pop-up barrel

[IronCore]

You guys have probably heared about the ws66 barrels and I was wondering if they are indeed accurate. Also how hard is it to make an adaptor from that barrel to our old automags (quarter turns). Thanks

[Rokudon]

sorry, i just needed to correct that, its HOP up barrel. applies a spin to the ball. sorry, i cant really help much more. other than these barrels are very long. last i heard they were 16" or more

[justjoshin590]

well from what i hear they have insane range and acuracy, of course you cant buy the barrels seperately, so that pretty much kills it for now, btw i bought a ws66 and its given me nothing but trouble, when it would actually shoot it had horrible accuracy, and the three grooves have to be on the top of the barrel in the 11, 12, and 1 o'clock positions so its difficult to make sure its in the right place

there 14" or 20" they both have the same range but the 20" in more acurate

though dont take my experiences with the gun to seriously, both the armotech customer service and the dealer i bought it from have seen it and say there's somthing seriously wierd with it, the cs blamed me so i sent it to the dealer, havent gotten it back yet

[gc82000]

Can someone post a pic.

[Rokudon]

http://www.warsensor.com/product/images/WS-66-Final-1.jpg
there.. that suks, hop up barrel would be fun to mess with... they should make a bolt operated version

[IronCore]

from what I hear its more realiable than the flatline barrel because of its design. Hopefully somebody could make a deal with warsensor and make similar designs for our marker :D
I'd definitely pay a little premium for one of these babies.

[DiSoRdeR]

What does hop up do? I know soem Airsoft guns have it, isnt it where like the barrel is adjustable to get a better size or something?

[Glickman]

hop up is used on airsoft guns to put a backspin on the projectile.

i dont know how well it works on paintballs due to the paint inside, i have seen improvement while shooting airsoft guns with hopup.

its just a flatline, thats all, just another name for a flatline

[justjoshin590]

no its a lot more than "just a flatline" its a lot more efficient since most of the energy isnt lost creating backspin, and it can stiff fire at 300 fps without zinging strait up out of the barrel

[master_alexander]

it would definatley good on a paintball gun , it needs to be long though nut not too long. on airsoft guns it goes like the pic below from the barrel to the target, remember shorter barrel lighter ammo and lower fps with an airsoft gun.


__-----_________
barrel ..--`` ---------______ target

as you can see in the bad picture, it goes up fast and down slow

[Rokudon]

-flatlines are completely different. they do the same thing though, apply spin to the ball. flatline curves the barrel upwards, making the ball hug the upper edge (due to momentum) and create spin liek that. ball has to hit a "ramp" of some sorts to deflect the ball upwards.
-HOP-UP barrels have a different concept. they applya a backspin to the ball, without the curve. from what i read, the warsensor version uses the grooves to create a pressure difference, making the ball spin (one side has more pressue, one has less). as others say, less velocity picky, and by ESTIMATION probably better on paint as well

[IronCore]

I was behind a guy over the week end with a flatline and that thing is not that accurate, I think because after the ball rolls around the curve it has a tendency to bounce on its side as it leaves the barrel and that messes up the backspin effect. From the looks of it the hopup barrel is slightly different that it continously applies the backspin effect to the end of the barrel or maybe its just my wishfull thinking :)

[SlartyBartFast]

Didn't the Z-body do exactly that for a mag?

Problem is that you need to use a very big bore barrel for it to work. Bye-bye efficiency.

[VFX_Fenix]

Both the Flatline and the Hop-Up barrel achieve backspin in the same fashon but their methods are completely different.

True, the flatline is a bent tube that forces a ball to roll along the top surface of the barrel's ID to generate backspin. However the flatline is picky on paint and on the muzzle velocity that the ball is leaving at. For a flatline (and I'd assume for the Hop-Up) the smaller and rounder the paint, the better. Flatlines aren't known for driving tacs, but then how many barrels really are for the kind of range that a flatline can toss paint? Fact-o-the-matter is that no barrel beyond medium to short range will have "ball on ball" consistancy, it's a fact of life and for those that don't believe me, try putting 10 rounds of .308 through the same hole at greater than 500 yards without a bench rest (an example of not everyone being able to shoot that well anyway even IF the equipment is capable of such consistancy). Also, the only time paint is touching any surface of the FL other than the top of the barrel there's either a break in the thing, the paint is huge, or the shooter is jerking causing the shots to go wild.

The Hop-Up barrel still gives the ball backspin by having it roll along the top surface of the barrel's ID, however it does it with air pressure rather than the ball's momentum. Simply, the 3 grooves in the top of the barrel suck the ball up against the top of the barrel. The long explination (well, kinda long anyway) is that the three channels generate an area where the air can move past the ball faster than anywhere else in the barrel. Because fast moving air exherts less pressure than slow moving air the ball essentially has a low pressure system above it which causes it to rise (the same reason why an airplane can generate lift). This fast moving air (or rather the slow moving air around and under the ball) pulls (or pushes) the ball along the grooved surface of the barrel which generates spin on the ball. The ball (after it exits the barrel) gains lift from this spin thanks to the Magnus Effect (the same thing that influences golf balls) and everyone is happy because their paintball can shoot farther than everyone else's (yay!).

Modifications to a twist/lock barrel would involve cutting the exsisting barrel off beyond the twist lock portion and notching the barrel (and cutting it such that it could accept the OD of the Hop-Up barrel) then basically putting a huge clamp on the whole aparatus so the transplanted barrel doesn't move around. End result, lots of time, effort and bloody knuckles for something that probably won't work or requires more machine time and experience than the average paintball player (which is generally 0 hours).

And yes, the Z body mag did have a kind of hop-up system on it but it didn't work and most people who have the Galactic body didn't use it (it was adjustable)

[god]

well from what i hear they have insane range and acuracy, of course you cant buy the barrels seperately, so that pretty much kills it for now, btw i bought a ws66 and its given me nothing but trouble, when it would actually shoot it had horrible accuracy, and the three grooves have to be on the top of the barrel in the 11, 12, and 1 o'clock positions so its difficult to make sure its in the right place

there 14" or 20" they both have the same range but the 20" in more acurate

though dont take my experiences with the gun to seriously, both the armotech customer service and the dealer i bought it from have seen it and say there's somthing seriously wierd with it, the cs blamed me so i sent it to the dealer, havent gotten it back yet

nicley said

[Rokudon]

slarty, you're not being your usual knowlegable self... but they run different systems. the Z-Body relies on a nubbin to apply backspin. the hop-up in the ws-66 is integrated along the barrel, so it is not like the Z-body in that manner. VFX_fenix, very nicely done on all the backspin barrel/bodies. personally, if wasensor made their barrel in other threads... they'd make quite a good profit...IMO (esp to the pumpers if they acctually are accurate)

[VFX_Fenix]

I should also qualify that the Hop-Up barrel is a clamped barrel (threadless) for ease of production because it's practically impossible to have threads line up 100% of the time on every gun that can take that threading.

[Bob_da_Splatman]

Problem is that you need to use a very big bore barrel for it to work. Bye-bye efficiency.

Ha Ha mags efficient ........ :rofl:

Two words: AIR HOG......and no I'm not talkin' 'bout the toy plane.


Any body got a pic of the inside of the barrel ....or diagram ....either will work.

[VFX_Fenix]

http://www.warsensor.com/product/product-66-sr.htm

Note: the image of the barrel in this picture is inverted (upside down), their webmaster/graphics guru musta been asleep on the job and no one bothered to proof the stuff before they went to print.

[Rokudon]

good point too about the barrel lining up... then they should make an adaptor for their hop up barrel to a standard threading!

[SlartyBartFast]

good point too about the barrel lining up... then they should make an adaptor for their hop up barrel to a standard threading!

Well, that's the problem with these barrels and why they're not great for paintball.

Shooting and far away targets with a flatline the balls will get there but not break. It'll keep the noobs down, but experienced players won't fall for it. At intermediate ranges, as long as you keep the marker vertical, the flat trajectory will help if you're too poor a judge of distance to compensate.

Then the HUGE disadvantage is if you tilt your marker by any amount, you get a wild hook or slice.

[VFX_Fenix]

good point too about the barrel lining up... then they should make an adaptor for their hop up barrel to a standard threading!

Why should they? The barrel is propritary to their guns and that's one more piece they'd have to make if they wanted to put a threaded reciever on the WSXX serries of guns. The barrel is the way it is for a reason, not to sell to the masses, but simply to provide a reliable method of alligning the hop-up grooves properly.


Well, that's the problem with these barrels and why they're not great for paintball.

Shooting and far away targets with a flatline the balls will get there but not break. It'll keep the noobs down, but experienced players won't fall for it. At intermediate ranges, as long as you keep the marker vertical, the flat trajectory will help if you're too poor a judge of distance to compensate.

Then the HUGE disadvantage is if you tilt your marker by any amount, you get a wild hook or slice.

"They're not great for paintball" ... "Shooting far away targets with a flatline the balls will get there but not break. It'll keep the noobs down but the experienced players won't fall for it." ... "...the flate trajectory will help if you're too poor a judge of distance to compensate."

So tell me why they aren't great for paintball? Because they have a system to attach the barrel to the gun that won't work on our prized Mags or other flavors of guns that'll take threaded barrels?

Shooting far away targets with a flatline will only keep newbs down and the l33t players won't bat an eyelash.... oh you were finished? Well allow me to retort. Like it or not, if a paintball can get to you there's a chance it'll hit something solid enough to break, l33t players need not be expempt especially if they can't get a ball within 50 feet of the tippy/warsensor wielder slingin' paint comfortably outside of a regular barrel's range. Bottom line, if paint can get there, it can break on something.

And may I ask what the deal is with the superiority complex of having to compensate for range instead of allowing a device to do it for you (at least partially)? Our military has tanks that can hit a moving target while the tank is traversing rough terrain going 60mph. There isn't a human alive that can do that unassisted. Technology is the friend of those who choose to use it. Granted, not everyone likes the flatline, I know I don't. However, it does what, to date, only one other barrel can claim to do (and actually do it).

So what if Tom Kay had developed a long range barrel? Would it suddenly become a cool and acceptable piece of equipment among the elitist clicks? What if WDP made it, AKA (I know it isn't their style), Gen-E, DYE, WGP, hell... BOB LONG or even Smart Parts???

OMGz th4t iz so c000l!!!111

I'm sure people will ask why I don't like the Flatline. Well, in all honesty its simply a function of personal prefference. I wish that I could get one for my Autococker or that I had a second A-5 that I could toss one on just for S&G. I'm always impressed with the range of the Flatline, I can honestly say its the longest shooting barrel I've ever had the opportunity to shoot and you can do some cool tricks with it (like shoot around corners or down into bunkers by laying it on its side or upside down). My personal gimic is one piece stepped barrels (a la Jacko Infinity) and one piece stainless steel barrels, neither of which are readily avalible anymore.

Let's not forget the last argument for why the Flatline and Hop-Up barrels suck... Because you have to hold your gun perfectly vertical, you can't have the thing laid over on its side and rip it WestCoast style from the hip, yo. Granted the loss of flexibilty of taking a straight shot while the gun is held at any angle is lost, as I said before, there are some cool things that you can do with the thing tilted and in areas with either a low ceiling or lots of branches the flater trajectory makes getting paint out there a bit easier.

[Deathshadow9k]

is the barrel on that ws66 fixed or detachable? cuz if it is fixed it will be much more effective just like how a factory tuned tippman 98 flatline will get a perfectly straight shot (i know it sounds crazy but theres alot of guys up here with em and i've seen it done), the only problem is to swab the barrel you either have to use the elbow breakdown or field strip it. if you remove the barrel you mess up the alignment and thus fudge it up

[VFX_Fenix]

The barrel is a body clamped slip fit (like the PPS Blazer or the SL-68) and removable/replaceable..

Edit - From what I understand it isn't hard to realign the barrel if matching marks are made on the reciever and the barrel. If marks aren't present alignment can be a little tricky but can be installed properly with some careful effort.

[SlartyBartFast]

So tell me why they aren't great for paintball?

Weren't paying attention were you?

If you tilt them off vertical they are AWFUL. Hook and slice all over the place.

So, two things against it: 1- little advantage when it working correctly and fired properly. 2 - HUGE disadvantage when fired improperly.

What good is a paintball marker that has to be fired perfectly vertical to be useful?

And take a chill. It's got nothing to do with superiority complex or not wanting any part of technology.

[VFX_Fenix]

I'm sure people will ask why I don't like the Flatline. Well, in all honesty its simply a function of personal prefference. I wish that I could get one for my Autococker or that I had a second A-5 that I could toss one on just for S&G. I'm always impressed with the range of the Flatline, I can honestly say its the longest shooting barrel I've ever had the opportunity to shoot and you can do some cool tricks with it (like shoot around corners or down into bunkers by laying it on its side or upside down). My personal gimic is one piece stepped barrels (a la Jacko Infinity) and one piece stainless steel barrels, neither of which are readily avalible anymore.

Let's not forget the last argument for why the Flatline and Hop-Up barrels suck... Because you have to hold your gun perfectly vertical, you can't have the thing laid over on its side and rip it WestCoast style from the hip, yo. Granted the loss of flexibilty of taking a straight shot while the gun is held at any angle is lost, as I said before, there are some cool things that you can do with the thing tilted and in areas with either a low ceiling or lots of branches the flater trajectory makes getting paint out there a bit easier.


I've addressed this little point already (bold text). By playing with the flatline or a hop-up you can learn how the barrel behaves and use its behaviour to your advantage, and that isn't just with taking straight shots. The loss of being able to take a straight shot from any angle very real and I'm not going to argue that. However, with that loss of flexibility in a normal situation, a new areas of flexibility are found with being able to hook paint intentionally around or over obsicles. Because the hook is relatively consistant at a given angle it is possible to learn to shoot from that angle. Sort of an odd case in point when I was trading paint with a guy using an M98C with a flatline, he ended up shooting me when I was posted out on him while he was still inside his bunker. Lucky shot? Maybe, but the implications of that shot are readily apparent if anyone can learn to intentionally shoot that way.

[justjoshin590]

actually the hop-up doesnt have as much as a problem with the hooking when tilted, it more just makes the backspin less efective

[IronCore]

actually the hop-up doesnt have as much as a problem with the hooking when tilted, it more just makes the backspin less efective
...so have you gotten back your ws66? hows the accuracy compared to a flatline. If I could just buy the barrel I'll find a way to attached that to my mag ;)

[Enos Shenk]

I shot a flatline on my A5 before it got sold, i never had a problem with it. It didnt seem any more or less accurate really than any other barrel.

Most of the "flatline is crap" myths started because the 98 version was a pain in the rear end region to install and dial in correctly. The a5 version for the most part twist-locks in to the correct alignment. Its also shorter from the sandblasted inside to generate more spin in a shorter span.

Its finicky about paint and velocity, yes, but how difficult is it to buy good paint and dial the thing down to 270 or 280.

Worked good for me, of course i play in the woods and being able to fire a flat shot just above the brush is handy.

[justjoshin590]

well ill be getting the gun back soon, its been shiped to me from salt lake (west coast to east coast) so i should have it inside a week

[Robotech]

I shoot a WS-66 and I must say that I have yet to see any major curves from it when not held perfectly vertical. Also, you do not want to shoot small paint out of the WS-66. I normally shoot Zap Chronic which tends to run about .690 (bore size is .691) and have had much better luck with it than smaller sized paint such as Evil or Marbs. Obviously being consistantly round and of similar size from ball to ball is important as well.

Currently, I run my WS-66 off of CO2 in a remote set up with a Palmer Regulator mounted below the grip. With this set up my velocity varies +/-3 fps.

My understanding with the concept of how the barrel works is that pressure at the top of the ball is less than at the bottom because air is allowed to bypass the ball in the three upper channels. The increased pressure at the bottom of the ball accelerates the bottom of the ball faster than the top. Remember that a Flatline's Barrel is not super smooth inside but rather "pitted" to allow it to grip the surface of the ball better to impart the backspin (and that over time as this finish wears off the affect will lessen requiring the barrel to be re-sandblasted by Tippmann). The Hopup barrel is not like this at all and is totally smooth. Thus it is my belief that the Hopup barrel is not relying on the ball being pushed up against the top of the barrel as the Flatline does.

On the issue of alignment, the Hopup barrel has a groove cut into the outside of the barrel in the back. This groove is perpendicular to the barrel itself. When the barrel is inserted into the WS receiver, a stip pin is inserted to align the grooves. Then a screw in the receiver is tightened to "Clamp" the barrel in place to prevent barrel wobble. However, it seems there have been some manufacturing issues and the gooves for the strip pin have not been placed in the right location thus requiring owners to self align the barrel's hopup gooves. Once this issue gets resolved alignment will not be a problem (My barrel's groove is in the right position).

While the barrels are listed as being available sepreratly it seems production of the barrels matches the production numbers of entire markers thus every barrel produced seems to be going directly to building complete markers. There have been rumors however that barrels may soon become available for seperate purchase and when that happens it would only seem to make sense for someone, if not Warsensor/Armotech, to come out with a simple screw on clamp adaptor for the barrel.

Just as an example...this is a day I was sighting in my red dot. The marker had not yet been fired at this distance this day. Paint was a bit old and had some dimples but not too bad. The guy firing it has never fired the marker before. The shooter was prone using the bipod for the shots...

http://shadow.b17queenofthesky.com/images/rangefinal.MPG

[xXHavokXx]

We have a ws66 at work some kid brought in. He was going on and on about it and let us try it. Eh, it's nothing to go nuts over. At normal ranges I think my Boomys ate better. at Counter strike-esque snipz0r ranges they kinda float there and you can easily dodge them or they dont break. It doesn't like hellfire, or worr perfection. He seems to believe that because he can shoot from a little farther the ball will get there before the sound. Yes, he is an idiot, but then again I'm thinking he is trying to justify spending 500 on a spyder clone that we've sent back twice. Eh, B for ingenuity and F becuz teh barret t0ta4lly r0xZors teh m4..

[IronCore]

Robotech, thats a nice shot grouping. I definitely think that it is more accurate than the flatline I saw. Does it dip much at 90-feet? the angle from the camera looks like the balls where dipping a little at the end but that might have been just the way it was taken.

[ScatterPlot]

Do those grooves go down the whole length of the barrel or just right at the start? I can't tell if they're tapered or not from that pic.

[IronCore]

...wow, I just checked again how far is 90-feet and that grouping kicks butt!! :hail: which barrel lenght do you have? 14 or 20. I gotta start saving for one of those ;)

Scatterplot, I think the grooves goes all the way down.

[ScatterPlot]

K thanks.

[justjoshin590]

robotech, dont hate me for this:
after getting back the gun i will never play with it, every ball choped in the breach, no matter the paint, these guns are complete crap, and i will never play with one again, i have not been able to test our the barrel, so for now ill just go ahead and say there crap without anything to back that up, btw 66 is for sale, its got a long ris, with 14" barrel, 400$ shipped

the barrels may be the greatest thing yet in paint ball, but since the guns that use them are teh exact same operation as a 40$ spider (and perforn the same) its in no way worth it, dont beleive me? well its is for sale.....

and as for the barrels being lined up to fit the gun, it seams like at least 33% of teh barrels dont match up, so instead of using the quick strip pins, you have to tighten the body