Barrels 101

A barrel is the most important upgrade to your gun that you can make. I get hundreds of emails regarding which barrel is the best. Any barrel we sell is better than most stock barrels. Now, what makes a good barrel?

Smooth The smooth and straight surface on the inside makes up a large part of your barrel's accuracy. Stainless barrels, and just about any barrel with a special coating on the inside are virtually frictionless. This makes for a very accurate barrel. Of course, porting, bore size, and length can play a great role in the accuracy of your barrel too. Porting Porting is helps a great deal on any barrel. This much is clear as just about every manufacturer ports their barrels these days. When a paintball is fired, the gas expands rapidly behind the paintball. The paintball does not make a perfect match with the barrel and some gas escapes the barrel before the paintball flies right into the head of your… oops teammate! Quick, hide behind your bunker before he sees it was you! This effect can create a turbulence that the paintball is forced to fly through. Non-ported barrels can send a paintball off into la la land every now and then as some of you might have noticed when your teammate walked off the field cursing rather loudly. Here is where the porting comes into play. As said before the gas expands rapidly behind the ball. The porting vents the air out right after the ball stops accelerating in the barrel and prevents the turbulence effect. An added bonus is porting makes the barrel a lot quieter. Bore Size The bore size of a barrel refers to the inner diameter. Paintballs come in all sizes, and a small bore paintball should be shot through a small bore barrel. Large ball to large barrel and so on. An easy way to test if you have the right fit is put the ball in the barrel, and try to blow it out. If it shoots out, you're match is perfect. If it barrel moves, the bore is too small for the paintball, or the ball to big for the barrel. If it roles, out, vice versa. Most the barrels and paintballs are medium bore. The Mysterious 18 incher The longer the barrel does not necessarily mean the more accurate. A 12" barrel is usually very similar to a 16" barrel of the same design in accuracy. Now, the difference is YOU, the player. Most people, whether or not they realize it sight by the tip of their barrel. The longer the barrel, the more "on target" it will be when you point your gun giving you the illusion of thinking your longer barrel is more accurate. A side note, it is good to have several different barrels to accommodate for changes in weather (hot, humid weather makes paintballs swell, cool weather will shrink them) and varying paintball sizes.