Paintball Physics
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:26 am
Science experiment:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... p054.shtml
Underbore - increased efficiency, good consistency (don't go smaller than .007" under the paint though; .004-.005" is your target for underboring)
Paint to barrel match - less efficiency than underbore, and less consistency
Overbore - worst efficiency of the bunch (only about 7% worse though), and will have good consistency, matching that of the underbore.
accuracy seems unaffected until you get to extreme under and overbores. extreme underbores (.007+) add TONS of spin to the ball, decreasing accuracy.
Excellent, thanks. The data from that video meshes nicely with the data from this test, showing ~.03 underbore being the best.
Originally Posted by Kilroy
Interestingly consistency didn't relate to accuracy in any of their tests.
I'm anxiously waiting for them to do a test that attempts to correlate spin & accuracy to back up their theory.
Logically consistency HAS to have something to do with accuracy. What we've hypothesized is that the small variations in trajectory due to fluctuation in velocity is masked completely by the problems inherent in the system. In other words - paint is such a crappy projectile that it makes the ball do random things in a massively bigger range than say +/- 15 fps.
As to the spin - this is a good question. We have shot the Apex - and at no settings did we change the trajectory of the paintball to make it more or less accurate. As CockerPunk likes to say - a lack of a result is just as interesting as a result.
Every set of high speed footage we've taken of balls exiting the barrel have shown random direction and rates of spin - up to about 2400 rpm. It seems that spin either doesn't effect accuracy or again, is masked by other problems with the ball. I'm not certain.
