Barrel test----- I have a few more questions/ need paint suggestions

[MANN]

cool set up Josh.....

I was wondering about the performance of the Matchstik barrels.
Good luck with the testing, Have a nice Easter weekend.

havent used it yet. This is taking a crazy long time. so far 5 kits tested

[Tao]

havent used it yet. This is taking a crazy long time. so far 5 kits tested

Hey keep up the good work. This project should go a long way for many people!

[MANN]

Hey keep up the good work. This project should go a long way for many people!

I hope so. 32 bores down ~63 to go. Guess the easter bunny will have to visit me here.

[cyberave68]

WOW MANN the set up is pretty impressive. Looks like you'll be spening the night there just to finish :rofl: Cant wait to see the results(And get my barrel back )
Have a Happy Easter...

[Thanna]

Hehheh. Happy Easter . Good luck on the rest of your tests. Don't lose my kit either Take care

[MANN]

Hehheh. Happy Easter . Good luck on the rest of your tests. Don't lose my kit either Take care

Your barrel. I dont have yours.

Anyone want to buy a 16" sly. LNIB.

[bryguy27007]

Wow, that set up looks awesome.
That would be very time consuming, but it is nice that you are doing it just out of curiosity.
I am going to love seeing the data when you are finished.

[MANN]

The test is not over. Not even close. We will have to continue next weekend.

Alright here is what has happend so far, and the next steps that we are going to do. Please note that sometimes I just copy and paste from other forums so sometimes I act like I am repling to someone, and you may have no idea what I am talking about

I sorta forgot about Easter this weekend, and had to quit early to do the family thing (didnt bother me tho we worked from 5am-1am friday, 8am-11pm saturday, and 6am-4pm today sunday) This testing process is very time consuming, and I hope that it is worth it at the end.

Some of the reasons that we are having problems is that we are shooting 100 balls through each bore of each kit (4 types of balls). We change targets after every 25 balls, and check where the barrel is aimed with the bore sight at the begining and end of each type of ball. We are marking where each individual ball is hitting the target so that we can compare the velocities with the shots. This has been key as some of the "wild ball" shots have been velocity spikes that were probally caused by less than spherical paintballs.

We have shot reballs at the beginning of each day thru .679 insert, and our velocity on the xmag only deviates ~+- 5bps. This should indicate that the gun is doing fairly good.

Just off the top of my head we have tested the following kits: sly, stiffi, ccm (all cf), kaner, empire 7pc kit, freak ss (with all fronts), pps brass, matchstik. I know we did more, but am kinda blank now.

At the start (day1) we were doing almost 200 balls per bore, but had to lower it due to time restraints.

So far I have made a few observations, but please keep in mind these are not backed by data (yet) This is just from what I have seen sitting behind the marker

PPS brass-scale 1-10 I would give it a 7. It shot many diff bore paints, and shoots all equally. It is not by any means as accurate as some barrel kits, but defiently an all around good single bore.

Hammerhead- ummmm. ahhhh. welllll. hmmmm. I havent seen anything to make me think I am going to keep it yet. It does seem to be consistant with every bore regardless of paint (ie you really dont have to match paint to bore), but not nearly as consistant as the pps.

Carbon fiber kits- There was not a huge difference in them. (not really suprising) I am sure the data will give a better understanding of this later.

freak ss, matchstik, empire 7pc - all seem decent, but none have really stood out to be superior to any other

kaner- I didnt finish this one completely. We kept having breaks. I got a little frustrated with cleaning out the barrel every few shots, and decided to call it a day before loosing my mind.

I have had a few request to list a paypal for donations so here it is. [email protected] . Any/all donations are appriciated. I will provide data regardless of recieving any money, but anything to lessen the 85.00 that we spent on paper targets alone this weekend would help.

Here are some pics of some of the progress.


Some pics of the first type of targets. (we went thru 3 150' rolls of brown paper, and then switch to pre cut graph paper. Man do I wish I knew of it earlier)


Pics of the second paper, and my device that replaced us having to use a staple gun. We had at least 10lb of staples on the "target holder" before I thought of this.


These are my anti loss pod devices. Basicly some type of industrial enamel spraypaint that I put on all my pods/loaner tanks so that I can easily spot them on the field. It withistands being shot, and works great.


Pics of us sorting used paint. Nick is on the right, and Brandon and Evan are on the left.


Me waiting on the target to be setup.


Finished table. (ie barrels/bores that have been already done)


My paintball catching device. We recovered quite a few paintballs, but sorting/cleaning sucked bad.

Edit:
We will be finishing the kits next weekend, and also doing a shoot thru test. This being where we will break 2 paintballs inside the barrel, shoot 5 shots to clean out the bore, and then record the rest of the shots.

Edit 2: Just fyi. The paint that we are currently using is xball gold, marballizer, rec sport, and what I call the christmas crud. It is monsterballs that I got around christmas from walmart, and have had sitting in my basement eversince. (ended up getting better paint at the time) This stuff looks like eggs, and has more dimples than a golf ball. It has been awesome watching it shoot, and has imo seperated the good and bad barrels.

[varq]

anyone try the lapco snapshot set?

[emumikey]

I donated money. Since I am officially a stake holder...I DEMAND RESULTS!!!!

But seriously, when are you looking to wrap this bad boy up?

[ricwhic414]

MANN
I think you are doing a great thing here and I am very excited to see what the data says about some of the barrel kits... Now I know you already have a ton of things to test but I wanted to know if you are testing any different barrel tips for some of the barrel kits as in a stiffi tip, I am not sure of any other tips out there but I was just wondering if you had any stiffi tips to see if those helped on the performance at all.
Keep up the good work.

[madcrisis]

you should test an endgame compression barrel. i love this barrel and in my opinion shoots just as straight as any other barrel kit.

[MANN]

anyone try the lapco snapshot set?

I havent. If you have one and can get it here by saturday I will test it.

I donated money. Since I am officially a stake holder...I DEMAND RESULTS!!!!

But seriously, when are you looking to wrap this bad boy up?

LOL. Thanks for the donation. It defiently helps a ton. As of last weekend we have spent~200.00 on paper targets alone.

MANN
Now I know you already have a ton of things to test but I wanted to know if you are testing any different barrel tips for some of the barrel kits as in a stiffi tip,

Thanks for the encouragement. We have a stiffi front that we are testing with a pipe kit to see if there is any difference.

you should test an endgame compression barrel. i love this barrel and in my opinion shoots just as straight as any other barrel kit.

If you can have an autococker threaded one to me by sat we can test it. This weekend will be undoubtly the last weekend of shooting.

Sorry to all for not updating this more often. I sorta forget about what forum I have posted on untill I get the friendly reminder from the subscribed thread read it, and realize I havent given an update.

I would also like to note that this is on amost every paintball forum (roughly the 20 I know of) and some/all have different info/views about the test. I know there are roughly ~400post on pbn, and quite a few on specops, mcarterbrown, pbreview, etc, etc.


We worked last weekend friday 6pm-8pm, saturday 8am-3am, and sunday 10am-730pm.

IIRC this weekend we finished the following barrel kits
Phat
TI Longbow
Scepter
JJ Edge
Dye ULs/Boomstick/Xcel
Custom Products
Mcdev Matchstik
Freak Alum
Lucky Un1tec
Empire Revolver
hmmm. It seems like there were more, but maybe not.

My scubas were low(after providing air for 20k shots I was suprised they had anything left) and we were tired so we decided it would be best to finish next weekend.

We also were able to weigh all the backs/fronts/inserts. Those results were rather intersting on one or two kits. (Ie usually the smaller bores were heavier than the larger bores; as they should be due to having more material. This was not always the case). We went through 250 more sheets of paper for the targets, and ~ 4 cases of paint. We also were able to collect data for the sample balls that we saved. (5 out of each bag/20 from each case). We weighed, and measured all of them.

All we have left for the actual accuracy testing is pipe, sanchez machine (If I get the the second half of my kit that I ordered/paid for in on March 8th. Its not the color I wanted ), redz, and ~8 misc/stock barrels (xmag stock, proto stock, triliogy stock, etc,etc) There should only be 20 bores left (Ie 80 more targets/1 case of paint).

We plan on getting started again early next saturday, and preforming the "shoot after a break" test afterwards. Everything has to be finished next weekend as I am expecting puppies (10-12 Great Pyrenees) on the 21st (next sunday), and will have to attend to them.

After mulling it over I think I have finally decided what I think is relavant to post as far as results. Please give me feedback/your .02$ on this.

I will post for each kit/barrel:
--- weights
--- dimensions
--- sounds
--- All envionmental conditions (temp, % humitidy, elevation, etc)
--- I will list what bore of each kit passes the "blow thru test" for each type of paint (as this is what the majority of us do when we play). I will post the result of that bore along with the most accurate bore's results for each kit (it may be the same for some barrels). I will include velocity data with each. This should cut down on time for me to get the initial results out. Ie it will only be 8 accuracy results per kit (as apposed to 4 results per bore per kit. Ie for the freak alum kit there will be 32 results). I will finish all of the, but dont think people want to have to sort thru~ 600 sets of target that we currently have.
--- I am going choose the top 2 bore/s and paint/s that preformed the best for each kit. I am going to use those to conduct the "accuracy after a break" test. (Basicly I am taking 2 paintballs, and cutting them in half, and cramming them down the back of the barrel. I will then install the barrel on my marker, and shoot 5 balls to "clean" out the barrel (these shots will not be recorded). After that we will shoot ~ 25 balls, and record them as we did with the accuracy test).
--- Video & Pics of setup/testing as time allows (again. We have ~13.5 hr of footage right now, and expect more. Most are in 2 min clips of the target when I shoot the marker)

And some pics just to change the scenery.





These are all pics of what I refer to as christmas crap. We purchased some monster ball paintballs from Wal-Mart sometime last Dec. It was opened, and later dumped into a 5 gallon bucket. It has sat there ever since, and is in horrible condition. I swear that one is going to curve around to hit me, and I am standing behind the marker. It flight path is nothing shy of hilarious.



Pics of the best hopper ever made. The old viweloader 2000. Painted yellow of course so I dont loose it. The greatest thing is I dont have to hear it spin/turn it off after the paint is gone. (that almost killed me last weekend)

[Smoothice]

I will post for each kit/barrel:
--- dimensions

Will this be what the actual bore size is compared to what the manufacturer states the bore size is?

[MANN]

Will this be what the actual bore size is compared to what the manufacturer states the bore size is?

yes. While we have already measured this with calibrated calipers (first page) it has been brought to my attention that this is not the correct way to measure the internal diameter of a cylinder (although this is the way the EPA regulates emission controls). We are aquiring more accurate measurement tools to remeasure all the dimensions of every barrel/bore.