So why .68 Caliber?

[Mr.Danger]

They also make .50 paintballs for the blowgun crowd and 6mm paintballs for the airsoft guys. PMI is also introducing a .55 paintball and .55 version and the Black Maxx called the Sport Shot. Apparently they're hoping to create a "spin off" of sorts and make Sport Shot paintball's little brother.

[slade]

what i heard is .68 is more likely to break, smaller calibers break less often and get more bounces. my guess, if that is true, (aka, pure speculation) is that they just chose .7 for simplicity for machining the ID of markers, and used .68 balls so they would be slightly undersized. or metal tubes could have commonly had an I.D. of .7 (since it would appear most earlier paintball markers werent machined out of aluminum, but made out of brass tubing)

[fuzzy_cheesecake]

EDIT: im an idiot, and missed that bit while skimming threw, read post #16, you'll all get it.

[MoeMag]

When they first started trying to make a paintball, the guys doing the molds for them could only find a .68 ball mill in the shop. And so it began.

btw im not kidding, or at least this is what ive read, so take it with a grain of salt. i'll update my post if i can find an article on it.

Dude, post #16...

The ORIGINAL paintball marker...
1956

(marker is on top, the pellet gun it was derived from is on bottom)

Good reading an theory about first paintball, link to site...

http://www.pettypb.com/707/

"Supposedly, the first paintballs were made in wooden molds with wax shells and oil based paint. I have heard rumors it just happened that the mold was approximately .68 cal because that's the size of ball-end mill he had sitting in the tool box. "

The quote at the end is a excerpt from the link in the post...http://www.pettypb.com/707/

[paint magnet]

Wow, that's a year older than my car

It's a wonder it took people nearly three decades to realize they could shoot each other with these things

[ahellers]

it 68 because soccer moms would have a hart attack if it was 69
t

[nate2k191]

I've heard that paintballs are 68 caliber because that's the same size as those bath bead things. They were manufactured on the same machines.

so has anyone bought those bath-beads and shot them before? haha, i bet they'd smell better.