The comparisons to real guns is not really valid. You're talking about rifling that is directly contacting a pointy projectile, and spinning it up VS a gelatinous ball that deforms into who knows what shapes going down a smooth barrel.

i think i got it, its not the length of the barrel but the quality, hence i cheap 16" isnt as good as a good 12" along with the paint you use.

I was trying to allude to the fact that it wasn't the same.

Paintball guns are fun. Inheriently inaccurate though.
I found a ported 12" whisper barrel is far more accurate then the stock 10" non-ported barrel on my X7. Even then 50 feet is about as far as you'll get a good shot without aiming a foot high.

Age and quality of the paintballs makes a huge difference in accuracy as well. Shelf life is very short. They harden and get out of round quickly.

Longer barrles look cool but don't seem to add any distance or accuracy on my gun.

One barrel exception is the Tippmann Flatline barrel. It's actually curved quite a bit but hidden in a large housing. Those shoot very far and very straight.
They put backspin on the ball without breaking it and it keeps is lofted longer.
That's the claim anyway, I'd like to see a high speed video to prove it.

Either way it works but costs too much for a toy.

On another somewhat related topic I'd like to see a law requiring those stupid airsoft bb's to be biodegradable. They sell them.
I've even bought glow in the dark biodegradable bb's.

I see little yellow plastic bb's all over the woods these days and it's kind of annoying to know they'll still be there long after I'm dead.

i here ya on the bb's. the gun i bout came with a stock barrel, a 14" and a flatline. the distance (acording to book) is sopose to be improved by 100ft, id have to say i could go about 60-70ft farther. and if i shot a cheep ball out of it it wouldnt do really well, but if i shot a quality ball it was pretty acurate. i did a test fire at my range( a 15x15ft wall for shooting) taped at 100ft and with the stock barrel i could hit the backstop but not with consistancy or acuracy. with the flat i could hit the backstop 95% of the time/ 70% of the time a 5x5 surface area/ 40% of the time a 3x3 area and 15% of the tome id say a 1x1 area. that was shooting 400 diablo recon balls out of the flat barrel. that includes chops, balls that just dont go were u aim and ect. but with the cheep balls(1/2 the price of the diablos) the flat barrel wasnt much better than the stock. havent tested the 14" yet figured i used 500 good balls and 500 bad balls i can be satisfied.