Low-friction or high-friction paintballs?

[Hamster Huey]

So I've been distracted at work by the idea of paintballs with low-friction shells vs. paintballs with high-friction shells. Which one would be ideal?

Low-friction shells would presumably have the benefits of 1) more rapid, reliable feeding, and 2) greater air efficiency due to reduced friction in barrels (less air needed to accelerate the ball to a given speed).

High-friction shells, however, would have the benefit of being more likely to break upon striking a glancing blow on a target. This would be due to a high-friction shell generating greater shear forces upon impact than a low-friction one. I'm not sure how significant this would be in gameplay, but I can't count how many times I've skipped shots off of people's hoppers or masks (or shots have skipped off of my own mask or hopper).

So given these two extremes, which do we feel is more desirable?

[ramsee1]

Physically, what constitutes a low friction or high friction shell? Do you mean the surfaces would be different?

[Hamster Huey]

I imagine having different surfaces would be the only practical way to achieve different coefficients of friction.

Short of altering the composition of paintball shells (I don't know nearly enough about paintball engineering to go there - anyone else?), one could probably achieve greater surface friction by imparting a slightly rougher finish to the shell. Obviously, this couldn't be anything drastic like golf ball dimpling :eek: , but I think something on the order of, say, the texturing on the plastic of your computer box could be achieved.

Come to think of it (the golf ball thing brought it to mind), a high friction surface might have yet another benefit: reduced aerodynamic drag. In the same way that golf balls and sharkskin use a "rough" surface to reduce drag, a slightly textured paintball might be gifted with increased range. Hmmm....

[ramsee1]

That's really funny you brought up the golf ball comparison, I've heard that before. I personally would love to see someone try that. Why hasn't it happened? I have been told it would be too expensive to produce. I'm not really sure what the cost would be to cut new steel with the dimple pattern for the molds. I think I'll go place an order for my camoflauge pom-pom hat and knickers. ;)

[PyRo]

AGD tried the dimple thing, and it didn't work.

[Hamster Huey]

We're not talking about dimples, though. Drag reduction could probably be achieved with much less. But drag aside, there's still the issue of high friction vs. low friction. Let's go back to that; I'm curious what people have to say.


p.s. Pyro - do you have a thread/link about the AGD "dimple trials"?

[ramsee1]

Yeah for curiousity sake I'd love to see how that went too.

[alany]

A higher friction shell might reduce glancing bounces. But I think it would also increase barrel breakage. Personally I'd rather have a few shots bounce than have more breaks in the barrel, so I would choose low friction.