increased range idea

[laysomepaint]

the best way to get range is to turn up your velocity. The only other way is to put backspin on it, which is no good because its pretty hard to get a paintball to break on someone at the maximum range of a normal barrel let alone a flatline.

barrel kits, consistancy, good paint, etc...doesnt help range at all, just helps accuracy, which is more noticeable at longer ranges.

[warbeak2099]

Phyregod is right. The flatline is more of a support fire thing.

But what others are asking is how do we make a super accurate version? I don't think you can with spin. It makes the balls extremely susceptible to wind. Even the slightest little bit of a breeze will kill the flatline's already poor accuracy.

Shouldn't thicker fill balls be more accurate tho? The liquid shouldn't slosh around as much if it's thicker.

[TheTramp]

Phyregod is right. The flatline is more of a support fire thing.

But what others are asking is how do we make a super accurate version? I don't think you can with spin. It makes the balls extremely susceptible to wind. Even the slightest little bit of a breeze will kill the flatline's already poor accuracy.

Shouldn't thicker fill balls be more accurate tho? The liquid shouldn't slosh around as much if it's thicker.

Then you have to start worring about the impact energy. If the fill is thicker (denser) and still fills the ball then the ball will be heavier. Heavier + same speed = more impact energy = danger.

We're taking thick enough to make a difference in flight.

[warbeak2099]

Hrrm. I know! You have a ball withing a ball. Put a hollow sphere inside the paintball. Fill the area around it completely with thicker fill. That way there is less fill so it's the same weight, but it's thicker and the ball is totally full, giving no room for the fill to slosh around. I guess the fill wouldn't even have to be thicker since there's no room for it to slosh around. Then the ball would be light enough not to hurt someone, and there wouldn't be room inside for the fill to swish around. However, how the hell would you produce these?

Grrr, I guess they should just fill the balls totally full with thin fill paint. It's a thinner mix, but it can't swish.

[TheTramp]

Grrr, I guess they should just fill the balls totally full with thin fill paint. It's a thinner mix, but it can't swish.

No one will go for that because it'll be even easier to wipe then nornal paint.

[Speedballer666]

I dont understand how everybody says that a paintball cannot be spun because the fill inside wont spin with it, but everybody also acknowledges that flatline barrels DO spin paintballs enough to have an effect on flight...

[VFX_Fenix]

There are two things going here to answer that one.

FIrst, when most people are talking about generating spin, and when TK did his stuff, they were investigating Rifled barrels. That is spin with the axis parallel to the direction of travel.

Simply, there isn't a practical way to generate enough rotation to stabalise a ball in flight to effect accuracy/consistancy of the ball as in actual firearms which use rifled barrels.

Second, the Flatline barrel generates spin on the ball perpendicular to the direction of travel (which gives the ball lift). Because of the way to Flatline is designed it can get the ball to rotate backwards at hundres of RPMs which is sufficient to effect flight characteristics.

The raw-egg analogy doesn't work though since paint is significantly thicker than water, especially tournament filled paints like Chronic 420 and Hellfire and paintballs actually spin quite nicely on a tabletop with a little twist of the finger and thumb. Granted the center is still liquid and will have some lag time between when the shell starts to spin and when the fill spins, however people seem to get the impression that any ammount of spin placed on the shell of a paintball equates to the fill remaining completely motionless. Spin a glass of water on a lazy susan and it too will start to move with the glass if given long enough to start moving. The smaller the vessle is the less the lag time between the inital spin direction and duration (impulse) and when the liquid in the middle spins with the vessle, this is because of the surface area to volume ratio. The smaller the item the more surface area it has proportionally to its volume (this is why the smallest mammal in the world is the size of a vole and not an ant and why Hummingbirds need to intake so much energy all the time). A textured shell, like the Advantage shell used by RPS/PMI, will also help to decrease the lag time between when the shell starts spinning and when the fill spins with it.

As things stand right now there isn't a practical way to give a large enough impulse to a paintball to get it to gyroscopically stabalise with a rifled barrel and this is what people refer to when they make the "raw-egg" analogy. The Flatline and Hop-Up barrels can both effectively impart spin uppon a paintball because they can spin the ball hard enough and long enough (sufficient impulse) for the ball to maintain the imparted spin.

However with any barrel that's designed to impart backspin on a paintball there is one major problem, and that's propper allignment of the barrel when installed on the gun. The only reliable way to ensure this allignment is through clamping systems. Also there are ways to generate back spin with a straight barrel (the Hop-Up barrel proved that to any who doubted) however they would be difficult to manufacture.

[Target Practice]

And so it begins.