I have never really bought into the conventional “paint tobarrel
match� theory, but I also haven’t given it much thought. After
reading arguments about it on this newsgroup, I guess I was a little
more aware, and a personal experience recently caught my attention.
Just over a week ago I was at a scenario game and decided (as I often
do) to pull out my old Bushmaster pump gun. The gun was built back
before the turn of the century in the days when paintballs were
noticeably larger in diameter. I say noticeably, because although I
have ten different barrels for the gun, most modern day paint rolls
right through them. I can remember the day when various brands of paint
were actually tight in some of the barrels, and loose in others. The
main reason I test the paint in the barrels is in the hopes of finding
one that is at least tight enough to hold the paintball in place. If
it’s not, then when I inadvertently point the gun down, the ball
rolls out the barrel and my first shot is a blank - not a good thing
when you are playing pump.
Anyway, the event paint we had last week was, like most paint today,
small enough to drop without hesitation right through every barrel I
had - all ten of them. The fit was so loose, the balls didn’t seem to
travel through the barrel any slower than if I had simply dropped them
in the open air. So I just picked a random barrel based on looks. The
amazing thing was, the barrel shot great (as long as I had a ball in
it). There was a creek out behind our campsite with a small plastic bag
floating in it. The bag was about 50 feet away and using the red dot
sight I was able to nail it repeatedly, without fail. On the field I
was thrilled with the accuracy. Windage was dead on, and I only missed
targets when they were moving faster than I could compensate, or I
misjudged elevation - but even then it only took a few shots to adjust.
I had a great time playing with the gun. I only had to remember not to
point it down, or not to load a ball until I was ready to fire.
My point here is, this experience flies straight in the face of
conventional barrel theory. If the balls were loose enough to fall
right through the barrel, then by conventional theory, they should have
been bouncing off the interior walls of the bore and ricocheting wildly
out the muzzle in all directions, right? And this isn’t an isolated
experience - I have had similar experiences with both this gun and my
autococker on previous occasions. Maybe my experience is unique, but
it’s certainly enough to make me question the validity of the
“paint to barrel match� theory.

Billy Goodman -
http://www.pukindogspaintball.com
If you let yourself have a bad experience and are looking for someone
else to blame, there's usually someone available to accomodate you.