Helpful Imformation

Range

Many people think that some guns have better range then others.That is absolutly not true! If I had a ten dollar gun shooting at 300 fps and an Angel shooting at 300 fps the two paintballs would travel the same distance. The velocity is the distance.The only gun that can get more range is one with the flatline, which is a barrel that is slightly bent upwards to give an arc to the ball.

Ported barrels

Many people also think that ported barrels are more accurate than regular barrels. This is also not true. They say that the ports stop the pressure in front of and behind the ball making it rounder.All that these barrels accomplish are making the gun quieter and reducing the gas efficiency of your gun.

Accuracy

Most barrels have the same accuracy. The main factors that effect the accuracy of shots are:
-Smoothness of the barrel(no scratches) i never could tell if material of the barrel made a difference which if it does it is not noticible.
-Ballbreak in the barrel or dirt in the barrel
-Dented, misshaped, or dimpled paintballs
-good paint to barrel match(you should be able to blow the paintball through the barrel with out it getting stuck and the paintball should not slide down by itself)
-wind
-Velocity too high (300 fps max) this can cause paintballs to curve

Rifled barrels are more accurate

No they are not. Even if the ball left the barrel spinning, it would stop spinning very soon due to the fact that the liquid inside the ball does not spin like a solid would spin. Yeah its a neat idea but I recently visited the website http://tagrifledbarrels.tripod.com and they made a chart on the performance of their rifled barrels.They used their barrel and a stock spider barrel.Their tests showed that their barrel hit the target more times than the stock barrel.BUT YOU CANT COMPARE APPLES TO ORANGES! The two barrels are different bore sizes, therefore the same paintball is sure to fly differently in each barrel, and im sure they used a paintball that fit their barrel. If the barrels were more accurate, they would not pay off in the long run. These barrels average 3 breaks per 250 rounds fired! All i can say is get your squeegie ready.

Longer Barrels Are More Accurate

Longer barrels are not more accurate but only reduce your gas efficiency and increase the likelyhood of a ball break. The reason is the barrel is longer, which makes the paintball have to endure more friction. The friction will slow the ball down. The only advantage is it may be a little more quiet.I wouldn't reccomend any barrel over 16".

Most barrels aren't accurate just by them selves.So what does make a barrel accurate? The most important is having a good paint to barrel match. The ball should not move around in the barrel by itself. You should be able to blow the paintball out of the barrel easily. What makes the barrel quiet? Porting. Porting lets small amounts of air escape before it reaches the end of the barrel and produces a smaller "pop" of gas. The ports do not make the barrel more accurate. Ported barrels are usually less gas efficient than regular barrels. Which barrel is the best? No one barrel is "better" than another. It depends what you want out of the barrel. If you want a quiet barrel go with ported. If you want a efficient barrel get a solid barrel. But the most important thing to do is to have a good paint to barrel match. Buy boxes of 200 of each kind of paintball and test which one works best through your barrel.