Upgrades and Customizing - 14'' for 98c or 16''

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14'' for 98c or 16''

Printed From: Tippmann Paintball
Category: Paintball Equipment
Forum Name: Upgrades and Customizing
Forum Description: Trick it out!
URL: http://www.tippmannsports.com/forum/wwf77a/forum_posts.asp?TID=182307
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Topic: 14'' for 98c or 16''

Posted By: EkXball3
Subject: 14'' for 98c or 16''
Date Posted: 08 July 2009 at 11:14am

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''

Replies:

Posted By: EkXball3
Date Posted: 08 July 2009 at 11:16am

also they are Smart Parts Linear Barrels if your wondering about the brand or type

Posted By: oldpbnoob
Date Posted: 08 July 2009 at 11:39am

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.

Also instead of double posting, you can edit your post by clicking on Edit Post under Options on the upper right hand side of your post.

Good luck.

Posted By: EkXball3
Date Posted: 08 July 2009 at 11:40am

ok thanks

Posted By: TippmannLazEffect
Date Posted: 18 July 2009 at 8:25pm

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

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Posted By: ctchofday
Date Posted: 20 July 2009 at 7:40pm

TippmannLazEffect wrote:

...
if you are using co2 I would also suggest a 16in barrel

air type has nothing to do with barrel length

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Xbl:PhantomReign97

'99 Snpr II, ½d Karni, E-Orracle, 2k4 Spstk, 2k5 Prstk, PMR SE, A5, 98

Posted By: TippmannLazEffect
Date Posted: 21 July 2009 at 3:53pm

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

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Posted By: oldpbnoob
Date Posted: 21 July 2009 at 4:00pm

TippmannLazEffect wrote:

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

Or you could provide facts to support your claim. How could propellant type be affected by barrel length?

Posted By: TippmannLazEffect
Date Posted: 23 July 2009 at 8:20pm

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.

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Posted By: oldpbnoob
Date Posted: 23 July 2009 at 8:39pm

Interesting, can you cite the source?

Posted By: Mack
Date Posted: 23 July 2009 at 10:30pm

TippmannLazEffect wrote:

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

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Posted By: oldpbnoob
Date Posted: 24 July 2009 at 9:20am

Thanks for clearing that up Mack.

Posted By: Mack
Date Posted: 24 July 2009 at 12:56pm

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.

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Posted By: TippmannLazEffect
Date Posted: 26 July 2009 at 5:31pm

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.

I
A longer barrel would allow for a higher (not a lot) velocity thus using a shorter barrel with a high fps would cause curving where a 16in may not.

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Posted By: TinMan
Date Posted: 26 July 2009 at 6:10pm

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

with an Apex tip. Without the ramp on it shot consistan 257- 265, replacing the

stock barrel brought it back up to the high 260's.

Kind of backwards to the argument isn't it. Especially when the longer barrel is

app. 3 times longer.

Posted By: broomy36
Date Posted: 14 August 2009 at 10:57am

actualy its twice as long

Posted By: oldpbnoob
Date Posted: 14 August 2009 at 12:01pm

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.

Posted By: Mack
Date Posted: 15 August 2009 at 3:56am

TippmannLazEffect wrote:

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.

I
A longer barrel would allow for a higher (not a lot) velocity thus using a shorter barrel with a high fps would cause curving where a 16in may not.

How does a longer barrel prevent curving compared to a shorter barrel when the balls from each are fired at the same velocity?

The answer is that it doesn't. While the longer barrel may be more accurate (at any velocity) when compared to an ultra short (sub eight inch) barrel due to the ball not having sufficient time to stabilize before it exits the end of the barrel the spinning/curving out of control that we are discussing at high velocities is a factor of the velocity, not the barrel length. If you compare two barrels of the same type (such as a 12" and 16") and both are shooting from paintballs at the same velocity from identical markers, the balls will behave in a similar manner. The barrel can't effect the ball after the ball exits the barrel.

Now, can changing barrels cause a change in velocity? Yes; but that is what the velocity adjustment screw is for.

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Posted By: injahnet
Date Posted: 19 August 2009 at 6:49pm

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

Posted By: dued711
Date Posted: 28 August 2009 at 1:18am

Get the 14'' the 16'' will be a bit to cumbersome and won't help with accuracy.

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My 98c ACT setup:

Tippmann 98 custom ACT
Extreme Rage db sound activated electronic hopper
J&J 14'' Full Tilt ceramic barrel
Maddog Designz double trigger
Stryker 20oz. CO2 tank