Stub Barrels?

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

Anyone ever use an Endgame Stub Barrel? Pros.. cons?

http://www.endgameinc.com/Paintball-Products/Stub-Nose-Barrels.asp

Update:

Bought this noname brass stub off of eBay... will report back on how well it does!

(Yeah, ok... it's only a pro carbine!)

http://www.cg-i.com/procarbine_stubd.jpg


Thanks!
~hhb

[quasimorte]

paintball physics tells us that this type of barrel will
1. require more air per shot
2. be louder (depending on marker)
3. be really inacurate(sp)

shortest i would ever go is an 8 inch barrel. as such the only shorty i have tried was a 6 inch tip for a freak kit.

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

Ok... my newbie-ness shows!!

I'm proposing a shorty barrel for 0-70ft range. So maybe I don't need to use more air per shot, unless trying to reach 100ft+? With the shorter range, I'm not to worry about long distance accuracy..right? I'm told I need more air per shot for a "sniper-length" barrel too! So when don't I "need more air"? :cheers:

Ack! Just trying to werk it out in my pea brain! :tard:

~hhb

[MANN]

If you are looking for a short barrel might I suggest a freak with a "stubby" front (WWA makes them) or "flashpoint" front (Docs machine makes them, but he is currently out of stock). This allows you to still get a good paint to barrel match, while still giving you the short barrel you are looking for. (mine is @ 6-7 inches) This also allows you to retain most of the accuracy of the freak barrel system also. If you do get one that you are looking at. be sure to let us (or just me) how it shoots.

:cheers:

[craltal]

I already own freak kit, so the doc's flashpoint I have was a great way to go for me. As Mann said, it still gives me the matching of the freak system with the short barrel I wanted (I also have a couple of Stiffi tips for when I want a bit more barrel)

Couple things you will notice with a short barrel, and especially those end game ones is that you will be probably the loudest gun on the field (unless you happen to be sharing the field with a Vector or VM-68) which means that you become the easiest player to find no matter how much you try to hide.

You also may have worse accuracy. Even the review says that it's great for 30 to 40 feet but lacks for longer distances.

If you have a freak kit, get White Wolf's tip. If you play front and are looking for the shortest barrel to make your opponents scared when you bunker them, I think you've found it, but if you like a bit more range, I'd look for something a bit longer that would be more versatile

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

I get it now. Thanks for all that.. it makes TOTAL sense. Noise.. inaccuracy, etc. I think since I'm just getting started in paintballn' I'll hold off on buying a slick Freak Kit, but will definitely keep that one in mind for the "next big step". I also like the idea of barrel<->paint matchn'. What I did do was stumble over this today, and prob paid too much for what it is.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=013&item=230011830240

I'll play with it in the backyard at least, see how bad it is.. then if it so badly sux I'll pass it back to another Ebay'r. I did see that Powerlyte, OpsGear and Lapco have some "assault" or "CQB" barrels in the 5"-8.5" range. But I'll wait on that until I'm sated with what I've got for now.

Cheers, guys! :) :cheers:

~hhb

[thejayare]

Q:I'm told I need more air per shot for a "sniper-length" barrel too! So when don't I "need more air"? :cheers:b
A:In a barrel between 10" and 11" not including porting. That is the optimum for CO2 expansion according to Glenn Palmer, etc. The only reason that the "shortie" barrels will be inaccurate is:
1) Your paint doesn't match well, and
2) [Bare with me here..] Since the CO2 hasn't fully expanded, when it reaches the end of the barrel, it will quickly expand, causing turbulence behind the paintball. Turbulence is bad. If the barrel were ported, that problem would be solved since the CO2 could vent (expand fully) while the ball was still controlled by barrel bore. Rapid CO2 expansion is also what causes the louder shot signature. Get all that? :)

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

Sounds good! I can imagine all that. So does this mean I could improve a "shortie" by having someone put some ports in strategic places? (I think there is a shop over the mts. from me that does fully custom paintball guns and mods.)

~hhb

[thejayare]

Good. lad you got that. And, yes, porting would help. Another thing that I didn't mention was this: Since Co2 doesn't fully expand for ~10", it will require more volume of CO2 to accelerate the ball to desired velocity. So, say you swap out your 10" barrel for a stubby one... You'll have to crack your velocity up a bit to compensate. You'll lose some efficiency, and you'll create a larger blast of CO2. If you have brittle paint... :eek: You get the picture. It's a bit harder on paint.

[craltal]

First off, the problem wouldn't be limited to CO2 use, you'd get it with HPA too.

actually porting a barrel that short will increase the air usage because it would be venting the air before it was able to get the ball up to speed requiring a greater volume of air to reach required velocities.

The rapid expansion is what contributes to the "loundess" as well.

[Pneumagger]

If you port a shortie barrel...then your effective barrel length just got shorter. Just go with the WWA shortie freak tip.

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

So when you guys say "required velocities" does that still apply when only trying to get a decent lob of paint within 60ft? Is it possible that I could crank down my air to lessen the expansion burst and get a smoother shot out? Sure, this may cause my paint to submit to gravity within a shorter distance, but if the goal is to use this setup for close range stuff...?

Whaddya think o' that?

~hhb

[thejayare]

Good points, gentlemen. I had the "loudness" covered though. ;) I don't know the ideal barrel length for HPA, so I didn't comment on that.

HHB- desired velocity is up to you, but if you start shooting too slow, your paint won't break nearly as well, if at all. I second the Freak + WWA tip suggestion. That would look sweet and shoot great too.

[craltal]

i guess that as long as you chrono under the field limit and don't adjust it or change barrels on the field you should be fine, but as was pointed out, you might not get adequate breaks. This would require quite a bit of trial and error set-up at home .

Also, I don't see the point of limiting your range because I can see it now, your the only guy left on your team and they all know that you can't shoot beyond 70 feet and mark them, so they long ball you from 100 feet because you are a sitting duck

[Beemer]

http://www.automags.org/resource/tech/tomstech/01_barrel_eff.shtml

http://www.automags.org/resource/tech/tomstech/02_boresize.shtml

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

http://www.automags.org/resource/tech/tomstech/01_barrel_eff.shtml

http://www.automags.org/resource/tech/tomstech/02_boresize.shtml


Short barrels cut off the acceleration abruptly by venting and this has the effect of tightening up the shot to shot velocity variation. If you need this at the expense of efficiency then go ahead. Tighter velocity control usually translates into some improvement in accuracy due to better consistency.

Interesting! Makes sense. I really liked the info about paint and bore size! Cool stuff!! :cool:

Thanks!!
~hhb

[flyingpootang]

I got the opsgear 7" w/shroud for my A5 and accuracy is real good, the 12" G36'ers have a ting sound when fired due to the flash supp design, and I read good and bad things on the JCS X-Short: http://www.bp-usa.com/big_product_pics/67806.jpg even though Tippmans aren't know to be quiet they're very dependable and fairly good on accuracy. Just a side note stay away from the W.A.S board. their a pain to adjust even with the JCS trigger.....

[Punisher1]

Eh I would not worry about it HHB

I have a had a couple of friends take thier original A5 barrels and shorten them cause they like thier "short" game.

Ya a bit louder but you can move on target a bit faster. Issue is that accuracy is a bit reduced over range, no mystery there. As for paying $35-$45 bucks for the barrel, I would not. See if you can find someone with the rght tools and use your old stock barrel.

4" would be fine, round off the edge of the barrel and try it out.

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

oooohh! I was soooo tempted to hack my stock barrel since it's already been replaced with a ceramic. :) I do have friends with tools. I even read a good note online about smoothing out the tip with a ball bearing! But then it occurred to me the gun is a "classic".. so I thought I'd leave that part alone--for now. I bought that brass shorty from the ebay auction for sh&ts n grins. It's a 3" that I'll futz with in the backyard at least. If I tire of it, it goes back to ebay. Maybe as I progress as a pb player I'll practice up to buying better gear like a Freak kit, or ..? :ninja:

Thanks guys!! You so rock for all the infoz. Now that I have the toy I can tune and set expectations for it accordingly. :shooting:

~hhb

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

Ok! Got the stub from EBay (see initial post of this thread: I added a pic)

Next trick it to try it out.. then maybe I can get creative on what to do about a small feeder. Maybe a D-Feed? Let me know if you guys have any ideas.. I'll be talkn to some locals on their thoughts too.

~hhb

[craltal]

d-feed?

what type of gun are we talking about?

[HawaiianHorseBabe]

You guys were TOTALLY on the money about using a stubby! I played in the backyard with it yesterday and true to form it:

- Was louder
- Low velocity/quick falloff (40-50ft straight then downward)

It was able to break balls at that distance.
The results of each shot were repeatable so I guess some form of accuracy is there via predictability.

It was amusing! :p

~hhb