A paintball marker's barrel is one of its most cruicial components. It carries and guides the paintball while being accellerated up to its final velocity by controlling the burst of pressurized gas behind it. Many factors influence the performance of a paintball barrel, but there are other factors that don't affect performance.
- Listed below are the major factors that differeneitate barrels from one-another. Each of these is described in further detail down the page.
- Barrel length
- Barrel bore size(s)
- Barrel material
- Amount of barrel porting
- Type of porting pattern
- Internal rifling
- Type of honing process
Ultimately, the most common question with players is "which barrel is best?". As with many other factors, this question has no simple answer; in fact many aspects of a barrel are purely cosmetic or influence convenience more than accuracy or consistency. Generally, almost all aftermarket paintball barrels will perform the same, and many stock/factory barrels will also perform the same too. This issue is explained in further detail below.
Paintball Accuracy:
The question of how to obtain an accurate barrel is certainly the most common issue asked by players. Unfortuantely one of the main purposes of this tech article is to help dispell the rumor that different paintball barrels are more accurate than others. This is one of the oldest items of aftermarket hype surrounding barrels and manufacturers, but it's also one of the worst marketing lies within the industry.
At the time this tech article was written, nearly every paintball barrel is manufactured virtually identical to others; they are all micro-honed on the inside surface to a high polish. This smooth surface finish is one of the only factors that influences accuracy, and almost every barrel under the sun is created with the same inside surface. The differences between manufacturers are too imperceptable to create any noticeable difference.
In regards to accuracy from shot-to-shot, the most influencial factors are the marker's regulator consistency and/or the consistency of the paintballs being used. Those two factors will combine together to create the most noticeable differences in shot-to-shot accuracy. If your marker experiences "bad accuracy" either you have a defective barrel or the paint/regulator is to blame. Barrel length, porting, material, bore sizes, and other factors have no influence on accuracy.
Barrel construction: (one-piece, two-piece, inserted, etc)
Barrels and barrel kits have a few different design aspects that influence their outer construction. The most obvious factor is whether the barrel consists of one solid piece of material or two pieces that are screwed together. Often, two-piece barrels consists of "back and front" sections, where the barrel back is tighter in bore size compared to the barrel front. Most barrel kits consist of multiple backs with one front, but some barrel kits consist of multiple fronts as well.
One-piece barrels are common with cheaper markers, but this doesn't necessarially mean they perform worse. Usually a factory one-piece barrel will consist of a short-length single bore size with minimal porting. The short length and lack of porting create a loud-sounding marker that is more difficult to aim. When this factory barrel is swapped out for ANY aftermarket barrel with more ports and a longer length, the difference is very obvious and easy to notice just by virtue of the outer shape and ports.
Some multi-bore kits consist of barrel inserts that are installed into the barrel back, thus making a three-piece barrel. These are the most common types of barrel kits due to their ease-of-manufacturing, but they don't perform any better or worse than a barrel kit consisting of multiple barrel backs rather than inserts. In some ways the insert is more fragile and easy to damage due to being a thin-walled component, but this factor will vary from player to player depending on how you care for your equipment.
One major advantage of a barrel insert kit is their ability to function with any marker using the same barrel threads. One kit of inserts can function with any marker so long as you have a new barrel back that can thread into the different marker body. In today's age, most markers use Autococker barrel threads, but you could also use an insert back for a Spyder, Tippmann A5/X7, or Impulse/Ion/NXT/Luxe threads. This system allows the same insert kit to be shared between any of those markers, whereas otherwise the kit of barrel backs could only be utilized with the specific marker made to utilize them.
Insert-based barrels can be one-piece or two-piece. Example would be the Freak barrel (two-piece) or the Deadlywind Whisper barrel (one-piece) which also accepts Freak inserts.
Material:
Barrels have been made out of a large variety of materials over the years; including aluminum, brass, carbon fiber tube, ceramic, plastic/polymer, stainless steel, titanium, glass (for show purposes), plexiglass, and perhaps some others. The most noticeable differnce in these materials is their weight, durability, and ease-of-manufacturing. Additional features may include the barrel's color (whether or not it can be anodized).
The most common barrel material is and has always been aluminum. When anodized, it's durable enough to avoid common damage, however very easy to manufacture in its raw form, while also being relatively lightweight. Aluminum barrels can also be anodized into any variety of colors/patterns. Sometimes aluminum is used as the core to a barrel of another material, such as the J&J Ceramic Series.
Stainless steel is another popular material for barrels. It's heavier which leads to a more stable shooting platform, and it's also quite a bit more durable compared to common aluminum. Stainless is more costly to manufacture and can only appear as one color (shiny silver). Many two-piece barrels used in the past consisted of a stainelss back with an aluminum front, since the front can be made to match the marker's color scheme and be lightweight, not having to worry about being as durable.
Other metals include titanium which is able to be machined to a thin structure, yet still weighs more than aluminum. Titanium is occasionally used as a barrel material in limited situations where the manufacturer wanted a "prestigious" and highly valuable barrel, however it's DRASTICALLY more expensive to machine so it carries a high cost. Another limited-edition barrel type is brass which is heavy yet soft. Brass was used as a barrel material in the past (1990's) but is uncommon in today's industry. Brass barrels will tarnish over time, which requires periodic cleaning to maintain the yellow appearance.
Plastic barrels are common with very cheap markers, but perform the worst out of all materials. In contrast, carbon fiber tube is also used for barrels which is a more reliable material, however carbon fiber tubes are less precise compared to any machined metal bore so consistency from barrel-to-barrel is more questionable. Carbon fiber barrels are noticeably weaker than aluminum and can shatter if a strong enough impact is done to them. However, they are drastically lighter compared to any metal barrel, which makes them more common for "ultra-light" markers.
Barrel length:
Without other information, your brain may tell you that a longer barrel will be more accurate and/or shoot further. This is true to a point, but not for the reasons you may think; there's no inherant physical reason that a paintball will be more accurate from a longer barrel. The trajectory will be identical if the same paintball velocity is used. The only reason somebody could claim a longer barrel will be more accurate is because the added length is almost always easier to aim by the player currently holding the marker. It becomes a more subjective variable, but it's noticeable.
Barrel length also has some ergonomic factors attached to it. A shorter barrel may be useful if the player is tucked in tight behind cover, while as longer barrel is easier to wrap around large air bunkers and can stick through brush and against trees with greater ease.
Commonly, most marker barrels are around 14 inches in length (approximately 35 centimeters). From a performance standpoint, longer barrels will often require additional air pressure to accellerate the ball to the same velocity, so eventually a longer barrel will lead to slightly decreased efficiency. The same can be said for shorter barrels because the short bore doesn't provide enough space for air pressure to fully-expand behind the ball, again leading to lower efficiency. This is the reason most manufacturers have centered around 14 inches, simply because it's a close average to the ideal efficiency and ergonomic length. In today's market, efficiency is not always a primary concern depending on the cost for air fills; in those situations the barrel efficiency has no bearing on performance.
Bore Size:
Another areas of rumor surrounding barrel construction consists of matching bore size with the paint being used. This variable has some aftermarket hype surrounding it because the practical benefits of bore-sizing don't often include increased or decreased accuracy. There are three possible combinations of bore sizing:
Bore matching: The act of matching barrel bore size with the paintballs being shot. For example, shooting paintballs measuring 0.689 through a barrel also measuring 0.689 inches.
Overboring: The act of using a barrel bore size larger than the paint being shot. For example, shooting paintballs measuring 0.689 through a barrel measuring 0.693 inches.
Underboring: The act of using a smaller barrel bore compared to the paintballs fitting through it. For example, shooting paintballs measuring 0.689 through a barrel measuring 0.684 inches.
Between these three methods, the biggest performance difference is air effiency. The paintball's trajectory has very little if not any change as a result of using a tighter or looser bore.
When following the bore-matching method, paint is intended to be just a tad smaller than the paintball bore. The ball shouldn't roll out on its own, but a gentle puff with your mouth can push it through. Bore matching was touted as a major factor of increased performance with the advent of barrel kits and insert kits, but it was later tested and proven that accuracy is not higher when bore matching. However, bore matching can lead to good air efficiency while being relatively gentle on varying paintball sizes, which makes it a common practice between many types of players.
When overboring, you specifically want paintballs to roll out the barrel. This action allows the greastest reliability on the part of varying paint sizes and shell thicknesses, which is the reason that many factory/stock barrels use a larger bore. When firing fragile paint, you might not want to risk a larger ball getting cracked as it travels through the barrel, which is less likely to occur if the barrel bore size is sufficEfficiency larger than the average paintball size. Efficiency sometimes sees a decrease, though, because gas is allowed to escape around the ball as it travels down the barrel. The practical benefit of decreased efficiency depends on your price for air fills (free air = who cares).
When underboring, the paintballs are physically squeezed through the barrel and they are not allowed to roll out on their own. This has one main benefit: increased air efficiency. Many barrel bore kits make use of this quality because a barrel bore measuring around 0.002-0.003 inches smaller than the ball size will lead to greater air efficiency. However, this comes at the consequence of providing a more harsh path for the ball to follow. Fragile paint cannot be used with an underbore barrel because the paintshells will be physically shatted as they come in tight contact with the bore.
Coatings, Porting, and Rifling:
Internally, paintball barrels are honed to a smooth and polished surface. Assuming the barrel is of decent quality and that it's actually straight, there is little difference from barrel-to-barrel in terms of the practical change using different honing methods. From a technical standpoint, there's a few different methods for bore honing, which are sometimes touted as being superior than others. However, there is no discernable difference between them.
Some manufacturers use other methods to obtain a good internal surface. Barrels can be coated with teflon, ceramic, graphite, or other substances that are designed to provide a more slick surface.
When reanodizing a marker, the barrel's internal surface should be masked off to avoid stripping the internal surface. The factory surface is ideal, so stripping it would require re-honing the bore before a new anodizing coat can be applied.
While many firearms barrels are internally rifled, this design feature is extremely uncommon within paintball barrels. It has found to have no effect on the trajectory of the ball when fired, so the added cost adds nothing to the game. However, some companies have used this design feature in the past, such as the Armson or CORE barrels which used spiral rifling and linear rifling [respectively].
External porting is also available on most barrels. Porting a barrel invovles drilling small air ports around its periphery. The original theory behind porting was to "ease the transition into the atmosphere by helping the expansion/compression around the ball". This sounds great but and many manufacturers hyped their unique porting patterns, but again this was found to have no effect on the ball's trajectory in reality.
Porting does have one actual benefit, though, which is making the shots more quiet. Barrels with more porting will be noticeably quieter than those with litte to no porting. Accordingly, longer barrels often allow for greater space to fill with more porting, so it's often said that longer barrels are quieter. This is due to the amount of ports more than the lenght.
A related subject to porting is the option of a muzzle break which is a large amount of material removed from the front of the barrel. This is another concept borrowed from firearms barrels. With regards to paintball, a muzzle break is more of a cosmetic factor than a practical one.