Drafting paintballs

[jokers]

Many years ago in the heyday of BPS i seem to remember a video or story of someone shooting so fast that the balls drafted and the ball behind ran into the one in front is this a case of the mandela effect or was it really on the net somewhere. If this really did happen does anyone have info about that?

[Jonnydread]

Many years ago in the heyday of BPS i seem to remember a video or story of someone shooting so fast that the balls drafted and the ball behind ran into the one in front is this a case of the mandela effect or was it really on the net somewhere. If this really did happen does anyone have info about that?

I feel like I remember this as well. I want to say it was one of those crazy boards for electric sear-trippers way back when, maybe one of the Scenario Dreams guns?

[shooter311]

I remember back in the 90s I only played back woods ball. I remember we didn't think of "chopping" paint in the guns what everyone believed is that if you shot too fast it would load a ball into the barrel and shoot it before the previous ball left the barrel, there would be a vacuum behind the first ball causing the second ball to accelerate faster and slam into the first ball causing barrel breaks. Keep in mind we were mostly all young kids. I don't know if the physics is that far off though, lol.

Also, for a while I was playing around with how fast I could get a marker to shoot (anyone remember the speed king contest on TechPb? I think I held the record at 29 bps). Anyway I got my gun shooting a legit 38bps. It would drain the Q-loader in no time. I was always amazed I never once had a ball break in the barrel or in the air. So maybe this rumor existed, but if so I don't think it was true. As far as I know no one has shot faster than 38bps (legitimately, people claim it by chrono or their electro telling them, but the only way to measure it is by viewing the audio on a video).

[Magmoormaster]

Cockerpunk did a video explaining the math on this. Having not watched the video in like 10 years, I seem to remember it requiring an FPS variance of like 100 FPS between shots for this to happen.

[DocsMachine]

Just takes a little math.

280 FPS means the ball travels .28 feet in one millisecond. Nominally four inches.

A very fast marker can maybe do 30 BPS, or about one ball every 33 milliseconds.

Thirty times four is 120 inches, or ten feet.

Nope, paintballs at ten feet apart are not "drafting".

What does happen, particularly on mechanical markers, is you get a "blooper" shot- one that's a fraction of regular velocity. Classic-valve 'Mags were notorious for this if you tried to shoot too fast.

So it's certainly possible to "bloop" a shot and then have the next full-speed shot catch up and strike it. It's incredibly rare, of course, but I know I saw it happen once with my own eyes. (With the aforementioned classic-valve 'Mag on CO2. )

Doc.

[Spider!]

Yep. I did this on hpa with my eP classic mag a few times. The re-trigger was set around a 20 bps rate. It was rare to hit that close to run into shoot-down while pointing perfectly steady to hit the previous ball (at around 20 ft) I was braced against a tree when I did it twice.

[jokers]

Thank you DocsMachine and Magmoormaster, that explanation and the video both made it very clear that i was remembering something that did not happen or a lie from someone out there.

[iamthelazerviking]

You mean like how my cousin's uncle's brother would use fRoZeN pAiNtBaLlS?!

[jokers]

I swear people were confusing walmert monster paint for frozen paint.

[DocsMachine]

You mean like how my cousin's uncle's brother would use fRoZeN pAiNtBaLlS?!

-This is one of the finest examples of... I guess a "hive mind", that you'll ever find.

EVERYONE mentions "freezing" paintballs. And I mean literally everyone. Basically every newbie renter or group of renters will mention it, and virtually everyone from hairdressers to auto mechanics mentions it.

When asked what I do, for most people my go-to line is "I build custom paintball guns". (For some others, depending on context, simply "I'm a machinist".) And literally 98 times out of a hundred, they'll say something like "what happens if somebody freezes the paintballs?" or "my uncle once froze his paint before going to the field" or any one of a hundred variants.

EVERYONE. No exceptions.

What is it? How do people that have never fired a paintball in their life, have no idea how the sport is played and have even less idea of what's IN a paintball, automatically light on the idea of "freezing" them?

Doctors, lawyers, mechanics, baristas, cashiers, weldors, pipefitters, veterinarians, skateboarders, police officers, secretaries, children, grandmothers, you name it. I've heard it from all of them.

Was this part of a plotline from some popular TV show that I never saw, or something? It's more universal than everyone "knowing" Napoleon was short or "knowing" that carrots help your eyesight!

[/rant]

I have a bit of a litany I'll go through if people are genuinely interested, but usually I'll save it for the guy that insists he, personally, actually did it, or was present at the field when somebody else did it. (In which case I'll usually ask "where'd you get the liquid nitrogen?" They'll say "What?" "Well, since the liquid portion of the fill is basically the same as non-toxic antifreeze, just sticking them in the freezer won't do it. You'd have to cool them to below about minus 180F for them to actually freeze, and so you'd need liquid nitrogen, or at least a bunch of dry ice." At which point they usually start backtracking. )

Doc.

[MrBarraclough]

I like pointing out that paintball fill is mostly PEG, which is used as aircraft wing de-icer.

[DocsMachine]

…all this time I thought Alaska was literally just @DocMachine and Sarah Palin…

-What about Northern Exposure and Sled Dogs?

Doc.