well im bored, and ect... but on a subject not of mitsu form that some or most of you prob dont care about or ect... i was looking at paintball gun ect... and a lot of people are saying that a longer barrel ( stock 8" upgraded to 16") doesnt help acuracy or distance on their "paintball" forums. that makes no sence to me. thats basicly saying a hangun is just as acurate as a rifle to an extent. and if im wrong please explane y. aside from spelling errors that is.

This should be in Off Topic.

My experience with paintball is this.

Accuracy does not really matter so much. You don't have time to aim your shots anyway. If you see someone, you start hoseing them down as FAST as you can pull the trigger, and guiding your balls onto that person.

You might as well have a 6 inch barrel as opposed to an 18 inch one because the accuracy gained is irrelevant, and you are that much less maneuverable with the 18 inch.

Paintball for me was a step twards real shooting sports. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

im not doing speed ball. ive played a few times and i think acuracy is a key role. you can spray and pray all you like but if you cant hit what your aiming at with 100 balls and you get tagged with only 10 shots fired at you ect... and personaly id rather make each shot count.

There is a metered pulse of co2 into the propellant chamber of the gun when the trigger is pulled, and it's effect is gone at the end of the short barrel, and the longer barrel friction just degrades ball speed, so you get more drop to target, and have to figure barrel elevation into your firing solution. In general, accuracy will suffer, as it's harder for a shooter at a given level of skill to integrate another large factor into what's almost always a snap shot, aimed by end stink...

still take a 38 with a 4" barrel V'S a 38 with an 8" barrel' same bullet' acuracy is very diff. should be the same concept with paintball. i do understand there is a limmit to the length you can go, and it shoots slower than a real gun, but same principles apply. if you take an 8 " barrel and up it to a 12,14, or 16" your acuracy should improve. and ive been shooting real guns for all my life so i do under stand bullet drop, instinct (hunting, not just deer) ect..

Not familiar with paintball myself, but I'd guess that continuing Eddy's point, a firearm has an excess amount of propellant thrust from the burn and is still accelerating the slug for the full length of the barrel, which then makes the extra length useful. In contrast, a paintball gun is working at a much lower pressure level and likely stops accelerating the ball before it leaves the barrel, even in the shorter length, so you're not gaining from it nearly the same result. Just mentalizing here.

Yes. A firearm (as opposed to a compressed gas gun) is usually loaded to not quite burn up all the powder to increase propulsive pressure in the longest barrel it's usually used in (I know, not always, but as a general case for off the shelf), Thus, a 2" .38 is about as accurate as a thrown rock as a bullet at ranges over knife fighting range, while a 4" Model 10 S&W will center punch you at over 50', IF you can shoot it. The muzzle velocity will be higher in the longer barrel, with less muzzle flash.

NONE of this applies to an airgun whose gas pulse is used up in the shorter barrel. If there's still useful pressure, the longer barrel will be better, but we are talking about a jelly bag for a projectile here, not metal, and I'm sure surface irregularities are huge. These are NOT accurate shooters in my limited experience, and I've shot a $1000 paintball gun with another 400buck worth of tweaks to it by a "gunsmith"...

They also said in the hayday of muzzle loaders the longer the barrel the more accurate the gun, I dont beleive they found that to be 100% correct either.

I do some paintball play and I can tell you from personal experience that some barrels are more accurate than others regardless of length.

There's also more going on inside the barrel than simply guiding the ball through friction. There's an aerodynamic interaction between the ball, the propellant and the outside air that has to be balanced or accuracy will go in the toilet.

There are barrel kits available that have a replaceable insert for different size balls. Even they are all supposed to be .68 caliber, some are a little bigger, some are smaller.

One of the biggest influences you can have on paintball accuracy is using quality paintballs. I'm always tempted to but the cheapest paint I can get my hands on, but every time I buck-up and pay the extra $12 or so per 2000 balls, I'm always really happy with the result.