Can rifled barrels really make paintballs spin?

[ghost flanker]

I've had this burning question for a while now and I just have to know... Can spiral rifled barrels induce a significant spin on a paintball?

Tom Kaye (along with everyone else) seems to think that paintballs are too resistant to spinning due to their gooey fluidal center inside the shell. If this is true, then how is it possible for the Tippmann Flatline barrels to put a backspin on paintballs so effectively? Could barrel length make a difference with rifling? Could different kinds of paint make a difference (thick vs. watery)?

[ThePixelGuru]

Read. Learn. Enjoy.

[ghost flanker]

Read. Learn. Enjoy.

I've already read it. Yeah, accuracy won't be improved cuz they're so light, but he was never actually able to test whether or not rifling could spin a liquid filled paintball. I guess it's a pointless question at this point, but eh...

[FARMER00]

yes a rifled barrel can produce a significant spin on a paintball. My cousin was the local rep for diablo paintballs he actually designed a rifled barrel for diablo but they never released it its sick i have it on my tippmann

[coyote]

Heres an easy way to judge the spin impated be a barrel. Break some paint in the barrel. Shoot a ball through it. Remove the barrel and examine the streaks. They are staight, they don't follow the rifling. thats because the paintball doesn't follow the rifling either.

Metal bullets benefit from rifling because it actually cuts into the lead. If you damage a paintball shell in the same fashion it will likely break.

[shades]

Paintballs are balls they are not connical shaped like a bullet. plus they are full of liquid which takes longer to get up a spin. Hence rifling a barrel is worthless. If you impart a spin like a baseball where it is spinning prepenidular to the direction of travel. Then you can get some wicked air time or curve. Hence barrels like the Flatline, Glactic Z body, the Apex barrel.
Why Does this BS Hang on Year After Year.
oh OH ! Lets discuss open bolt Vs closed Bolt. or barrel length or woods vs speedball or my personal favorite Marker sites.

[usagi_tetsu]

ghost flanker - no... no... no... no... no... No.

shades - dear god, turn off the sarcasm and don't encourage them!

[ThePixelGuru]

The simple answer is that, no, rifled barrels just can't cut into the paintball enough to produce a significant spin. Even if they could, they wouldn't spin it fast enough to gain any significant accuracy advantage.

[FARMER00]

yes a rifled barrel can produce a significant spin on a paintball. My cousin was the local rep for diablo paintballs he actually designed a rifled barrel for diablo but they never released it its sick i have it on my tippmann

didnt you read ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ there will be no spin in a small barrel but the one I have ^^^^^ is 22 inches that is why it works

PS. if you dont know what your talking about dont post....please

[matt-o]

didnt you read ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ there will be no spin in a small barrel but the one I have ^^^^^ is 22 inches that is why it works

PS. if you dont know what your talking about dont post....please

you never said your barrel was 22 inches in that post.

anyways i watched a video where they slowed down the video while shooting from a rifled barrel vs. a non rifled one and it actually did spin the shell more (maybe not the paint, inside). whether it makes any difference at all in accuracy i dont know.

from toms tech tips "In order to test this properly we actually developed a gun that spun the barrel, with the ball in it, up to 30,000 RPM's and then shot the ball out." ----- way to be thurough tom!

[DoomWithAnXmag]

blah

A: Flat line back spins a paintball because when the ball reaches the end of the "ramp" in the barrel the top surface of the ball has a greater amount of force against the top of the barrel then the bottom does and the ball "drags" causing it to back spin. Yes it does something, No it is not even close to a consistent effect.

B: Rifled barrels will not work on paintballs at this time for several reasons including
1: Paintballs shells are too inconsistent as far as surface hardness and the lans and grooves really cannot penetrate into the ball shell applying force to it as they do into a lead or copper jacketed bullet.
2: Paintballs are not bullets, They are not bullet shaped, They in no way act like a bullet. The spherical shape of a paintball is as we all know very irregular. To take advantage of rifling the barrel has to contact the projectile on all sides with equal and constant force.
3: No matter how much rifling you use a paintball has a very inconsistent and fluid density. Even if you were to spin one with anything close to a controlled rotation the second it left the barrel the uneven weight distribution inside the ball would make it want to wobble and change direction. We wont even get into once the ball leaves the barrel and how the air acts upon the irregular shape of the ball.
4: Because the ball is irregular any rifling will not only act upon the horizontal/ lateral circumference of the ball to spin it but will also create uneven drag upon that same circumference to make it pitch from side to side and up and down. The ball would have to touch the inner circumference of the barrel with exactly the same pressure all the way around the ball evenly or any side with more force will drag and slow down compared to the opposite side with less force and drag making the ball pitch. Even if you could do this the irregular and changing weight distribution inside the ball would make it pitch anyway most likely. The uneven weight if a paintball makes it less accurate as it is imagine if it were spinning with any sort of velocity and that weight was magnified several times.

C: Why some barrels DO work. As we all know paint matching makes the ball go further straighter and guess what!? used less air doing it. Why? Paint matching minimizes the gap between the ball and barrel and reduces the effect of air pushing past the ball in effect speeding up that side of the ball. The less gap around the ball the more evenly the air is applied to the back of the ball which also makes it move straighter through the barrel. This reduction is wasted air that passes the ball in the barrel also leads to increases in efficiency. All this means basically one thing. Imagine a line through the middle of the ball from front to back inline with the bore of the barrel. The more the ball moves through the barrel keeping this line parallel to the center line of the barrel without it also spinning the straighter it will fly when it leaves the barrel. Why does this work good for paintballs and not so great for bullets? Well, because a bullet is oblong and will want to tumble unless spun. It will actually fly fairly straight if fired in the manner of a paintball but only .... well about as straight as a paintball does which for a bullet is far too inaccurate to be of any use at the distances they travel. What this comes down to is the method of making a paintball go straight works yes but not very well. It is only acceptable with paintballs because the resulting accuracy is adequate for the distance a paintball travels and what it is used for. As the sport becomes more demanding the level of accuracy we can achieve will become more and more unacceptable. Another reason some barrels work better is the inner surface. The smoother the surface the less drag it has on the surface of the ball. The less drag it has the straighter the center line remains as it moves through the barrel and the straighter it will fly when released.

D: The BS about barrels and what does what.
1: Long barrels mean SQUAT sorry guys that's the truth. In a smooth paint matched barrel the first 4-6 inches are what is doing all the work and although increasing this effective length some in some situations may have a SLIGHTLY greater effect depending one the balls the barrel the weather the type of gun the amount of air it uses in one charge the way it applies the air to the bal blah blah blah the effects are all but inconsequential. There is also a perfectly equal change under any given set of variables that same effective added length will have an equally negative effect on accuracy. Since a paintball marker uses a force of air to push a paintball (really what happens is the air is released into the empty volume behind the ball and as the air expands it creates a area of high pressure compared to the area on the other side of the ball. This makes the ball of course want to travel to the low pressure zone, some markers do work is a slightly different way) the further the ball moves the greater the volume behind the ball and the more the force pushing it will decrease. Since the force on the opposite side of the ball is constant at some point the ball will stop accelerating or even slow down. The trick is to get the ball moving in as straight a path as possible as quick as possible using the least amount of air then leave it the heck alone. Once inertia has it moving is a straight path at the peak of its velocity the ideal situation would be to hack off the barrel at that point and let it go. This distance happens to be about 5 inches. If you had an unlimited volume of air to push the ball a long barrel may yield some additional accuracy but it would be minimal and inefficient. Modern markers use a very small volume or air. This means the distance the ball travels before the force acting on the ball is reduced is also very small. I use one barrel on all my markers. A Freak back with a one inch tip. The entire barrel is about 5 inches long and easily every but as accurate at any distance as any barrel I have ever seen.
2: porting. Porting does one thing. It makes your marker more quiet. That is it.


Some things to keep in mind. Once the ball is moving in the desired path (about 5 inches into its travel) Anything it encounters is bound to change its direction. If the barrel is longer wether smooth or matched or not any time it touches the ball it will change its path and cause it to pitch. If the barrel is ported wether smooth or matched or not that porting is a variable that is changing the barrels drag on the ball and changing the force of the air charge in the ball. When it comes to paintballs SIMPLE is better. Buy the smoothest matched barrel as close to 5 inches as you can (unless of course you want the length to push around bunkers or through brush) and use it. If you need quieter gets a ported barrel. If you don't need quiet get an un ported one. If you want super accurate 100 meter shots buy a 30/30 :o)

I hope this has helped.

[Aslan]

too short

Nice post.

I would disagree about the 5" barrel being as accurate as a 8-16" barrel. I believe the paper/post that Tom wrote regarding air pushing the ball out of the barrel found that, on Mags, a 6-8 inch effective length was ideal. Since most 12-16" barrels have a 5-10" effective length, a 5" barrel might be cutting it a little too close.

I have always had the best luck with 14-16" ported barrels...but that's just my experience.

[benzy2]

You can spin a ball and it can affect where the balls ends up but it doesnt increase accuracy. It may put top spin on it orside spin or what not. It can change where the ball lands but it is no more accurate at putting it in this new spot than without the spin on the old "normal" flight path. Trying to spin a ball like a bullet to increase accuracy has shown to be a worthless effort. Spinning a ball like the flatline or apex has shown to work but again is questioned on how beneficial it really is.

[FARMER00]

A: Flat line back spins a paintball because when the ball reaches the end of the "ramp" in the barrel the top surface of the ball has a greater amount of force against the top of the barrel then the bottom does and the ball "drags" causing it to back spin. Yes it does something, No it is not even close to a consistent effect.

B: Rifled barrels will not work on paintballs at this time for several reasons including
1: Paintballs shells are too inconsistent as far as surface hardness and the lans and grooves really cannot penetrate into the ball shell applying force to it as they do into a lead or copper jacketed bullet.
2: Paintballs are not bullets, They are not bullet shaped, They in no way act like a bullet. The spherical shape of a paintball is as we all know very irregular. To take advantage of rifling the barrel has to contact the projectile on all sides with equal and constant force.
3: No matter how much rifling you use a paintball has a very inconsistent and fluid density. Even if you were to spin one with anything close to a controlled rotation the second it left the barrel the uneven weight distribution inside the ball would make it want to wobble and change direction. We wont even get into once the ball leaves the barrel and how the air acts upon the irregular shape of the ball.
4: Because the ball is irregular any rifling will not only act upon the horizontal/ lateral circumference of the ball to spin it but will also create uneven drag upon that same circumference to make it pitch from side to side and up and down. The ball would have to touch the inner circumference of the barrel with exactly the same pressure all the way around the ball evenly or any side with more force will drag and slow down compared to the opposite side with less force and drag making the ball pitch. Even if you could do this the irregular and changing weight distribution inside the ball would make it pitch anyway most likely. The uneven weight if a paintball makes it less accurate as it is imagine if it were spinning with any sort of velocity and that weight was magnified several times.

C: Why some barrels DO work. As we all know paint matching makes the ball go further straighter and guess what!? used less air doing it. Why? Paint matching minimizes the gap between the ball and barrel and reduces the effect of air pushing past the ball in effect speeding up that side of the ball. The less gap around the ball the more evenly the air is applied to the back of the ball which also makes it move straighter through the barrel. This reduction is wasted air that passes the ball in the barrel also leads to increases in efficiency. All this means basically one thing. Imagine a line through the middle of the ball from front to back inline with the bore of the barrel. The more the ball moves through the barrel keeping this line parallel to the center line of the barrel without it also spinning the straighter it will fly when it leaves the barrel. Why does this work good for paintballs and not so great for bullets? Well, because a bullet is oblong and will want to tumble unless spun. It will actually fly fairly straight if fired in the manner of a paintball but only .... well about as straight as a paintball does which for a bullet is far too inaccurate to be of any use at the distances they travel. What this comes down to is the method of making a paintball go straight works yes but not very well. It is only acceptable with paintballs because the resulting accuracy is adequate for the distance a paintball travels and what it is used for. As the sport becomes more demanding the level of accuracy we can achieve will become more and more unacceptable. Another reason some barrels work better is the inner surface. The smoother the surface the less drag it has on the surface of the ball. The less drag it has the straighter the center line remains as it moves through the barrel and the straighter it will fly when released.

D: The BS about barrels and what does what.
1: Long barrels mean SQUAT sorry guys that's the truth. In a smooth paint matched barrel the first 4-6 inches are what is doing all the work and although increasing this effective length some in some situations may have a SLIGHTLY greater effect depending one the balls the barrel the weather the type of gun the amount of air it uses in one charge the way it applies the air to the bal blah blah blah the effects are all but inconsequential. There is also a perfectly equal change under any given set of variables that same effective added length will have an equally negative effect on accuracy. Since a paintball marker uses a force of air to push a paintball (really what happens is the air is released into the empty volume behind the ball and as the air expands it creates a area of high pressure compared to the area on the other side of the ball. This makes the ball of course want to travel to the low pressure zone, some markers do work is a slightly different way) the further the ball moves the greater the volume behind the ball and the more the force pushing it will decrease. Since the force on the opposite side of the ball is constant at some point the ball will stop accelerating or even slow down. The trick is to get the ball moving in as straight a path as possible as quick as possible using the least amount of air then leave it the heck alone. Once inertia has it moving is a straight path at the peak of its velocity the ideal situation would be to hack off the barrel at that point and let it go. This distance happens to be about 5 inches. If you had an unlimited volume of air to push the ball a long barrel may yield some additional accuracy but it would be minimal and inefficient. Modern markers use a very small volume or air. This means the distance the ball travels before the force acting on the ball is reduced is also very small. I use one barrel on all my markers. A Freak back with a one inch tip. The entire barrel is about 5 inches long and easily every but as accurate at any distance as any barrel I have ever seen.
2: porting. Porting does one thing. It makes your marker more quiet. That is it.


Some things to keep in mind. Once the ball is moving in the desired path (about 5 inches into its travel) Anything it encounters is bound to change its direction. If the barrel is longer wether smooth or matched or not any time it touches the ball it will change its path and cause it to pitch. If the barrel is ported wether smooth or matched or not that porting is a variable that is changing the barrels drag on the ball and changing the force of the air charge in the ball. When it comes to paintballs SIMPLE is better. Buy the smoothest matched barrel as close to 5 inches as you can (unless of course you want the length to push around bunkers or through brush) and use it. If you need quieter gets a ported barrel. If you don't need quiet get an un ported one. If you want super accurate 100 meter shots buy a 30/30 :o)

I hope this has helped.

B: How can you know this if youve never tried the barrel

D: I have a 16'' All American and my friend has the 12'' in the same barrel. Mine is more accurate then his and believe me ive used both on my marker..

wat do u have to say to that?

[ThePixelGuru]

B: How can you know this if youve never tried the barrel

D: I have a 16'' All American and my friend has the 12'' in the same barrel. Mine is more accurate then his and believe me ive used both on my marker..

wat do u have to say to that?

I've had people swear up and down their long barrel shoots farther than my short one and that they wouldn't have believed it either if their friend hadn't benchmounted a marker and shot balls farther out of the long barrel than the short one. And I have the same thing to say to them that I have to you - that's gotta be crappy testing. If your marker defies the laws of physics, test it again. Your 22" rifled barrel cannot spin balls faster than 30,000RPM (in fact, very well under that especially after the immediate reduction of spin once the ball gets out of the barrel) and there's no accuracy gain at speeds under 30,000RPM, as proven by Mr. Kaye. Also, why would your longer barrel possibly be more accurate than a shorter one? Can you offer any reasons to back any of this up? How about any evidence? Have you even done any real testing or is this another case of someone slapping a longer barrel on a marker and suddenly percieving it to be more accurate? You're offering us no proof here, and right now it's your word against countless tests and the laws of physics. You'll have to understand if we're a little skeptical.