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

[MANN]

Finally got your SM-1 kit?


Styg

Not very pleased tho. After waiting 3 weeks i only recieved half of it. Im waiting on my big bore kit.

[StygShore]

Hb?

Anyone know if Sanchez had a booth at Hermosa Beach last week?

They are like 30 miles from there, figured it would be an easy setup for them.


Hope you get your bores, I thought about ordering another .689 bore its the only one I have thats pretty trashed from a previous owner. Sanchez service leaves a lot to be desired that's for sure. Hope the barrels performs as well as the few Sanchez barel owners I have talked to said it does.

I was going to order a new one then port the last inch of the tore up one I have and use it as a super short barrel on my Mini


Styg

[MANN]

I think I will have a spare. (If I get the second half) Ill let you know. I only need 1 .689

[StygShore]

Sanchez

Please do

Trying to find the Flame tips, and SM style barrel that doesnt use the hub as well - preferrably in Red with the window for the sizers.

I know SP did their usualy C&D Order or we'll sue you into oblivion thing on the windowed versions, but I occasionally see them around.


Thanks

Styg

[MANN]

SP patiented windows?? lol. I replaced all my 12 windows a couple of years ago. I hope they dont see.

[StygShore]

Indeed SP patented windows that show the barrel size on barrels... how sad is that


Styg

[billmi]

Now that's FUNNY! :rofl:

Firstly, the variations from one box of paint to the next will probably invalidate your test results.

Secondly, you can't be serious that you don't see the paint expense being far greater than ordering a box reballs.



Thing is, shot pattern of paintballs will be meaningless. Not unless you can show what part of the accuracy/precision is the fault of the paintballs.

My high school physics teacher used to love to tell this story.

A chicken farmer hired some engineers to build an automated chicken plucker. He paid a lot of money, and after a year they delivered a machine. He put a chicken in, started it, and it spit out a mutilated, partially plucked chicken carcass. He sent it back, and months later, the 2.0 model was shipped to him with different but equally ineffective results. After the third revision, the engineers finally cam out and asked to watch him test the machine. "Well there's the problem right there! Your chickens aren't spherical. We designed and tested based on an optimal spherical chicken model."

Testing with Reballs will do a great job of showing which barrel has the best accuracy with Reballs. Reballs are not paintballs though - they have different friction against the barrel - and in general tend to be more consistently spherical. Using them and then expecting the resultant data to apply to paintball use would be, as my high school physics teacher would say - "A spherical chicken assumption."

Taking multiple shots - the more the better - increases the size of the data set to overcome individual paintball variance, and provide a more realistic picture of true real-world performance.

It would, I expect, be a similar assumption to assume that one barrel performing best on an Autococker (closed bolt, poppet valve) means that it would also be the best performance on a DM (open bolt, spool valve.)

IMHO, Mann is very much on the right track.

[SlartyBartFast]

Testing with Reballs will do a great job of showing which barrel has the best accuracy with Reballs. Reballs are not paintballs though - they have different friction against the barrel - and in general tend to be more consistently spherical. Using them and then expecting the resultant data to apply to paintball use would be, as my high school physics teacher would say - "A spherical chicken assumption."

Cute story. But not particularly relevant.

When testing, you want to remove as many variables as possible. Out of round paintballs would be one factor you'd want to eliminate.

You may have a point that barrel friction is different for a paintball compared to a reball.

Now, if you don't eliminate roundness and weight differences, how do you propose to get a statistically valid data set that accounts for size and weight differences between paintballs, between boxes, and between batches?

Going to need a lot of paint....

[billmi]

Cute story. But not particularly relevant.

When testing, you want to remove as many variables as possible. Out of round paintballs would be one factor you'd want to eliminate.

I disagree. I would only want to eliminate out of round paintballs if I was trying to find which barrel was best - at shooting perfectly round paintballs. However, if the goal is to find the best for real world performance, out of round paintballs are a reality, and in my opinion is better to overcome the issues of their variance by shooting more of them - so one can get a practical picture of performance, than to shoot a non-paintball and assume that real paintballs will mimick its performance.

In fact, for even more telling data, it might even be worth sorting paint by quality and roundness and testing. It has been my observation (anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt) that Armson rifled barrels seem to do better with out of round paint than typical smooth bore barrels. If that is true, then a re-ball test would unrealistically rank them worse, than a real-world large sample paintball based test. Whether it be true or not, the paintballs are going to give a more telling picture of what to expect at the field.

Now, if you don't eliminate roundness and weight differences, how do you propose to get a statistically valid data set that accounts for size and weight differences between paintballs, between boxes, and between batches?

You answer your own question...

Going to need a lot of paint....

Always, the larger your data set becomes the more reliabile your conclusions become.
Even better when you get more people/labs running independent confirmation.

[MANN]

right now we have 25000 rounds of paint + 500 reballs

[MANN]

I finished the gun table today. Took a few shots and everything seems solid. Hooked up the electronic manometer, and was able to get readings. They were not consistant, but were registering. I used reballs and .696 barrel so that could have been the reason. the bore sight works wonderfully, and is a tight fit with # 9&10 orings installed. Im going to do more test tonight/make the target stand/paintball catcher. Test will be preformed saturday.

[Thanna]

Have you checked out the actual bore sizes for the sly kit yet? I'm curious to see what their mfg tolerance is. Not a bad looking rig. Hope the tests go well this weekend.

[MANN]

Have you checked out the actual bore sizes for the sly kit yet? I'm curious to see what their mfg tolerance is. Not a bad looking rig. Hope the tests go well this weekend.

Not had a chance to get data yet. I had to rebuild the marker table to insure that there is no recoil with the barrel/gun. The kapp drop that was previously used allowed the barrel to move a little. Here is version 5. versions 2,3,4 were all improvements, but still allowed the gun to viberate a little.

[MANN]

Alright guys I actually got to start the test today. Wow is there more involved then I ever imagined. To start things off setup took quit a while. We wanted to make sure we recorded every piece of data where everything was located so that if we needed to setup again we would know.

Here is what we did so far:
-We took a 25 ball sample of each case of paint to have weighed.

-We determined that the lenght of the barrel makes NO difference. We used Xball Gold (which I have to say is an awesome brand of paint) and shot it throught the same insert, and every different lenght of freak tips. There was no difference what so ever. The spread looked very similar

-We did a sound profile for each freak length when using marbilizer paint. It showed a little difference, but not much.

-We completely tested every bore in the freak system with a 14" front. We used 6 types of paint and reballs (reballs were only used untill .684iirc)

The paint used was as mentioned before Xball gold, marballizers, rec sport, heat, stingers, and some Monster Balls that has been sitting in my basement since December(and on Walmart's shelf for god only knows how long prior to that). This stuff has more dimples than a golf ball. This is I didnt order/pick up paint in time, and am having to use what I find on the field quality.

The testing today was very very long. It is taking us ~ an hour per bore to test 6 paints and reballs. Tomorrow we are going to narrow it down to 4 types of balls. There are a couple of reasons for this. Reballs are way too small to shoot straight out of anything bigger than a .682. Diablo Heat is also giving us alot of problems with its sizing. It is smaller than the reballs. I almost feel like we just got a horrible batch of it. I would guess that if/when I mic it it will be ~.66ish. It was consistantly off the wall inaccurate... The velocities were a crap shoot, and would usually be +- 75 fps than the previous/next type of paint with the same bore. The stingers were very similar to both the marbs, and rec sport so we feel that the other two will give general representation of it. Again we hate to eliminate any extra data we have, but we simply dont have time.

Today I counted, and we have 150 different bores (ie a sly kit has 5 bores, and a 1 piece barrel has 1 bore). While we are going to try our best to shoot through all it just isnt going to happen. We will probally pick ~ 3 bores from each kit to test 4 types of paint with. We are going to have more people participate tomorrow, and we will not have the setup time that we had today. I will try to start early, but started at 5:00 yesterday (its now 12:30 here). Im going to head to bead, and will post updates throughout the day tomorrow. If push comes to shove we will do a few test next saturday, but no promises. I have a Great Pyrenees that is expecting puppies in 1-2 weeks, and that takes priority.

Here is a few photos that were taken today before/during/after the test. We also recorded ~ 2hr of footage (2 hrs of me shooting a paintball gun. on/off of course).



"cleaning barrel station"



The gun setup



Evan and my wife Ashley. You can see my back half in the background



DJ pretending to looking important



Brandon transfering some of these pictures on the pc



Barrel table 2



Barrel table 1



Me (Josh/Mann) seting up the marker



What we are shooting at



What I see when shooting

[RA1N1ER]

cool

cool set up Josh.....

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