14'' for 98c or 16''

If i were to swap the stock 11.5'' barrel on the 98c pro platinum, I can buy a 14'' or 16'' barrel i found for the same exact price. What would be the difference in them if they are the same price, and which one should i get 14'' or 16''

It's a matter of preference. There won't be any significant difference between the two. Personally, I don't care for barrels over 12" as I find longer ones to be cumbersome. I have a Smart Parts progressive barrel that I actually like quite a bit as well as a J&J Ceramic. I find them to be comparable. Anything is an improvement over the stock one. Look through the stickies above and there is a lot of info regarding barrels. You can also search "barrel" and find hundreds if not thousands of threads regarding various barrels. Typically you will get the following answers. 1. Anything over 16" is foolish and you will look like a tool on the feild. 2. J&J and Lapco both make nice, reasonably priced barrels.

Edited by oldpbnoob - 08 July 2009 at 11:40am

if you play airball 16in barrels gives you more length to push against the bunker
if you are using co2 I would also suggest a 16in barrel

do a bit of search it may not affect it a lot but, it does

As for barrel length, well as with all pneumatics, if you expel a compressed gas into a given volume it will have a consistent pressure, however if you expand the length of that vessel the pressure would dissipate along the length of it proportionally to how much the volume was increased. For most paintball guns a short barrel likely doesn’t use 100% of the pressure exerted across the length of the barrel, but a slightly longer barrel can make use of it all (and likely to greater velocity and accuracy) as is the case with a carbine versus a long rifle. But with anything, there’s a catch, you can continue to make the barrel longer, but eventually you reach a fulcrum where the pressure exerted is entirely used (efficiently) within a certain length of the barrel and then the excess length only serves to be counter productive at that point. Barrel length will affect velocity, but in this game, you are limited as to what velocity you can have and you have to adjust the gun accordingly. Therefore, if you have a 16 inch barrel and you already chrono on at 270 fps so you have a 10 fps margin from a field limit of 280 fps, slapping on a 20 inch barrel might take you to 320 fps and you would have to adjust the valving back down to 270 fps.

co2 velocity  fluctuates by a lot especially when rapid shooting. Fluctuations any where from 20fps - 60fps.
These fluctuations can rise in fall. The lower the velocity the less "gas" is pushing the ball after 8 or 9 inches of the barrel. I believe with the high fluctuations in co2 a 16in would be efficient. Shooting a 14in barrel (which is ok) or less can leave you with curving paint from the rise in velocity.

Though depending on what your velocity is the longer the barrel is the more drag the paintball will have inside of the barrel.

TippmannLazEffect wrote: As for barrel length, well as with all pneumatics, if you expel a compressed gas into a given volume it will have a consistent pressure, however if you expand the length of that vessel the pressure would dissipate along the length of it proportionally to how much the volume was increased. For most paintball guns a short barrel likely doesn’t use 100% of the pressure exerted across the length of the barrel, but a slightly longer barrel can make use of it all (and likely to greater velocity and accuracy) as is the case with a carbine versus a long rifle. But with anything, there’s a catch, you can continue to make the barrel longer, but eventually you reach a fulcrum where the pressure exerted is entirely used (efficiently) within a certain length of the barrel and then the excess length only serves to be counter productive at that point. Barrel length will affect velocity, but in this game, you are limited as to what velocity you can have and you have to adjust the gun accordingly. Therefore, if you have a 16 inch barrel and you already chrono on at 270 fps so you have a 10 fps margin from a field limit of 280 fps, slapping on a 20 inch barrel might take you to 320 fps and you would have to adjust the valving back down to 270 fps. The quoted information is essentially correct.  To put it more simply, barrel length affects velocity by giving the propellant more time to act upon the ball but excess length can decrease velocity and efficiency by requiring additional propellant to launch the ball out of the barrel while maintaining desired velocity. co2 velocity  fluctuates by a lot especially when rapid shooting. Fluctuations any where from 20fps - 60fps. While some older stacked tube blow backs were prone to serious velocity fluctuations, differences of 60 fps were usually due to a malfunction as opposed to gas source.  The CVX valve in stock Tippmanns was designed to compensate for such fluctuations.  An unmodified Tippmann will rarely experience a shot to shot fluctuation in excess of 15 fps.  (The downside to this valve design is that it is relatively inefficient compared to many other markers.)  The exception to this would be "shoot down" from sustained rapid firing; however, this manifests as a steady decrease in velocity as opposed to a random fluctuation between each shot. These fluctuations can rise in fall. The lower the velocity the less "gas" is pushing the ball after 8 or 9 inches of the barrel. I believe with the high fluctuations in co2 a 16in would be efficient. Shooting a 14in barrel (which is ok) or less can leave you with curving paint from the rise in velocity. Actually, any length of barrel will leave you with curving paint if you fire at excessive velocities.  It is not the length of the barrel that is causing this, it is the excess velocity.  (I.e. a paintball departing a 16" barreal at 340 fps will act very similar to one fired out of an 8" barrel at 340 fps.) Though depending on what your velocity is the longer the barrel is the more drag the paintball will have inside of the barrel. The part about a longer barrel resulting in more drag on the paintball is accurate; however, velocity is not a factor in this equation.  Drag is a facter of the drag coefficients of the surfaces involved, velocity only means the same amount of drag occurs over a shorter time frame.

While all of this is interesting, it does not address the initial misconception that catchofday pointed out.  That is, that barrel length and propellant type are mostly unrelated factors.  (Original question repeated/quoted below.)

ctchofday wrote: TippmannLazEffect wrote: ... if you are using co2 I would also suggest a 16in barrel air type has nothing to do with barrel length

Edited by Mack - 23 July 2009 at 10:32pm

You are welcome.

I also feel that the following (referring to the relationship between propellant type and barrel length) needs to be addressed.

TippmannLazEffect wrote: do a bit of search it may not affect it a lot but, it does

As cited in the earlier quote, barrel length can effect the amount of time propellant has to accelerate the paintball and when the barrel length is well matched to the valve result in better acceleration/efficiency.  However, any barrel will affect any propellant, delivered at the same pressure, identically.  Note that I specified "delivered at the same pressure."  CO2, being a volatile liquid that evaporates into a gas for propelling paintballs, is much more temperature sensitive than compressed air.  Compressed air will normally deliver at a set pressure depending upon the regulator (generally around 450 psi for LP regs and 850 psi for HP regs) while CO2 can, depending upon external conditions deliver at widely varying pressures.  I.e. CO2 can, in cold weather deliver at pressures that are insufficient to operate a marker while in hot weather it can deliver at up to 1800 psi.  (Beyond 1800 psi the burst disk on most CO2 tanks blows.)  However, such variances are not a factor of the barrel length; they are an attribute of the propellant used.

To put it more simply, barrel length is unrelated to propellant type.

I chronoed my TPX at 268 fps today. Then for fun I put a 16 inch Dye barrel on

Actually, it's 2.56 times as long if we are nitpicking. The point being that the longer barrel did not increase FPS, but reduced it. You might not want to nitpick on regulars on your fourth post.

I believe the bore size could also influence the FPS. If the stock barrel bore is smaller, then the FPS would be faster.