carbon fiber barrels?

[paintslinger]

i've been in and out of the sport recently. i come back and i see all these markers with carbon fiber like barrels. whats up with that folks? care to fill me in?

[magman007]

carbon fiber barrels are light and straight shooting?

[Enemy]

plus they look cool??

[SlartyBartFast]

They're light, they look cool, and they'll shoot as straight as any other tube.

Bonus for the manufacturers: Probably cheap as all get go to make and players are crazy enough to pay a premium.

[purple]

they're okay, i have a ccm carbon graphite kit 14''. not much better than anything else i've shot. i guess i got suckered in by the hype and thought 1 inch sizers make a difference


Purple

[yakitori]

stiffi mamba switch kit rocks my socks. Better than any other barrel kit Ive used, although I havent really put a lot of paint through it yet.

I love stiffi barrels. Thats would be all I would use if given the choice and funds.

[Dryden]

Carbon fiber barrels are light ... rediculously light. That's it.

They're also more expensive and more difficult to care for. You cannot (well, should not) use anything other than a rubber or silicone squeegee on a CF barrel, otherwise it voids the warranty, if the barrel even has one. Fibrous materials, like battle swabs, can cut grooves into the carbon fiber and even rip out pieces of the barrel from the area around the barrel porting.

The two major vendors of CF barrels right now are Stiffi and CCM, but they're actually the exact same product, made by the same companies, just with a different look. Both brands of barrels have their carbon tubes rolled by a company named Site, Inc., while CCM handles all the aluminum work. CCM's does have a better warranty, but thats the only difference vs the Stiffi.

CCM has a carbon/graphite composite barrel in production, which will have the same external appearance but be far stronger and not suffer wear from carbon breakout, making them safe for any type of squeegee or battle swab.

IMHO, carbon fiber is the current fashionable placebo. By the time you get one, being this late to the game, everyone else will have moved onto The Next Big Thing(tm).

[VFX_Fenix]

Insanely light, durable, and EXPENSIVE!!!! at least on the buying end. As far as barrels go, I don't like CF as a barrel material since part of the purpose (to me) of the barrel is to help ballance the gun and add mass to reduce felt recoil (I know, I know, with the markers on the market today recoil isn't THAT big of an issue). I owned a Stiffi for... eh... a month, used it on my Cocker and, yes, it shot better than my SS Long Shot, TASO Pro serries, J&J Ceramic, and even my stock barrel (all of which were too big) with the paint I was using but I felt like I was missing my barrel all the time (rather disconcerting).

[yakitori]

how is anyone having to "mess" with thier barrel all the time. All you do it unscrew it and screw it in and clean it. Actually the silicone squeegees are great because they are soft (good for your pocket), they are cheap, and they clean very effectively. I wouldnt use a battle swab on my aluminum barre either because most ppl get sand/dirt in them and then swab thier barrels. And that isnt good either.

Nobody has mentioned how quiet stiffi barrels are compared to others. Or how they recover from a barrel break better than other barrels.

And yes it is w/ any product in paintball. It is the next big thing but that doesnt mean it isnt good. I know from experience they are some of the best barrels out there.

[zeroack]

I've been running a CCM carbon barrel set for better then a year now. I love it. The only problem I've had is ONE of the inserts sticking.(the other inserts are fine and a dab of oil fixed it sticking) That was no fault of the carbon fiber. It's light and on some markers will throw your balance off for a bit until you get use to having it on. If you have the means to get one do it. You won't regret it.

Zero

[68magOwner]

i shoot a J&J edge kit (new style with the preety tips), teammate shotos a stiffi switch kit, both on the same model marker, mine is more sonsistent by a good +-8 fps (i get +-2, he gets +-10 with the same paint), which, could be accounted for by my more broken in regs, but, i guess ill have to try his kit on my marker. His marker is not noticiably lighter at all, i suppose its as nice as any other kit, but, not worth any extra $ imo

[Lohman446]

Nobody has mentioned how quiet stiffi barrels are compared to others. Or how they recover from a barrel break better than other barrels.

I haven't seen any proof to this. I have heard a lot of people say "this cleans so good" etc. - but I beleive them to be biased. I would want to be able to justify my purchase as more than fashion and weight too. I personally feel the best cleanign barrel I have used is the old one piece zero gravities. I think people who use the poison arrow system beleive theres to be the best cleaning. I would like to see actual evidence - quantitative not qualitative, that proves these claims.

[SlartyBartFast]

I would like to see actual evidence - quantitative not qualitative, that proves these claims.

Hope you're not expecting to get that proof anytime soon.

It amazes me the magical properties that people will believe barrels posses. The elves, gnomes, fairies, and other mythical creatures inhabiting barrels are matched in number and power only by those that affect the physics of projectile flight in "closed-bolt" markers.

[FireITup14]

i always thought they were stronger but my friend stepped on his 16" stiffi and it broke and caved in.

[Lohman446]

Hope you're not expecting to get that proof anytime soon.

It amazes me the magical properties that people will believe barrels posses. The elves, gnomes, fairies, and other mythical creatures inhabiting barrels are matched in number and power only by those that affect the physics of projectile flight in "closed-bolt" markers.

You'd be surprised at what people will beleive. I was at the field one time and took out my STAINLESS freak kit. It just so happened the owner wanted to sell an order of the same kits that he had ordered with mine. I broke a ball in it, left it there, and targeted a barrel some distance away - pretty soon (about six shots) 90% of the balls were on target with a few wingers. I offered anyone else to try it with whatever they shot, noone wanted to because they for some reason perceived this was exceptional (ok.. I may have hinted that it was by saying wow, or some such thing ). Someone else may have commented on the incredibleness of stainless steel at doing this (and I didn't even ask them to, its how hype starts ) Sold a lot of stainless freak kits that day.

Funny thing is, later in the day, on my own, I did the same thing with a one-piece aluminum barrel. The point is this... your exactly right. Sometimes paintball players don't think through what they say, here, see in a quantitative manner. Its harder to BS with comparable quantitative measurements. Its very easy to do with qualitative measurements, or with non-comarable quantitative measurements.

Too much of our review of equipment is based on qualitative analysis done by a baised source. When quantitative measurement is done a lot of things that everyone assumes are true because they have heard and "seen" it themselves are disproven.