Hammerhead barrels, and their lies!

[Miscue]

Rifleing: Added physical distance? Not really nominal, but it does look like it... The way the tips are designed with a larger diamater and a very minimal twist with the rifleing DOES seem to stableize the ball at all ranges, but namely across the field.

How is this even possible? You said yourself that the tips have a larger diameter (Surprise surprise! Just like every other 2-piece!). Last I checked, rifling has to come into physical contact with the projectile to work. I don't even have to bring up whether or not rifling actually improves anything... there is this mentioned problem that precedes the whole issue.

Let's look at this situation: Ball is .689. Rifled tip is... let's guess .695 (I dunno what it is exactly, it's irrelevant anyway...).

How does this work?

What I find absolutely hilarious... or maybe more so... pathetic... is... this thing has like a 2" control bore, or something really short. The rest of it is just a barrel tip. Yet... people still defend it... and have no idea how ridiculous it is to do so.

[Miscue]

The rifeling of the barrel comes into contact with the paintball- hammerheads have been thrue much R&D about how much spin to put onto the paintball to get it to do what it needs to, to become more accurate and I guess distance.

How is this possible if the rifled tip is a larger diameter than the paintball?

What kind of R&D? If they had done any, surely they would have noticed that the hole is bigger than the ball.

[CodeMA]

not nessarily... I didnt say the rifleing is working in the sence that it adds distance... but it does stablize the ball, which is what a tip does in the first place via the use of air...

I just know the barrel shoots great I cant explain all the physics behind it... just logic...

[Jack & Coke]

Q, if a company came out with a quartz crystal embedded barrel, and told people that their balls would hit their target on time, ya think there would be a few people who would "get suckered into it" too...?

[Jaan]

Q, if a company came out with a quartz crystal embedded barrel, and told people that their balls would hit their target on time, ya think there would be a few people who would "get suckered into it" too...?

You wouldn't even have to go that far ... tell people the barrel is magnetic, or just tie a magic red string around it.

[Miscue]

not nessarily... I didnt say the rifleing is working in the sence that it adds distance... but it does stablize the ball, which is what a tip does in the first place via the use of air...

I just know the barrel shoots great I cant explain all the physics behind it... just logic...

No no no. Geezus. You're completely missing the point.

I want you to think about this for about 10 minutes: Big hole. Little hole. Let's try one more time. Big hole. Little hole.

Ok. Little ball fits in little hole just right (the supposed goal of barrel/paint match). Does the little ball fit just right in the big hole? Nooo. That's why it's the "big" hole.

Now if it doesn't fit right in the "big" hole, and the rifling in the big hole does not come into contact with the little ball, what does this particular "rifling" do exactly?

"Just logic," you say? Wow. I believe we have opposing views on what logic means.

[Target Practice]

Wow, I can't believe that you people are arguing about this crap. Let's not ask "Does it work in paintball?", but rather, "Why doesn't it work in paintball?"

Since I spent my three days of...uh..."forced vacation" out at the range, let's look at this from where the idea rifling comes from: guns.

Okay, for those of you who don't know how rifling works:

The actual caliber of the bullet is the outer diameter of the rifling (which is measured from the bottom of what is called the groove). That means that the inner diameter of the rifling, which is smaller than the bullet,measured by the top of the land, digs into the bullet, which is maleable, and imparts spin.



Now, imagine a rifled paintball barrel. Assuming a perfect paint-to-barrel match, due to the material qualities of the paint, the ball would not touch the grooves, it would only touch the lands. There is nothing to dig into the ball, therefore, there is nothing with which to impart spin.

In this picture, you can clearly see where the rifling has dug into the bullet (shiny part), and where grooves are located (dark part).



So, why can't we have rifling in paintball? For a few reasons.

1) As stated, the material qualities of the paint prohibit true rifling from working. Even if true rifling was present (which it isn't), there would be nothing to grab onto, therefore, there would be no spin imparted.

2) The spheroid isn't a very conducive shape to accept spin. As you can see by putting a ball in your barrel, you will notice that it only touches in two very small points. Even if it were a perfect sphere, it would only touch in a perfect ring that, when extrapolated into a plane, is perpendicular to the barrel axis. This contact area consists of a negligable amount of surface area. This is why bullets are shaped the way they are (among other things). Even though everyone knows what a bullet looks like, I'll include a picture of several anyway.

(Picture to be uploaded)

3) Even if you could get the rifling to dig into the bullet, and you changed the shape of the bullet in order to have more contact with the barrel, the velocities are low enough that any practical amount of rifling/twist would have a negligable difference on performance. True and effective rifling in paintball ain't gonna happen.

Myth: Busted

Edited for more Mythbusting.

[Automaggot68]

Holy Crap. Best post Ev4r.

TP : 1
Morans : 0

[Lohman446]

Miscue, TP... you guys just don't understand the argument that is being made, it requires two things and the people have basically said it.

Ignore the quantitative analysis based on actual controlled and recorded testing shown in deep blue and the base physics that prove paintball spin does not work. They think this system is so much better, so it must be. Its logic after all, there qualitative perceptions are so much more accurate than that testing and of course this thing can defy all base principles of physics. You're reasoning is just illogical apparently... I don't know, I have no clue what they are basing the argument on, but it is getting umm, interesting

[Mike Smith]

Now if it doesn't fit right in the "big" hole, and the rifling in the big hole does not come into contact with the little ball, what does this particular "rifling" do exactly?

All I want to know is how does Miscue get the paintball to levitate through 12" of barrel, without touching the sides of the barrel, after being violently launched from a 2" launch pad? Does his barrel use magnets to achieve that feat?

My experiment with my Hammerhead induced small scratches on the paintball. I'm thinking if the paintball surface is scratched, it would break easier, thus giving the impression that it will travel further. {Or your balls bounce on me, but my balls break on you.} Does my gun shoot farther than your gun? {Yes, I have been cronoed on a few occasions, based on my range. The people seemed surprised that I was around 260-270}

Buit what do I know... I've only been shooting the Hammerhead for the past year, and haven't touched my Lapco, Dye, or original crown point since I bought the Hammerhead. I must be so gullible...

[Lohman446]

Buit what do I know... I've only been shooting the Hammerhead for the past year, and haven't touched my Lapco, Dye, or original crown point since I bought the Hammerhead. I must be so gullible...

You said it...

[Mike Smith]

You said it...

Yep, I'm nobody. I've got no game...
You can safely ignore me on the field.

[billmi]

Myth: Busted

Edited for more Mythbusting.

To be entirely off-topic for a moment....
A couple of months ago, one of the PAs from Mythbusters called and spoke to my wife, researching special effects spark balls. It will be interesting to see what pans out from that.

[Lohman446]

Yep, I'm nobody. I've got no game...
You can safely ignore me on the field.

I don't recall saying or implying that. Your post indicated that you were gullible to the hype of the hammerhead barrel - which I agreed with. I never mentioned your game or anything of that nature. Does the hammerhead barrel shoot well? Probably. Does it shoot better / more accurately / further because of rifling and spinning the paintball? Base physics and previous controlled quantative analysis of spinning paintballs clearly says no.

[RRfireblade]

I think everyone in this entire thread is missing the point,well Target Practice got close...

Instead of arguing the pros and cons of spinning a paintball, let's start at the basics:

Does a Hammerhead Barrel consistanty "Spin" a paintball?

For years people thought Armson barrels applied spin to a paintball, most people still do.The spiraled rifling originally WAS intended to do just that but we learned quickly that it's simply not cabable of applying any practical spin due to the lack of engagement of the ball to the rifling and the max speed of the ball in relationship to the amount of rifling twist in the barrel. And IMO, the Armson has the best rifling you could have to acheive that effect, it's nothing like a Firearms rifling.

The Hammerhead rifling simply can not do what they say it does. It CAN NOT vary the amount of spin down the length of the barrel and IMO it simply can NOT apply any measureable amount of controlled spin to a paintball...period.

Forget the "spinning does this...." arguements and simply show it spins a paintball in any controlled, consistant manner and then we can go from there.

Should be simple right? You can not tell me that all the supposed years of R&D to achieve the 'Magic" number in relation to spin and rifling didn't produce one single string of slow motion pictures or video...can you? But yet Hammerhead appears to have none.

Think about it.