing, and it works. THe air rushes around the ball evenly, making it fly straight down the barrel. It uses more air, but it's worth it. Plus I almost never get barrel breaks at all.

Even so, the odd paintball will shoot funny, it's all dependant on how round they are.

[mo7stanley]

Originally posted by Radius
Your comment about the barrel bouncing down the barrel if the bore/paint size is mismatched isn't true.

I use an oversized barrel to reduce problems when firing, and it works. THe air rushes around the ball evenly, making it fly straight down the barrel. It uses more air, but it's worth it. Plus I almost never get barrel breaks at all.

Even so, the odd paintball will shoot funny, it's all dependant on how round they are.

Yeah, I remember reading a post where this guy with an autococker, I think, posted a vid of him shooting small paint in a big bore barrel and hitting a milk carton twice in a row from 120 feet or so. If anything this can show you that the paint to barrel match isn't as vital as the two above it.

I don't know about the air surrounding the paintball. However, if that is the case, why do you need a barrel? It seems like the barrel is there to stabalize a ball that just went from 0 to 190 mph in under .3 seconds. The ball is going to first fly up because of the rapid acceleration, hit the top of the barrel and bounce back down. That is just how it looks to me in my mind.

I might be wrong because I havn't done any tests and I don't know of any tests to confirm this. supposedly it is what smart parts said when they came out with the freak.

[Radius]

I've used the big bore system for years, and here's how I understand it to work:

Air follows the path of least resistance. Therefore, you put a small ball in a big pipe and blast it with air. The air will equalize around it and rush past it evenly while giving it a push at the same time. This has the effect of stabablizing the ball on a straight trajectory through the barrel without touching it most of the way, and make the shot very straight.

Without a barrel, the air escapes in all directions and the ball just pops out of the breech.

It's the same difference with a sawed off shotgun. Long barrel means tighter grouping (picture the buckshot as the air in a PB gun) whereas the sawed off version causes the buchshot to spray at a wider angle sooner, or in the case of a PB gun, the air escapes and stops pushing the ball earlier without a barrel.

[Apache Baller]

very good maybe if you just ajust it a little bit it could be stickied

[Blacksheep]

I was never an advocate of paint-to bore match because if the ball touches on two spots and spins horrendously.

[wordf0o]

Lots of people use big-bore because it reduces chops and breaks.

[Stupified]

Originally posted by mo7stanley
As I understand it, if there is not a good paint to barrel match, the ball bounces down the barrel, off the sides of the barrel.

There are sides in a circle?

Since when?

[mo7stanley]

Originally posted by Radius
I've used the big bore system for years, and here's how I understand it to work:

Air follows the path of least resistance. Therefore, you put a small ball in a big pipe and blast it with air. The air will equalize around it and rush past it evenly while giving it a push at the same time. This has the effect of stabablizing the ball on a straight trajectory through the barrel without touching it most of the way, and make the shot very straight.

Without a barrel, the air escapes in all directions and the ball just pops out of the breech.

It's the same difference with a sawed off shotgun. Long barrel means tighter grouping (picture the buckshot as the air in a PB gun) whereas the sawed off version causes the buchshot to spray at a wider angle sooner, or in the case of a PB gun, the air escapes and stops pushing the ball earlier without a barrel.

Can you test your theory for us with video and post the video in here? I am hesitant to go against what most people in the paintball world says is important for accuracy. So if you could do a test to prove your point it would be good I just am saying to get like a small bore paint, shoot about 5 shots with the over size barrel and then get a good paint and a good match and shoot about 5 shots from the same range and barrel.

[robdamanii]

Originally posted by mo7stanley


Can you test your theory for us with video and post the video in here? I am hesitant to go against what most people in the paintball world says is important for accuracy. So if you could do a test to prove your point it would be good I just am saying to get like a small bore paint, shoot about 5 shots with the over size barrel and then get a good paint and a good match and shoot about 5 shots from the same range and barrel.

In bench testing you may have marginally better accuracy with a matched barrel.

I used to subscribe to the matched bore theory, but i've since given it up. I know from my experience that shooting a large boare barrel gives me the same on-field accuracy and hardly EVER breaks paint (no oversize balls breaking in the barrel).

[Radius]

I would do that, but 5 balls isn't enough.

I'm talking averages here, you might get a few breaks a case with a matched barrel, and get 1 or less under the same conditions using an oversized barrel.

As for accuracy, I'm pretty sure the oversized barrel is slightly better, because of what other people have said. Less abrrel knock, etc.

Here's another point. I got some paint last week and I usually drop a couple balls through my barrel so I know what I'm dealing with. I used a different gun than my oversized one and the paint/bore match was pretty close. However...

Some of the paint wouldn't fit until I turned it in the barrel, and then it fell through. The seam was something like 2/1000th bigger than the non-seam portion of the ball. Had I tried to match the paint/bore size based on that the barrel would either be too big or too small depending on how I did it, making it more likely I'd get barrel breaks and other problems.

Using my oversized barrel, I had no problems at all, the balls free-fall through without touching the barrel at all. The other factor with odd ball sizes is the "pop" effect. Meaning a ball could turn slightly at the end of the barrel causing the air to rush past one spot, making spin or just throwing the ball for a curve right out the end.

Some really good markers have oversized barrels, like the ATS line of guns. They rarely have barrel breaks because of the unisizer and oversized barrel.

I've been playing paintball for like 15 years now, and the oversized barrel is by far the best system I have used in all my years of playing, hands down.

[mruhl]

And just how big is a big-bore? More than .690"? Bigger?

[PBfreak01]

Originally posted by robdamanii


In bench testing you may have marginally better accuracy with a matched barrel.

I used to subscribe to the matched bore theory, but i've since given it up. I know from my experience that shooting a large boare barrel gives me the same on-field accuracy and hardly EVER breaks paint (no oversize balls breaking in the barrel).

Marbs+Bigshot=heavenly

[TehMarker]

Marbs+Bigshot=heavenly

[robdamanii]

Originally posted by PBfreak01




Marbs+.693 CP 2 piece=heavenly

Fixed for my situation.

I've repeatedly seen that I've gotten the same accuracy as a matched kit.

[mo7stanley]

what do you mean by a "matched kit"

I made a couple of changes to the original post and I will modify it more later to accommodate this new found information. You all really are starting to convince me that all this paint to barrel match stuff is just hype. I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

[Kowz_76]

Matched kit = barrel matched to paint.