Ok, Paintball Flight Experts, Lend Me A Hand..

[Army]

Nope, won't do a thing other than allow the ball to go as straight as any other barrel.

The ball is never a perfect seal, hence, air is already blowing past the ball as it progresses down the barrel. If there is nothing to physically alter the balls path, it will exit in-line, regardless of where you direct the air.

Your theory is along the same lines as the bolt design that directed the air burst to the bottom of the ball at the start. It was thought to spin the ball at launch. With small paint and a big bore, it would accidently work on occasion, but there was no accuracy, efficiency, or enough success to make it viable.

The ball is still the one equalizing factor in this game. Regardless of how you launch it, or what you launch it from, it is still an imperfect sphere that will surrender to the will of physics and atmospheric conditions during its flight.

[OysterBoy]

Ah, thank you very much. Pretty stupid idea to begin with :o

[athomas]

Its good you are thinking outside the normal box.

In theory it may work a bit, but only on a short barreled gun where you have enough escaping gas to effectively alter the path of the paintball upon exit from the barrel. Practically though, on most barrels, the air pressure behind the ball is very low when the ball actually exits the barrel. There wouldn't be enough energy left to alter the direction of a moving object with the mass of a paintball.

The operation of the flatlilne barrel is a good one. It is an idea that was taken too far though. A more gentle curve might have yielded a more usable barrel design. You would give up the uber range but it would be more manageable. Pick up an extra 50 ft maybe without problems with barrel breaks or uncontrollable skewing. Like Blazestorm stated, the idea works. It just has to be managed better.

[the larch]

Oysterboy. If it was a stupid idea, I wouldn't have seen at least 7 or 8 smart people try the same darn thing in the last 12 years.
Heck, I once even glued skirts to my paintball with the idea that it would track like a badmiton birdie when I shot it. (had to muzzle load the thing into my trracer). The idea was that I would get one great "sniper shot" from ambush before I had to start pumping like crazy to "get the rest of em." It worked about as well as you might think it would....

[Eric Cartman]

If you're looking to create backspin on the ball, have you thought of trying to create some friction on the ball at the top of the barrell? I'm thinking something like a very thin layer of rubber (like condom thin) affixed to the inside of the top of the last couple of inches of the barrell. I have no idea how you'd get it in there so it wouldn't bunch up, get shot out of the barrell or just break balls, but it seems like it would create backspin if you could figure out how to do it.

... or I could just be doing the Ace Ventura thing and talking outta my ***

:o

[OysterBoy]

Heh. I tried that one, sorta, but even before hand knew it would create nothing but breaks. One thing that did work somewhat was when I taped a feather to my barrel and used wire to affix it in place. It seemed to work, but wouldnt be conventional in a game.