Dirty Dan's "The Different Diameter Conspiracy"

[Rather]

Great lets get in a huffy over that thousanthof an inch the companies bore out when smoothing out your barrel!

[Kodiak]

You know I've posted Dirty Dan's article to about 10 or 12 different forums. I love a spirited debate. I've seen some really good posts on both sides of the issue. 1 or 2 bad ones too, but mostly good. This particular topic has really go the "juices" flowing and ppl thinking. It's amazing how much ppl really know and share. Thx for all who've posted.

[Army]

and if you read the whole post, you will see that with a small ball and large bore, the ball bounces back and forth down the barrel. thus having a mismatched ball to bore size will affect accuracy... by how much i dont know. probably not much.

Which is why I keep several barrels handy to better size the bore with the ball size. If the ball is too small, I must use more gas to propel it since much pressure will escape around the ball. If the ball is too large, it will require much more gas just to poop it out the barrel since the ball must now overcome the increaseed friction. If it is a good match, my gas usage will be "just right", since the ball will neither stick to the barrel, nor roll out on its own, but give me enough seal for gas efficiency while keeping the friction levels manageable.

Dan is correct in that you COULD use one barrel for all your needs, as a big bore will shoot anything....not well, but anything.

Me? I'll continue to change barrels as needed for the inconsistancies in paint size.

[hitech]

Dan is correct in that you COULD use one barrel for all your needs, as a big bore will shoot anything....not well, but anything.

I do (use one barrel). The ONLY problem I have is a loss of efficiency as the paint gets smaller. Accuracy is not effected at all.

One other note. My observations seem to differ with the popular belief here regarding the amount of gas necessary. I have found that the looser the fit, the more gas necessary. The tighter the fit, the less gas necessary. The better seal appears to more than overcome the increased friction.

Another observation. The tighter the fit, the less consistent the velocity. The looser the fit, the more consistent the velocity. This does give some creditability to matching the paint the barrel. It's a compromise between efficiency and consistency. However, two or three different sized barrels would accomplish that.

[Jeffy-CanCon]

As a friend of Durty Dan's, I just want to say that I think he'd be pleased that one of his old articles is able to spark this much debate!