Realistic Accuracy Expectations

[Siress]

Maybe this is a crazy idea, but has anyone thought about making a ball sorter? Like a coin sorting machine but, just crank the wheel and have the balls fall into separate bags based on their actual diameter? Even if it is inconsistent, it seems to me that it would be possible to sort a case fairly quickly with reasonable accuracy unless the paintballs aren't very round. If they have bad flatspots I can't imagine anything fixing it except it not sitting on shelves or in warehouses very long.

I have.

Step 1 - clean and dry
Step 2 - fall through trays of square mesh of varying sizes. Agitating the trays helps them fall through. After long enough, the trays contain only balls with one cross-section between the mesh size of the tray it's in and the one above.
Step 3 - verify sphericity. This is where it's tricky, and requires some development work. Here some ideas:
3a - Manually measure a sample size from each group just to verify they aren't all oblong.
3b - Further sort by mass, and manually measure a small sample size for each group. Lowest mass is likely to have the highest sphericity.
3c - Create a plate with a spiral groove cut into the face of it; ~.60" depth, a ~.35" tool diameter, and full radius. Using the measurement from the mesh tray, set the distance of a flat disc from the bottom of the radius on the spiral plate. Rotate the flat disc to drive balls from one end of the groove to the other (ID to OD). Any ball that doesn't pass through gets cast out. Those that pass through are as spherical as the test setup limits them to exactly.
3d - high-speed laser micrometers with real-time discard by air jets. $$$$

[Jonnydread]

The Proshar Red Menace I ordered is slated to arrive via UPS today. I'll take some pictures and post up a thread in the MCB Reviews It section once I play with it this weekend.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I’m curious how it shoots compared to the tournament grade.

[iamthelazerviking]

I won't buy d3fy again, at least not through the place I bought from. Also doesn't help that FedEx let the shipment sit for 2 extra days...The stuff ended up looking fine but opened a bag and it all felt really sticky...didn't break any, but did not seem to shoot very well at all. Plus the shell color was hard to see, especially as the daylight dwindled. Used my .690 back as well for a slight overbore, didn't think I would use that back ever.

Bought some Graffiti at the event, didn't do too much inspecting but definitely flew straighter. Was around ~.685+

Beating a dead horse, but paint sucks.

[bassninja]

Yeah paint's been weird lately for sure. I've had good luck with d3fy level 1. The exception was the last box I bought, 3 of the bags were crap, I let the 4th bag sit on my shelf for six months and it was super good last Friday. A few years ago d3fy sold black shell level 1, that paint always shot great and was very hard to see in the air (a bonus for me,) but they don't sell it anymore. I think they had solid grey shell too, that paint was fun as well. My local field's graffiti is pretty good, but the field grade GI 1 star is not great. They use to sell Empire El Tigre paint, it was good but expensive. When I worked at a paintball summer camp, we shot GI 1 star that was delivered from GI straight to us, and it flew straight but bounced off mask lenses. Not a well written post but oh well.