Originally posted by Gman
As for the poster who said that all guns have the same range due to physics: WRONG!
At the muzzle if you have 5 guns shooting 300 fps exactly, I'll show you 5 guns that have completely different trajectories as well as ranges. My autocockers with a carter stainless barrel = very flat shot, and will fly at least 30 feet farter than my intimidator with a rifled smart parts barrel as an example. The ball will retain energy once leaving the barrel DIFFERENTLY depending on a great number of factors, but most importantly the brand of paint, it's size (.689 to .692 typically when measured with a micrometer), the barrel surface and rifling, and how it interacts with each individual make of paint, and the air pressure of the valve and how IT reacts to the impact the blast of air will make on the ball in the breach.
I'll hafta call roadkill on this. On a coupla points at least. First off unless there's been some stuff done very lately, there's never been a single emperical test which shows that rifeling has ANY impact upon a paintball's flight at all. In fact, there WERE tests which show that rifeling seems to impart NO noticible spin whatsoever. Along those lines (and in response to Steve's comment) it wasn't so much the rifeling of the barrel that made the difference in real firearms as it was the shape of the bullet used in a rifled bore.
Trajectory? Unless you point the gun at a higher angle, all guns will shoot at the same trajectory. As soon as they leave the barrel, no matter what barrel, there are only two forces working on the paintball: momentum and gravity. At 300fps out of the barrel the momentum is the same for every one. And unless some magic guns can conjure up a localized low gravity field, gravity works the same on every paintball also.
Fancy grooves, ports, coatings and hype can't overcome the laws of physics, no matter how much paintballers who've spent alot of jack on their gear would like them to.
Two paintballs of equal size that are matched to their barrels will both travel the same distance at the same trajectory, no matter what gun or barrel they came from.
My $150 Tippmann .68 Carbine / J&J Ceramic combo with meticulously matched paint has exactly the same range/trajectory as does my $600+ SuperNova. Both have exactly the same range/trajectory as my buddies heavily tuned 'Cocker. And our other friends Automag and his Angel. (Well, within about a foot or two at least, as the ones that use a paintball at the small end of the diameter have just the tiniest bit less air resistance.)
Modas, shootdown is a different variable. A gun doesn't HAVE to shootdown. If it does that's a tuning problem that can be overcome (usually.)
