Flatline effect vs. rifled barrels....

[punkncat]

I am curious. I have seen the tech notes where Tom has pretty much proven that rifled barrels do not have the desired effect on a paintball. We have all seen the flatline effect work for distance shooting with a paintball , but not neccesarily creating a positive effect on accuracy.

Both of these principals work using spin on the paintball. Rifling (theoretically) produces accuracy by putting a "side to side" spin on the ball , wheras the flatline effect puts a forward spin on the ball , and definately increases shooting distance and changes trajectory.

Why do you think that the flatline effect works so well at putting the spin on the ball , but rifled barrels really don't seem to effectively create spin ?

I have thought of a few obvious conclusions , but really am wondering what could be done to rifled barrels to make them efficently put spin on the ball ?

[brianlojeck]

as I recall from my physics classes...

rifling of long projectiles (spears, bullets, etc...) works because it prevents the round from spinning end-over-end, which would make accuracy really bad.

since paintballs are round, they have no end to go over end with, so no change.

the backspin of a flatline, however, does work on round projectiles, like baseballs and tennis balls.

I've heard rumors that side-spin does work on heavy round projectiles, but I haven't looked into why.

[brightman]

With the curve of the flatilne barrel the ball basically sticks to one side of the barrell which produces the spin on the paintball. Basically its done using friction through the curve of the barrel. I think that some of the manufacturers have tried to produce that backspin in just about every method possible before tippmann came out with the flatline all of which were unsucessful. Rifling creates a side spin which in theroy could stabalize the ball in flight. If you put too much spin on a paintball you end up shooting a curve ball.

[RRfireblade]

Both of these principals work using spin on the paintball. Rifling (theoretically) produces accuracy by putting a "side to side" spin on the ball , wheras the flatline effect puts a forward spin on the ball , and definately increases shooting distance and changes trajectory.

Why do you think that the flatline effect works so well at putting the spin on the ball , but rifled barrels really don't seem to effectively create spin ?



The "perception" is the that rifling puts a stablizing spin,perpedicular to the difrection of flight, not side to side.The fact is that it does neither,in my experience. The Barrels that we manufacture,for instance,are not intended at all to induce spin on the paintball.The are simply polygonally bored (flat rifled) barrels that help a typically non-round paintball match up to the bore more consistanty and over a wider variation of paintball sizes. This generally makes them shoot better (more consistanty) overall,with a wider range of paintballs and throughout a wider range of conditions then most smooth bore barrels......IMO. :)

Depending the the paint you shoot and the marker you shoot it with this may be more or less noticable. But in my experience,this does seem to be true in most cases.I very often use a rifled (straight rifled tho) in the cases were I only feel like bringing a single 'all purpose' barrel with me. And I have had at least one occurance in the past where that barrel shot very well at a time where I was having no luck with either of the 2 different full kits I happened to have with me at the time.Put it on in pure desperation and to my suprise it shot great for the rest of the day. Not sure why and I'm not really concerned about finding out. ;) Now I normally start with the barrel...just to save time. :D

My feeling anyway.........

The Flatline barrels operate on a completely different principle and they do pretty much what they claim to do. No mystery there, it just typically comes at The price of consistancy. ( aka accuracy)


Jay.

[barrel break]

I'm not entirely sure. but the flatline has NO accuracy problems unless tilted sideways.

[RRfireblade]

Your definately entitled your opinions.

Just think about this, how many paintballs in a bag are absolutely identical or even perfectly round for that matter?

How many have NO seam? :)

What are the chances of identically spinning 2 differently shaped paintballs,with or without a seam, and the chance of each of those seams lining up as precisely as the seam on the previous ball?

Or the next ball?

And in either case spun to create identical trajectories regardless of the numerous variables?

Accuracy in paintball, or any other case, is defined ultimately as consistancy.Without that you have nothing...or very little. :D

And yes, I do have plenty of experience with flatline barrels.

But whatever works for you is good too. :dance:


Jay.

[FSU_Paintball]

I'm not entirely sure. but the flatline has NO accuracy problems unless tilted sideways.

<-- voice of experience begs to differ

And the reason the flatline successfully produces spin while rifled barrels do not is because the flatline is curved and has a very large bore, much larger than the paintball. This means when you fire the paintball, only one of its edges is touching the barrel. This one edge drags and causes the spin. Rifling creates equal friction on all sides of the paintball, so you don't get significant spin.

[Miscue]

I'm not entirely sure. but the flatline has NO accuracy problems unless tilted sideways.

It spins at random - the hovering effect will be random - the velocity will be more random... it might not have accuracy "problems" depending upon your perspective - but it is not as good as a normal barrel.

Someone mentioned rifling round/ball ammo. They are rifled not to spin stabilize like a bullet, but to get it to spin in the same direction every time rather than uncontrolled random spin. This random spin will cause the ammo to curve every which way at random.

Why rifling does not work on a paintball - the paintball itself is inaccurate. No spin, controlled spin, whatever - the thing will still zigzag. The best things that can be done for accuracy is: good quality paint, heavier paint, consistent velocity.

[Linkwarner]

What about ported barrels, and what patterns they are does it make a diffrence?

[Miscue]

What about ported barrels, and what patterns they are does it make a diffrence?

No - but some barrel companies years back have tried to market porting with magic powers. From time to time another new barrel company tries to repeat this.

[Linkwarner]

yeah, what i mean is the Dye barrels usually have straight porting, while a tear drop barrel is swirreld, so I was wondering if it made diffrence at all

[Army]

Spiral and straight porting has no other effect than to vent off gas pressure in increments, rather than all at once. It in no way creates any spin on the ball.

In-axis spin (gyroscopic) stabilizes a projectile from outside influences. It mostly maintains a single axis of rotation, keeping a bullet from yawing from side to side, or tumbling at random.

The flatline works by allowing the ball to roll against one side of the barrel only (the bores top), creating a backward spin to initiate the Magnus Effect, which forces a larger percentage of air pressure underneath the ball, lifting it against gravity until its forward motion will no longer sustain the Effect. Your effective range (ball breaking distance) is unchanged, only overall distance is increased.

[shartley]

Spiral and straight porting has no other effect than to vent off gas pressure in increments, rather than all at once. It in no way creates any spin on the ball.

In-axis spin (gyroscopic) stabilizes a projectile from outside influences. It mostly maintains a single axis of rotation, keeping a bullet from yawing from side to side, or tumbling at random.

The flatline works by allowing the ball to roll against one side of the barrel only (the bores top), creating a backward spin to initiate the Magnus Effect, which forces a larger percentage of air pressure underneath the ball, lifting it against gravity until its forward motion will no longer sustain the Effect. Your effective range (ball breaking distance) is unchanged, only overall distance is increased.
Exactly. And trying to explain Range and Effective Range to people is often hard to do. More so when they want to think their barrel is giving them some sort of advantage over the other players.

Yes, the flatline will allow you to put balls farther down range, such as to move a leaf or fall to the ground farther away. But you don’t get players out by simply touching them with a paintball, it must break. And most paintballs break at about the same range no matter what barrel they are using (given the same velocity). So their effective range will be roughly the same no matter how far the paintball travels after the range where it will BREAK on target.

Often times the better investment a player can make is to insure their marker is consistent, as opposed to instantly getting a “better” barrel. Consistency will have a greater affect on accuracy than the average barrel change will. And since the affective range of the paintball will not substantially change no matter what barrel is put on it (given the same velocity… yes players will probably have to adjust their velocity again after a drastic barrel change) the players first real concern should be accuracy at the affective range of the paintball/marker…. Which translates into making sure their marker is as consistent as it can be…. As well as using quality paintballs.

[Joni]

According to Tom, rifling doesn't work because only the shell spins, not the filling. Since the gyroscopic effect relies on mass spinning, rifling has little or no effect.

Backspin on the other hand has a aerodynamic reason, same that golfballs use. Since it's aerodynamic, it doesn't matter if the filling spins, or only the shell, since the only thing the air "notices" is the shell.

[RRfireblade]

According to Tom, rifling doesn't work because only the shell spins, not the filling. Since the gyroscopic effect relies on mass spinning, rifling has little or no effect.




Well, obviously that is not correct since the Flatline spins a paintball without any question what so ever. ;)

[Joni]

Read my whole post. My point is that with the flatline it doesn't matter if only the shell spins, it does it's job anyway.

[RRfireblade]

The point is the fill is spinning.

[Vanced]

:D - I still get kicks every time this argument comes up... But we are getting better at providing the needed information... Props to thoose who are giving it... next thing ya know we be saying cockers shoot farther again…

The 5 Simple rules of paintball accuracy !

#1 - Paintballs are not a perfect sphere or consistent by nature

#2 - Rifling has no effect due to lack of a consistent projectile like you can see in a standard firearm bullet.

#3 - Porting only vents of pressure for consistency not for effect of ball flight

#4 - Flatline or Backspin systems be it Barrel or Body add range ( distance the ball travels ) but does NOT add significantly to Effective Range ( distance at which a ball will break ) and may decrease overall "accuracy" if not taking into account the awkward change in trajectory to achieve this... (The rise of the ball in flight)

#5 – The BEST way to achieve any semblance to true accuracy in paintball is to put constant stable force behind the ball to project it down the barrel, Use the highest quality and freshest possible paint, and use a effective length barrel with some level of porting with best possible paint size to bore match… and the ball is still going to pattern randomly.

[hitech]

#2 - Rifling has no effect due to lack of a consistent projectile like you can see in a standard firearm bullet.


It doesn't work on round projectiles, period. It does NOT work on perfectly round "paintballs".

[Linkwarner]

ok, many questions have been answered. Thank you

[shartley]

It doesn't work on round projectiles, period. It does NOT work on perfectly round "paintballs".
Well….. I know some who would disagree with that first statement. Black powder muzzle loading Kentucky Rifles were used by hunters and Colonial sharp shooters. They used a round projectile. The barrels were rifled. The rifling did work.

I must also add though that anyone who has ever used a black powder muzzle loading Kentucky Rifle can tell you the reason WHY they work. The ball is almost the same size as the barrel itself ( unlike standard musket balls and a standard “Brown Bess” Musket, which were not even close ) and then a patch of cloth is placed over the ball before ramming. That actually makes it so that the ball can NOT fit down the barrel without great force.

This action actually causes the balls (which were made of lead) to form grooves in them and conform to the barrel, with the patch sealing up any extra space.
And being personally familiar with both the Brown Bess and the Kentucky Rifle, I can attest to the loading of the KR to be a pain in the rear. The process took far too long to adopt the rifle as the standard weapon for Colonial troops, but there were some elite units which did use them. And they used them because they worked. They were able to hit targets farther away, and consistently.

On a side note, if anyone sees people using the KR in a movie and they are loading them with relative ease….. they are not really loading them. LOL You have to REALLY force the ball down the barrel. It isn’t “easy”.

Rifling in canon was also used with round balls for a time as well. Although it was found that a pointed projectile (as we use now in rifles and most modern canon) was more efficient and took greater advantage of what the rifling could do. It didn’t take them long to switch over to the new shape.

I guess my point was that rifling CAN work with round projectiles, and has.

But you are absolutely correct, it does not work with paintballs, no matter how perfectly round they are.

ADDED
Historical note:
When loading a Musket, you rip open the paper cartridge with your teeth (cartridge contained the ball and a given amount of black powder). You poured a small amount of the powder into the pan, which is then covered by the steel. You then take the rest of the powder and pour it down the barrel. The ball is then dumped in after it. The ball will fall all the way down the barrel and rest on the powder. You then take the rest of the paper cartridge and stuff it in the barrel. THEN you take the ramrod and force the paper down the barrel and compact the ball, paper and powder.

This is why Muskets were fairly fast to load compared to the Kentucky Rifle (and other rifles of the time). When “ramming” the musket, you were not doing anything but moving paper. But with the rifle, you were forcing the ball and patch down the barrel. There is a HUGE difference.

The rest of the loading is pretty much the same, except you have no cartridge. The powder is loaded using a powder horn or similar device, and the “paper” is replaced by the cloth patch which is stored in the butt of the rifle or other places.

[brianlojeck]

and this was a dangerous thing to do.

I paint lead soldiers as a hobby. one of the more famous sculptors in the Sci-fi genre (must be about 10 years ago now...) blew his hand off while doing a civil war reenactment, he continued to sculpt with tools fixed to a wrist-mount.