Barrels - By Mike VanGundy

Barrel Guide

So many barrells and such little money for them. When I began researching barrels I found so many various oppinions that I had to devise a set of rules to weed out the wrong data. First I needed to recognise when someone was just saying that a barrell shot good but not giving any reason why. A lot of people will say that a Dye Boomstick is the best because it looks cool and some guy that gets a lot of eliminations has one. In a court of law that is known as heresay and not permissable because it is not his own experience. He is just expanding on someone elses experience. Next reason to doubt someone is when they start saying that they get kills at 200 feet away.

A paintball is not a copper clad piece of machined steel going three thousand feet per second. It has 230% more frontal area. It is going 1000% slower. It has no spiral motion for stabilaty. In a nut shell it cannot in any way be compared to a bullet. The arc to get a paintball to go 200 feet is about 32 feet. It takes a full second for it to reach it's target at that range. A wind of only 5mph has the effect of moving it 7.4 feet sideways if it is crossways to travel. This is not taking into account that the gun, gas, and paintball is not that accurate. The sight radius of most guns is only three inches, the Tippmann is only 8". A gun with a sight radius of only 8" held offhand can only be capable of a 6" group at 75 feet.

The way you hold the gun and your trigger controll is most important. Right handed people use thier right eye to align the sights. Gently squeeze the trigger with your finger until the gun shoots. Be aware not to twist the gun from vertical or jerk the gun when it fires. Pushing the gun will not make it shoot farther.

So what kind of accuracy can be expected. Let's use 100 feet as our benchmark. If you are a very solid shooter with no wind to mix things up you should be able to hit a mask at 100 feet in three shots. Anything else would be substandard. If you are shooting past that you had better plan on carrying a lot of paint and counting on chance.

If you are shooting with Co2 in the winter time you may break balls in your barrell. Stainless steel seems to make this worse. The liquid sticks in the bore and breaks the ball. In the winter use aluminum if it is below 32degrees.

If you are using air your shots will have a more consistant pattern due to the set of regulators to give every shot a consistant muzzle velocity. If you see changes in the velocity or your guage bounces or climbs when fired then you need your regs rebuilt.

Last is to make sure that everything is tight and the holes in the barrell are not plugged. If you lean the side of your barrell against the bunker when you shoot you are disturbing the airflow and will move the paintball around. The holes are very important and plugging just one of them can change the flight at long range. If you take some splatter or break a ball in the barrell you need to clean it. First tip it down and put your squegee in to drag out the junk. Then roll the gun over so it wont pick up a paintball and put your gloved hand over the end. Fire several shots to clear out the holes. This is very important.

OK now that you are sure that the gun and you can shoot well it's time to put in the paint. This stuff comes in three sizes. Too big, too small, and just right. The just right stuff is the one you had last weekend. Since then it has had time to sit in your home and swell. Now it's slingshot ammo. Look the balls over for swollen spots and big dents. Little ones are ok but if they're big don't buy them. Try to use fresh paint from a good source. Not the big retail stores. It is slingshot ammo not gun ammo.

Try to put one ball in the end of your barrell. The other end. Put it in the end that screws into the gun. If the ball rolls out then it may be too small. The ideal fit is to have it come out by itself or with a very slight puff of air. Try at least five balls before making a decision. Most stores will have samples to try so bring your barrell when you buy a case. Once you have found a good combination stick with it unless the balls look bad.

The two best balls for the money are the RPS Marbelizer and the Diablo Inferno. These are the same size so if the batch you usually get looks bad get the other. Get them from a local store and open the box before paying. Online stores like Drop Zone sell very fresh paint but if you ever have trouble it won't be on warrrantee. The good news is that you wont have trouble. If you have trouble breaking balls after all of this you need to turn down the air. Slowing down the ball speed will stop breakages.

But which barrell. Any thing over 8 inches in length is good. If you play back you will want 16". The most popular is the 12". Aluminum is best and stay away from the cheap flimsy models. Stick with Smart Parts All American. If you bought just one barrell and money is no issue then get the Freak. It is convertable for length and bore size. For forty bucks you can change it from 16" to 10". It comes with eight different sizes of tubes for the paint that you are shooting today. Or the paint that you are shooting this afternoon. Paint will change size during the course of the day. Temperatures in the trunk of your car can get over 100 Degrees. Your just right sized barrell just got too small. Now you are turning down to 250 feet per second to keep from breaking balls. With the freak you just change sleeves and in twenty seconds you are ready to go again.

The most common after market in recball is the Dye Boomstick. It's two part with a stainless back section. Good and tough but it breaks balls in sub freezing weather. It is sized for the Inferno but shoots better with the Hellfire. The RPS star ball is the same size as that. It is slightly smaller and a few bucks more. It also shoots well with the RPS Big Ball. Don't let the name fool you it isn't big. It is just slightly larger than inferno but the shell is softer so it shoots well at close ranges. Stay with the others if you are a longballer. Blaze is the Diablo ball that is equal to the Big ball. We have had trouble with them having big pregnant spots showing which dusturb any long range accuracy. I'm sure if you got some factory fresh ones and a slightly larger barrell they would be a good budget ammo.

The point is to decide what your playing style is and how much you want to spend before buying a barrell. Then size it and the paint you use together with the ranges you shoot. Long range is more money. Rec ball in the bushes can be very close ranges. If you like to tunnel through the weeds get a shorter barrell. 12" barrells will shoot very well at long ranges. 16" barrells will reach out to 150 feet with kills every three shots. Any good paint with the right sized barrell will hit a mask at 100 feet given everything else is right. The point is that the best range is 25 to 75 feet for a one shot kill. There are more important factors than 2" of length or two thousandths of bore size. All stock barrells need to be changed out if you are serious about accuracy.

Please note Mike has been hounded enough on the fact that he did not know how to spell barrel when he wrote this.