Accuracy of the mag question.

[chafnerjr]

Alright... I'm no speedball'er but I'm no newb by any means either. However, I have question that I am sure some of you out there have some info about that I don't:

My brother-in-law Mike (who got me into Mag's) is having an on-going argument with one of his 5-man teammates. His teammate throwing a fit that mag's are simply too inaccurate to be let on the field in a five man tourny. I should mention that Mike is playing on an AGD Tequila Sunrise E-Mag with X-Mod, and his other teammate an X-Mag. Their teammate is pushing them to get a protoge, or an ego or other similar marker setup to improve their accuracy.

Now to be fair he's not saying that the mags have no accuracy, but that they are not as accurate as the latter. So what's the deal on accuracy and why? Is there an accepted/argued list of markers by accuracy? As far as I know a cocker is still the most accurate, right? This question is mostly academic.

Thanks for any input

[FiXeL]

Well, how do you define acuracy? The gun? The barrel? Consistency? You can get any gun to shoot acurate if you put on a good barrel, a HPA/regulator system and good paint.

There is no most accurate paintball gun. It is made up out of multiple factors like the mechanical workings of the gun, barrel, paint, personal prefference, etc.

[chafnerjr]

Fair enough... I should have put in that the complainer is talking specifically about the shot on shot accuracy of the mag's bolt. I think I'm bringing up the venturi myth again perhaps? He's talking about the mag's in general with respect to the bolt. Both of the mag's I'm referring to use X-Valves. Crossfire regulators (850 PSI) and have XMod 1.8 beta. Both use DW fibur barrels. The X-Mag has a Tuna blade trigger, and the Tequila a Fireblade trigger but have no further modifications other than standard tuning variances. The X-Mag is a c&c and the Tequila Sunrise is just that... the one of 25 Tequila. This is in comparison to a stock ego or protoge at say 50 yards.

Basically I want to know if there is any comparison, and am looking for arguing points if the variances are so low that tuning is the only difference. In that case imagine the perfectly tuned versions of each marker when making the comparison.

Thanks!

*EDIT* I just realised that you should imagine that the comparison markers are using the same barrels and the same paint. If the diffrence is still personal playing style, then what style might suit each in relation to speedball only.

[FiXeL]

I'm no speedball player, neither do i own guns that would be considered high-end at the moment. But, i do own alot of mags including 2 Xmags, a Etac, Pneu-tac, some mags, a cocker, a VM-68, X7, Phantom and a few more.

Now compared to all of the guns that i have, and have owned, is a mag accurate? I say it's great, but maybe not the best. But for my needs it shoots great. (woodsballer) A good barrel will make a world of difference, but that goes for most of the guns out there. If you take gas efficency into comparison, a mag won't do much better than a Tippmann. You won't get great efficency with a mag, always has been, and probably will stay that way. But if you shoot only 500 rnds max. during a game, is there a difference besides the times you fill up?

I think that this should not be the reason not to use a mag. Sure, you can get guns that shoot 2000 rounds of a 68/4500 and shoot just as good. In the end i think it just boils down to personal prefference. I personally don't like the new guns, too expensive to buy new, horrible resale and with the guns that i own i have just as much fun as owning a high end.

Now do i play speedball? No. Do i play in competitions? No. So why should i spend a load of money on a gun, while i could be having just as much fun with a outdated cheaper gun?

My guns are accurate enough for my needs, why spend more on the latest and greatest? If you were playing on a high level, sponsored team, entering the big events, then i would say it justifies you getting the top end gun. But if you don't? Just stick with what works and don't spend too much on your gun.

[RavishingEddie]

The whole purpose to having a mag is to show how accuracy and reliability come from quality.
I had an emag and my friends also had Egos and a DM7. The ego was lighter, faster (better trigger, easier to walk) and more air efficient. However, the mag had excellent consistency and had a nice flat trajectory, and if the game is capped at 15 bps the speed factor becomes negligeable. In terms of accuracy well let me give you an example.

Me (Emag) with my friend (DM7) vs. Friend#2 (07 Ego) and Friend #3 (07 Ego).

Off the break my friend with the DM7 is eliminated. So it is now a 2 on 1. I sprinted and made it to the 50 tall can. Friend #2 is at the 30 to my left behing the car wash, Friend #3 is backman at the 10 tall can my mirror. They are both shooting at about 15bps with good accuracy to both sides of my bunker. I start shooting at friend #2 and keep him in the car wash then I switch and start snap shooting with Friend #3. I shot 5 times and Bam! hopper hit. Friend #3 eliminated. Then I turn and see friend #2 getting ready for a run thru and as soon as my mag spots his head,Bam! head shot. He then sticks hand out and bam! bonus ball to his finger.

If that isn't accurate to you then I don't know what is.

Fair enough... I should have put in that the complainer is talking specifically about the shot on shot accuracy of the mag's bolt. I think I'm bringing up the venturi myth again perhaps? He's talking about the mag's in general with respect to the bolt. Both of the mag's I'm referring to use X-Valves. Crossfire regulators (850 PSI) and have XMod 1.8 beta. Both use DW fibur barrels. The X-Mag has a Tuna blade trigger, and the Tequila a Fireblade trigger but have no further modifications other than standard tuning variances. The X-Mag is a c&c and the Tequila Sunrise is just that... the one of 25 Tequila. This is in comparison to a stock ego or protoge at say 50 yards.

Basically I want to know if there is any comparison, and am looking for arguing points if the variances are so low that tuning is th only difference. In that case imagine the perfectly tuned versions of each marker when making the comparison.

Thanks!

*EDIT* I just realised that you should imagine that the comparison markers are using the same barrels and the same paint. If the diffrence is still personal playing style, then what style might suit each in relation to speedball only.

[chafnerjr]

That's kind of what I was thinking about (referring to the post from both of you). I brought the air usage into question and that's the only solid difference over weight I can find, which is somewhat personal preference anyways. I know that weight can affect your ability to spin and snap on target should someone jump behind you. In any event these guys are not nearly at the level of even getting sponsors for paint let alone markers. I just wanted to know if there was a huge difference that I was un-aware of.

As for my input... I've only played on high end mags and cockers. Never any of these ego's or the like. The resale value is crap... utter crap in fact. So crappy that I might just have to pick up something electronic as a backup because I can't afford to have $#!tloads of high end mag's kicking around. So I wasn't able to really speak about it without asking here first. I'm glad to see that I wasn't missing something huge.

Def. good point about the barrels as well! The difference I saw when I moved to a 14" DW fibur was pretty significant coming form my JJ which kind of surprised me. To be fair it was probably the freak inserts that made the difference. However, the practically non-existent weight changed my snap shooting ability drastically. Being a rec player (not specifically woodsball either) I've had to cut down what used to be my standard 3 shot snap shoot down to one or two shots because I don't feel like shooting rec players three times Weird that a barrel can help me conserve paint

[chafnerjr]

AKA Viking?

So this might be a bit of a change of topic, but since we're talking gun differences and build quality a bit... what's the deal with the AKA Viking. I've seen the reverence with which they are treated in this forum but I don't know a damned thing about them. Hell I've never even seen one, and I've seen a lot of guns. What's their story?

Thanks for all the great input guys

[Strider]

My emag can bend the space time continuum and turn back time it's so accurate.

Heck, same can be said for my "Pumpmag of Death" as it was known for quite some time.

[Baranha]

I love Fixels Answer.
good job, pretty much took the words outta my mouth

[dstud2000]

AKA Viking. Very well built and solid electro. Extremely reliable, great air efficeincy, can probably keep up with anything made today. Unfortunately not made anymore, thanks SP

The AKA Vikings and Excaliburs were probably the best electros of their time next to the Emags and Xmags with the added bonus of great air efficiency. There is enough material on the stock vikings to really do some awesome milling to and can be made to be very light. I'm sure some others will pipe up to that know more than I do about them.

[warbeak2099]

Accuracy is determined by the paint you're shooting and the barrel it's coming out of. Have Mike tell his teammate that he doesn't know crap about anything.

[Thotograph]

"Don't believe the hype" - Flava Flav

Team Mate X is too caught up in the marketing BS to know the difference. Someone should tell him to lay off the aggsauce

Like my man Chuck D said... Because quality always shoots straight, ya heard?

[DevilMan]

Seems pretty simple test to me.

Take the same paint and the same type/size barrel and put the guns side by side on a bench holding them still and shoot 10-30 balls each and watch the pattern. Then do it at a longer distance. And let that decide.

Chances are good it'll be a "tie" or close to it. Or just take and put 2 pie plates up at a distance and see how many out of XX balls hit it. Same thing. But bench the guns to take the human factor out of it.

The other thing you can do is set both guns up the same and play 1 on 1. Play 5 games. Then switch guns. Play 1 on 1. 5 games. See what it comes out as. NOW yes the guy trying to prove his point could sandbag and play stupid and get shot out easily and blame it on the gun but then he'd also have to admit he's a loser.

I like my mags.

DM

[Hilltop Customs]

think about this for a second.....

if two markers consistently fire a paintball @ 300fps, where is a difference in accuracy generated?

only job of a paintball marker is to take a paintball, put it in a tube and release some gas to propel the ball down the tube. If its consistent in the amt of gas released(velocity), then accuracy is only determined by paint and barrel.....of which paint is the main determining factor.



My marker is more accurate than yours!




moral of the story, get the marker your most comfortable with...because if your comfortable you will be more consistent in your shooting

(waits for someone to say "marker X" doesnt have kick so I can slap them in the face with a physics book)

[ThePixelGuru]

Sounds like his teammate ate a whole marketing sandwich - hook, line and sinker.

In terms of accuracy, markers can really only affect the speed of each shot (I hate using the term "velocity" because velocity includes a direction, which markers don't do). If the marker puts the same amount of air behind each ball, that shot-to-shot speed is going to be extremely constant. Other than that, the bolt can have a tiny effect, but it's something like an extra 10 feet of distance when using a Cooper-T backspin bolt or the like. If an undershot bolt has that little effect, a bolt with three evenly spaced holes vs. a eight evenly spaced holes vs. one big centered hole is probably going to matter far less than a butterfly flapping his wings somewhere near the field. Air's behind the ball, ball goes. It's not rocket science.

If your brother-in-law is a good shot and wants to shut his teammate up, just find a chrony range with some nice small targets set up a good distance away and have a shooting competition. Something like twenty balls each, most hits wins. I know I can hit a milk jug a hundred feet away just about every time. I'd have a hard time believing gelatin spheres get much more accurate than that.