Old school mag fed gun with oval balls

[Painthappy]

I'm sure they had other plans for these guns as they were definitely prototypes. The magazine screams not ready for prime time, but a proof of concept that does work. If there is a .63 cal similar something I'd be happy to load them up and see if it works.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Well, if we give it a few years, paint will be small enough to fit through it, and we can test this theory out.

[Jonnydread]

I'm no physicist, but I would imagine taking a hit with the pointy end wouldn't feel great.

[uv_halo]

I'm sure they had other plans for these guns as they were definitely prototypes. The magazine screams not ready for prime time, but a proof of concept that does work. If there is a .63 cal similar something I'd be happy to load them up and see if it works.

Personally, I dreamed and dreamed about these rounds (and the guns) for many years after seeing them in the ads.

In discussions about paintball ballistics I had with Bill Mills (of WARPIG) there was a lot of hope for this product that ultimately got dashed. Apparently, when it became time to demo the product at an event, the owner only had the .63 short round, which was a compromise based on horse pill dies. The .63 long was the fully committed design but, the inventor didn't have the funds to have custom dies made for them yet. The demo went poorly and nobody could see the benefit, and that was all she wrote.

I'm no physicist, but I would imagine taking a hit with the pointy end wouldn't feel great.

The unproven idea is that by locating the seam lengthwise, you'd be hitting with the weakest part of the projectile, the seam The problem is that nobody ever proved that the paintball shell is actually weaker at the seam.

[Meglomachinist]

Yeah man I remember I almost bought one instead of my first mag...which despite only containing the original valve and rail still I still have. Might have saved me some money in the long run since well I got a bad mag addiction.

[Trbo323]

The unproven idea is that by locating the seam lengthwise, you'd be hitting with the weakest part of the projectile, the seam The problem is that nobody ever proved that the paintball shell is actually weaker at the seam.

That also seems to rely on the idea that they are flying like a football and not tumbling through the air

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[uv_halo]

That also seems to rely on the idea that they are flying like a football and not tumbling through the air

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If you have a projectile with a preferred flying orientation, then rifling makes sense, I think this was mentioned way back when but, I can't be sure.

[Trbo323]

If you have a projectile with a preferred flying orientation, then rifling makes sense, I think this was mentioned way back when but, I can't be sure.

https://www.paintballforum.com/threa...tballs.203473/

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[Hp_lovecraft]

I called them back in 94, asking about the promised drum version… which as you would guess, did not exist yet.

it was made by USI under contract, so some parts might exchange with the eliminator.

My guess is the ballistics didn’t work. I can only imagine the tumbling and corkscrewing. But, if they were to instead adapt it with the finned sniperballs off the era? That would have been smarter

And at the time, paintball was pivoting hard away from mil sim. Everyone wanted huge hoppers and fast guns

[Painthappy]

Like an idiot.. It just dawned on me. They weren't thinking of feeding the 68 caliber paintballs through the magazine. The gun also had a direct feed for those. So that's how it was going to work. Direct feed for the 68 caliber paintballs, and use the magazine for the custom 63 caliber ones. I got caught up with thinking they wanted to feed through the magazine only I forgot that there was a direct feed on this dang thing.

So yeah, it will shoot both, stock as it stands.

[uv_halo]

https://www.paintballforum.com/threa...tballs.203473/

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Very familiar with that content from the actual AO forum (in deep blue). That actually leaves a few questions on the table as to what's going on. For example, he doesn't mention the actual RPM needed to stabilize. It's 4,657 RPM (assuming .683cal, and 3grams). He only says that the RPM slows down after the balls leave the barrel. He never specifies how much. He mentions spinning them at up to 30K RPMs , with no benefit. There would be no benefit to be gained from spinning faster.

The conclusion at the end though, is that the subject paintball is simply too shitty of a projectile to see any benefit. Simply put, the purpose of rifling is to impart gyroscopic stabilization on a projectile. It doesn't make any projectile move in a straight line. It helps keep the projectile in a given orientation. What benefit could there be in maintaining the orientation of a s sphere? None. Then you add in the fact that all currently produced paintballs have a seem that is uneven, and is in a different orientation from shot to shot, and they are more often than not lopsided, Given these conditions spinning them makes even less sense. Years ago, another person who was interested in paintball ballistics found that if you used paper towel wads to prevent spin, the groups tightened a small amount. Not fully conclusive though since it was outdoors.

Is it possible to spin a liquid filled (paintball viscosity) projectile fast enough to stabilize itself? That remains to be seen. I suspect that it is possible. I can get a pretty darn good spin on a paintball with my hands, and it will spin for longer than the typical paintball flight, even though its on a table (with increased drag). I don't know of anyone who did high speed video of a ball leaving a rifled paintball barrel, that would show them spinning at rate. We all know the result for regular paint though. No benefit.

That's not what was supposed to happen with the safety paintball. The .63 long would have a much higher sectional density, giving it a reduced drag and would benefit from gyroscopic stabilization. The .63 Short would have less of a benefit or maybe none at all since it's not that much longer than .63, and therefore isn't that much different than a .63 spherical ball. The inventor was hoping that the ball would be noticeably better. He was wrong. Did the fact that it was liquid filled contribute? Maybe. Was it not that much balletically different? Definitely.

I called them back in 94, asking about the promised drum version… which as you would guess, did not exist yet.

it was made by USI under contract, so some parts might exchange with the eliminator.

My guess is the ballistics didn’t work. I can only imagine the tumbling and corkscrewing. But, if they were to instead adapt it with the finned sniperballs off the era? That would have been smarter

And at the time, paintball was pivoting hard away from mil sim. Everyone wanted huge hoppers and fast guns

When was this product introduced? I don't see this problem as MilSim- tons of guns were sold after this that fit the same general description: sights, black, and a single finger trigger. The magazine was a matter of function. To feed shaped projectiles you need a magazine.

The demoed round was the .63 short, which isn't that different than a .63 round and, guess what, it weighed less than a .68 ball.

Like an idiot.. It just dawned on me. They weren't thinking of feeding the 68 caliber paintballs through the magazine. The gun also had a direct feed for those. So that's how it was going to work. Direct feed for the 68 caliber paintballs, and use the magazine for the custom 63 caliber ones. I got caught up with thinking they wanted to feed through the magazine only I forgot that there was a direct feed on this dang thing.

So yeah, it will shoot both, stock as it stands.

You just need a .68 barrel and a .63 barrel.

I don't know how reliable it would be though. If a .68 fits in the breech perfectly, that means more than one .63 round will fit in the same space and, that will increase the likelihood of clipping the next round. That leads me to my own question:

What kind of mechanism allows this to be closed bolt (as the ad states)?

[Trbo323]

The conclusion at the end though, is that the subject paintball is simply too shitty of a projectile to see any benefit. Simply put, the purpose of rifling is to impart gyroscopic stabilization on a projectile. It doesn't make any projectile move in a straight line. It helps keep the projectile in a given orientation. What benefit could there be in maintaining the orientation of a s sphere? None.

Go look up slow mo of a baseball knuckleball . They wander all over the place. That's a sphere that's not spinning. And yeah, it's not a perfect comparison, solid object vs liquid filled shell, seam around the circumstance vs.... Whatever you call the baseball seam but it illustrates the point pretty good.

Anyway that's all because the turbulent air behind the ball wanders around. In theory, spinning that ball on its flight axis will turn the turbulent air into a vortex and keep it in the same spot behind the ball. If it's in the same spot it won't pull the ball around.

The point of toms testing wasn't to find some exact number, it was too see if it was possible to get a significant improvement over current smoothbore with no significant spin. He found there was some improvement but considering he owned AGD I would suspect "some" improvement was offset by manufacturing costs to put a product to market.

Is it possible to spin a liquid filled (paintball viscosity) projectile fast enough to stabilize itself? That remains to be seen. I suspect that it is possible. I can get a pretty darn good spin on a paintball with my hands, and it will spin for longer than the typical paintball flight, even though its on a table (with increased drag). I don't know of anyone who did high speed video of a ball leaving a rifled paintball barrel, that would show them spinning at rate. We all know the result for regular paint though. No benefit.

Yes it's possible, tom did it, just found the results to be lackluster in comparison to the effort needed.

Hammerhead had a video back in the mid to late 00s trying to show it in a rifled barrel. There were 2 big problems with it though

1) they only had one video of one paintball that was somewhat out of focus, not terribly but still. Now granted this was a fairly obvious marketing video but still, show it's repeatable right?

They didn't even put grid lines on the paintball, just relied on the seam alone to show what's going on

The seam was diagonal to the camera as it flew, so while they were trying to argue that the seam movement you are seeing was a spin along the x axis relative to the camera, it could also be a spin along the y axis that moves the seam in the same direction. Since the footage was slightly out of focus and there's no grid lines on the ball you can't see the surface clearly enough to determine which way it was actually spinning.

2) in the same video, about 30 seconds later they claimed this barrel was also adding backspin to the ball. Yeah, a rifled barrel that both spins the ball on the axis of flight and gives backspin. This was around when the flatline was all the rage so there was some fairly obvious marketing tactics here

So nobody to my knowledge has shown that rifling can actually spin a paintball, if you want to believe that the hammerhead video is showing that ok sure, there's 1 video of 1 ball, I'd like to see it repeatable

That's not what was supposed to happen with the safety paintball. The .63 long would have a much higher sectional density, giving it a reduced drag and would benefit from gyroscopic stabilization. The .63 Short would have less of a benefit or maybe none at all since it's not that much longer than .63, and therefore isn't that much different than a .63 spherical ball. The inventor was hoping that the ball would be noticeably better. He was wrong. Did the fact that it was liquid filled contribute? Maybe. Was it not that much balletically different? Definitely.

But that all relies on the barrel actually being able to spin it. If anyone could show it hammerhead had the ability to do it right. Hell, Tom put razors in the barrel to make sure they were spinning the balls (not using actual paint at that point for obvious reasons). If the rifled barrels actually spun the paint there would be no reason to do that. The safety paintballs have a preferred flight only if you can spin them just like a football does. Launch it without the spin and it will tumble as there's nothing to keep it pointing forward






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[Hp_lovecraft]

So nobody to my knowledge has shown that rifling can actually spin a paintball

but we know that backspin systems like the maximized and flatline do have an effect on the trajectory, so it must have a stable spin.

I used them all throughout the early 90s, and experimented with different barrel lengths and bores. In my case, a short wide bore barrel made the straightest trajectory.

curiously, I tried using a backspin system out of a JJ straight rifles barrel, and it make consistent corkscrews

so, real rifling prob can work in theory. Maybe

[Trbo323]

but we know that backspin systems like the maximized and flatline do have an effect on the trajectory, so it must have a stable spin.

I used them all throughout the early 90s, and experimented with different barrel lengths and bores. In my case, a short wide bore barrel made the straightest trajectory.

curiously, I tried using a backspin system out of a JJ straight rifles barrel, and it make consistent corkscrews

so, real rifling prob can work in theory. Maybe

The problem is you have to grab the shell. In firearms it works via an extreme underbore, it's an interference fit. If we tried that in paintball it would just shatter the shell. The rifling has to grab on to something to work

There's also the problem Tom pointed out, even if you manage to spin the shell, the liquid inside is not spinning

The flatline and apex, yes they spin the paint, the big difference is they are also adding g forces to the liquid paint to force it against the spinning shell. So yes they are spinning both the shell and the liquid but there's no way to do that for a spin along the axis of flight

Hammerhead is not the only company to release rifled barrels but through all the companies besides hammerheads very questionable video, nobody has released highspeed video of a paintball coming out of their barrel with a spin on the direction of flight? It would be such an easy marketing tool.

I'd bet they have tried to and the results were not what they wanted. But really if you can convince the buyer the video is irrelevant anyway.

In hammerheads case, it can't be that they took to time to set up HS camera, lighting, background and then fired 1 paintball that was slightly out of focus and went "yup that's all we needed! Pack it up"

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[uv_halo]

Go look up slow mo of a baseball knuckleball . They wander all over the place. That's a sphere that's not spinning. And yeah, it's not a perfect comparison, solid object vs liquid filled shell, seam around the circumstance vs.... Whatever you call the baseball seam but it illustrates the point pretty good.

Anyway that's all because the turbulent air behind the ball wanders around. In theory, spinning that ball on its flight axis will turn the turbulent air into a vortex and keep it in the same spot behind the ball. If it's in the same spot it won't pull the ball around.

The point of toms testing wasn't to find some exact number, it was too see if it was possible to get a significant improvement over current smoothbore with no significant spin. He found there was some improvement but considering he owned AGD I would suspect "some" improvement was offset by manufacturing costs to put a product to market.

I know all about the problems of a non-spinning sphere, the randomized vortexes that form at the rear hemisphere because the airflow clings to the surface.

I know that a spinning sphere can affect its trajectory relative to its direction of spin, the magnus effect. This is the manipulation of air pressure and it will never be in the direction of flight (i.e. making the sphere fly straighter). If you introduce enough spin around the axis of flight, the pressure change will cause the projectile to drift laterally, and this will increase the effects of crosswinds.

As mentioned, seams on baseball are at least an order of magnetude more signifcant than those on a paintball. However, given that they are always present to the frontal airflow, no matter the orientation of the ball, they are easier to get repeatable flight profiles by imparting spin in different directions and, initial holding positions. Paintballs have only one seam and, the orientation of the seam will change from shot to shot. That's one thing the sabot/wads allowed for control. Did it make the balls fly perfect? Absolutely not. But, the pattern was noticebly tighter and, was nowhere near a first strike round, at the same, relatively short distance. However, given that it requires a more tedious loading process than muzzle loading, it never got that much attention.

There's another factor that I meant to include as to why paintballs may even do worse with spin than the standard sphere. They're not spherical! They are lopsided and, the lopsidedness is not in a fixed orientation relative to the seam. This has always been the case. What happens when you spin something that is out of round? It wanders.. This is why relatively consistently spinning backspinning balls (fired from a flatline), have no accuracy improvement over a ball fired from a regular barrel.

Yes it's possible, tom did it, just found the results to be lackluster in comparison to the effort needed.

Hammerhead had a video back in the mid to late 00s trying to show it in a rifled barrel. There were 2 big problems with it though

1) they only had one video of one paintball that was somewhat out of focus, not terribly but still. Now granted this was a fairly obvious marketing video but still, show it's repeatable right?

They didn't even put grid lines on the paintball, just relied on the seam alone to show what's going on

The seam was diagonal to the camera as it flew, so while they were trying to argue that the seam movement you are seeing was a spin along the x axis relative to the camera, it could also be a spin along the y axis that moves the seam in the same direction. Since the footage was slightly out of focus and there's no grid lines on the ball you can't see the surface clearly enough to determine which way it was actually spinning.

2) in the same video, about 30 seconds later they claimed this barrel was also adding backspin to the ball. Yeah, a rifled barrel that both spins the ball on the axis of flight and gives backspin. This was around when the flatline was all the rage so there was some fairly obvious marketing tactics here

So nobody to my knowledge has shown that rifling can actually spin a paintball, if you want to believe that the hammerhead video is showing that ok sure, there's 1 video of 1 ball, I'd like to see it repeatable

Yes, I understand that Tom made a paintball spin. He came to the conclusion that the rifling didn't work, based on accuracy performance, and then set about trying to insure that it was spinning fast enough (hence the progression of techniques, going an order of magnitude beyond necessary), and still saw little to zero benefit. My question was could a paintball barrel impart enough spin. I think it's possible, I just have't seen a convincing case of it. Yeah, Hammerheads video doesn't help in this regard. I mean, it's a .688 barrel. Maybe something tighter, with a more aggressive rifling design (LAPCO .683 for example) might show some ability to reliably spin a paintball. But, this would have zero benefit in regards to accuracy.

But that all relies on the barrel actually being able to spin it. If anyone could show it hammerhead had the ability to do it right. Hell, Tom put razors in the barrel to make sure they were spinning the balls (not using actual paint at that point for obvious reasons). If the rifled barrels actually spun the paint there would be no reason to do that. The safety paintballs have a preferred flight only if you can spin them just like a football does. Launch it without the spin and it will tumble as there's nothing to keep it pointing forward

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I totally understand that the safety paintball needed to spin. I don't even know if the prototype gun here has a rifled barrel, much less if the rifling attempted would even work. I just know that a .63 would benefit more than a .63short for two reasons. More rotating mass = better stabilization at a given RPM, and better sectional density = better resistance to drag. Another thing we don't know, are ellipsoidal gelatin capsules more consistant than spherical?

but we know that backspin systems like the maximized and flatline do have an effect on the trajectory, so it must have a stable spin.

I used them all throughout the early 90s, and experimented with different barrel lengths and bores. In my case, a short wide bore barrel made the straightest trajectory.

curiously, I tried using a backspin system out of a JJ straight rifles barrel, and it make consistent corkscrews

so, real rifling prob can work in theory. Maybe

I agree that is likely that it should be possible to spin a paintball enough to impart a gyroscopic stability. However, paintballs being as imperfect as they are (out of round, randomized seam orientation, uneven seams) this spin will likely degrade the stability, so much so that the trajectory is could even be worse than a non-spinning ball.

The problem is you have to grab the shell. In firearms it works via an extreme underbore, it's an interference fit. If we tried that in paintball it would just shatter the shell. The rifling has to grab on to something to work

There's also the problem Tom pointed out, even if you manage to spin the shell, the liquid inside is not spinning

The flatline and apex, yes they spin the paint, the big difference is they are also adding g forces to the liquid paint to force it against the spinning shell. So yes they are spinning both the shell and the liquid but there's no way to do that for a spin along the axis of flight

Hammerhead is not the only company to release rifled barrels but through all the companies besides hammerheads very questionable video, nobody has released highspeed video of a paintball coming out of their barrel with a spin on the direction of flight? It would be such an easy marketing tool.

I'd bet they have tried to and the results were not what they wanted. But really if you can convince the buyer the video is irrelevant anyway.

In hammerheads case, it can't be that they took to time to set up HS camera, lighting, background and then fired 1 paintball that was slightly out of focus and went "yup that's all we needed! Pack it up"

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You seem to be drawing a lot of your conclusions off of the Testing and theory by Tom, and the one Hammerhead test. Tom never confirmed the state of the fill. This is nearly impossible to test. He concluded that the theory was correct because he saw no improvement in accuracy. In each of his tests, he was looking for an improvement of accuracy, not whether the ball and fill were spinning.

Any spinning of the shell will impart a centrifugal effect that will cause the paint to move towards the shell, no matter which orientation that you spin it.

Sure, Hammerhead was the only company to share a sketchy high speed video of a paintball leaving their rifled barrel. Hammerhead also put more into advertising than any of the other rifled paintball barrels manufacturers, and that video was clearly aimed to support their advertising. That doesn't invalidate any of the other rifled barrels, in regards to their ability to spin a paintball.

You know the biggest invalidator of all rifled barrels for regular paintballs? They never were never shown to increase the accuracy, in plenty of rigorous testing. If regular paintballs can't get an increase in accuracy from rifling, it becomes a scientific exercise at best. Something that I and maybe you would care about, but that wouldn't sell barrels.