Does a Longer Barrel Increase Accuracy in Paintball? Read More!

When it comes to any kind of shooting sports, accuracy plays a very important role, especially in paintball. Not having the accuracy you need while playing against your opponents can literally cost you the game. One of the worst feeling is to invest your time and effort into a paintball gun that’s inaccurate when fired.

So, does a longer barrel increase accuracy in paintball? Yes, base on my own personal testing using a longer barrel will definitely increase your accuracy with a paintball gun. However, you should know that that there are a few drawbacks that come with longer barreled paintball guns, with one of them being you’ll lose distance due to the gun being gas-powered.

As you can see, paintball guns work similar to regular guns. They uses pretty much the same scientific principles for physics and aerodynamics as any other firearm. So what we will be doing today is look at how the longer barrel can affect the aerodynamics of the paintball gun. Another thing is that we need to properly examine gun barrels in general.

Barrel Length and Accuracy

Many people back in the days and around the world have experimented with the length of a gun barrel and how accurate it can be. It’s safe to say that having a longer barrel on your gun will result in a more accurate shot than having a shorter one.

When it comes to gun, there are 3 different main categories that you need to keep in mind, these include:

• The Pistol
• The Muzzleloader
• The Rifle

Each one of these categories tends to vary base on the type of barrel the gun is made with.

The Pistol

If you should take the time out to examine the accuracy of the pistol, the muzzleloader and the rifle. You would know that the pistol is not as accurate and doesn’t have the ability to shoot as far as if you were to shoot a rifle or muzzleloader. What you should know is that the projectile for a pistol is known to be a lot smaller than those projectile used for long guns and the reason for this is because of the velocity and accuracy difference.

Rifle

Base on testing and history, the accuracy of a rifle barrel is on another level when compared to other gun types. The barrels are much longer and they are rifled so what usually happens when fired is the bullet tends to divert some energy which helps it to tilt and turn. A spinning bullet normally fly truer than any other projectile.

Muzzleloader

The muzzleloader is considered to be a bit accurate when compared to the pistol and shoots further because of it’s high velocity. You should keep in mind that the muzzles are not rifled, so you can expect the ball to leave the barrel without spinning, making it susceptible to being diverted by small objects.

Similar to the muzzleloader, the paintball gun does not have any rifling to provide the paintball shot with any type spin when it is released from the barrel. Whenever the paintballs exit the barrel the only thing you can expect is the air velocity behind the paintball that help it to stay straight while traveling.

It’s also safe to say that the longer the length of the barrel is, the longer the paintball shots will travel towards its target. Of course, you have to take a few things into consideration such as the experience if the shooter and that they are not constantly moving around while firing or have any issues shooting.

Apart from that, having a gun with longer barrel will also help to increase the gun’s accuracy. But there’s a downside to this, for example if the barrel is too long it will for sure decrease its velocity which will eventually shorten the distance that the paintball can travel. According to most authority source online, 14-16 inches is the perfect length. Anything over 16 inches will certainly decrease the velocity and accuracy of the gun.

Other Factors That Affect Accuracy

Increasing the barrel length of your paintball gun is not the only way to increase the accuracy. First you have to ensure that the paintball and the bore size is perfectly match. You for sure don’t want the size of bore to be bigger than the paintball.

Bore Size and Air

You should first know a paintball gun operates and the way it works is that it is either powered by CO2 or it is High Pressure Air (HPA) charge which makes it easy to pump air. So, as you can see paintball guns are powered by air or gas. Another thing you should know is that paintball marker will not shoot accurate if the barrel bore is too big for the size shot you are planning on using.

According to a few online sources “what affects the accuracy of a marker?” They stated that the bore size of a stock barrel is about .690 in caliber. If you decide to decrease the size, then the best thing to do is to do it in gradual stages.

Also, they recommend that you do it by purchasing a barrel kit that offers lots of options for different sizes of barrels. You also need to pay close attention to the size of the paintball and also make sure that the paintballs are the correct size for the barrel.

Modification Kits

We really like the fact that most modification kits that comes equipped with a variety of different bore sizes and with a converter that does a pretty job at converting the size from the stock size to the preferred size. According from videos from sites such as eHow sports, the converter has the potential to hold different sizes of bored barrels.

In the video, they also showed many ways in which you can test to see if you have the right bore size for the paintball shot. Remember that you don’t want a bore that is too big of a size because the air will be able to escape past the ball, which will result in the ball losing velocity. They use a method to test the bore size which is known as a blow test.

The blow test is what is used to test how tight the bore is around the ball. Here’s how to properly do it:

First you start by taking a smaller bore and correctly place the ball on one end.
If you do it and the ball begins to roll out, then the bore is too big
If the ball sits on the opening of the bore, then what this means is that there is too much friction and it is too small
If the ball properly sits in the bore and you can successfully blow it out the other end, then it is good to go.

All you need is the right amount of friction so there is no virtual space between the bore and the paintball.

Clean Your Paintball Gun

Another thing that can definitely impact the accuracy of your gun is the cleanliness of the barrel. The dirtier the barrel is, the more friction you can expect it to have. This usually cause the paintball to have a reduction in velocity when it exit the barrel to stay true to the target. Cleaning your barrel is very important if you want to experience maximum performance.

The Quality and Size of the Paintball Ball

Taking the time out to invest in a higher quality paintball ball will definitely help in terms of accuracy because of how they are made. The material inside the paint that goes into the shell does have a pretty decent weight to it. A high-quality paintball shot will have a more balanced weight to it as well.

With that said, having paintball ball without a doubt improve your accuracy. Balls that comes at a very affordable price don’t have a good ratio of material to water in the shell. What this does is cause the material to move around and clump together on one side of the shell, which results in imbalanced and inaccurate.

This is why we highly recommend purchasing higher quality balls because it’s the right ratio when it comes to water to material mixed in the shell. This makes it possible for the ball to be balanced in weight. When the ball is fully balanced, it won’t swing around with a pendulum-like effect. It will travel at a fast pace with increased velocity.

Another factor to consider is the size of the caliber of the paintball barrel. As mentioned above, if the barrel is too small, then you won’t receive the velocity you need in order to be accurate. Whereas. If it is too big, you can expect the friction to be increased, causing it to affect the velocity and accuracy. It will even result in more fragile shots.

You keep in mind that paintball ball are known to be more fragile compared to most projectiles. If you really think about it, a paintball ball is a paint pump and sealed into a thin layered gel-like structure. They are also designed in a very unique way so that they’re able to burst upon contact. However, having too much friction may result in the ball exploding in the barrel or when it leaves the gun.

Conclusion

As you can see there are many different factors that comes into play when it comes to increasing the barrel size of your paintball gun. So, does a longer barrel increase accuracy in paintball? The short answer is yes. Having a longer will definitely increase your accuracy, but there is a few drawbacks to this as you can see by reading the article.