A common question asked by paintballers is,  “what kind of barrel should I put on my gun?”  The answer is – “it depends.”  Sorry, if you thought I’d just give you a magic potion to solve this riddle; it really isn’t that easy.  However, this article will help you narrow down what barrel to choose based on some very specific criteria. 

Barrel Materials
Barrels are typically made of brass, stainless steel, or aluminum. Each has its own pros/cons and each is best for a specific application.  Brass has a very low friction quotient, meaning it offers low resistance to paintballs.  However, brass is heavy, not as durable as aluminum or stainless steel, and requires more maintenance.  Stainless steel has the second lowest friction quotient and is the most durable material you can get for your barrel. Unfortunately, stainless steel is heavy, which is a definite consideration in a paintball match (think about the frontman carrying around a bunch of unnecessary weight!).

Aluminum is lightweight, inexpensive, and does not provide a poor surface, although its friction quotient is highest of these three materials.  Generally, aluminum barrels are the best choice for most applications, but you should consider durability because they are much more prone to break or bend than stainless barrels.  There are other considerations to make (such as your budget) before making a choice, but don’t make this part of the decision too complicated.  The information above should give you enough guidance on the barrel material to choose for your marker and the position you play. 

Two-piece Barrels
There are hybrid barrels available that combine the best of two worlds in a barrel.  Usually, two-piece barrels use a stainless steel base and an aluminum tip. The DYE Boomstick is an example of this type of barrel.  While this is a very good option, it is a bit more expensive than your high quality one-piece barrels. 

Friction
Friction, as it applies to paintball barrels, is the measure of resistance against a paintball’s travel down the barrel.  Within reason, the lower the friction, the better. Higher friction means lower gas efficiency, increased occurrence of ball breaks and generally a lower velocity (more on velocity in a bit). A rare occurrence to the lower-is-better rule is if you use a barrel system like the Tippmann Flatline.  This barrel (and one’s like it) relies on friction to place backspin on the paintball.  This design actually causes friction to place backspin on the paintball and increase its overall shooting range/distance. 

Barrel Length
A very important factor in choosing the right barrel is the barrel length.  There has been much debate on how long your barrel should be.  Generally, a longer barrel is good, but only up to a point. Research has shown that the velocity at which a paintball leaves the gun is no different once you reach a barrel length of about 12”.  However, a longer barrel does provide a bit of additional accuracy and the ability to reduce its noise level by porting the barrel (more on that next), etc. 

Most of your snipers will use a gun with a 16-18” barrel to find a happy middle ground between accuracy, velocity and noise levels.  As you probably already guessed, though, a position that requires a great deal of movement (let’s consider that frontman again) probably doesn’t need a longer barrel because it would get in the way of his goal to run, hide behind cover, and advance up the field as quickly as possible. 

Porting
Barrels are commonly ported to vent excess air/gas pressure, which reduces the noise level of the paintball gun. In its simplest form, a ported barrel has a series of holes drilled from the inside of the barrel.  This does a great deal to reduce noise level on the gun, but it also causes some reduced gas efficiency because there is a fine line between useful and excess gas pressure.  Most manufacturers will give you enough data about the barrel to know its capabilities, so I don’t look too hard at whether or not a barrel is ported UNLESS I need the additional noise reduction it offers. 

Accuracy
This is a topic that could take books to really explore.  In this article, I’ll focus on the accuracy piece from a couple of angles: paint choice and air flow.  Paint choice is a very important factor and is generally something that has to be experimented with a bit.  Selecting the right paintball for your gun and barrel determines how much air your gun will use per shot and can increase or decrease the number of barrel breaks.

The simplest way to determine if you have a good match in the type of paintballs you use is to test a few (the article linked above covers how to test your paintballs with your barrel). A good paintball/barrel match will maximize your gun’s accuracy and air-use efficiency.  Keep in mind that not all paintballs are created equal.  It is extremely important to test multiple paintballs before deciding on one.  Some are made a bit out of round or with imperfections, which will cause one paintball to work perfectly and another to stall in your barrel – both balls from the same manufacturer and batch.

Air flow is the other major consideration when dealing with accuracy.  Primarily, you need consistent pressure on every shot, from first to last. Higher-quality tanks like the Max-Flow and Conquest use a regulator system to stabilize pressure, which helps stabilize your velocity shot over shot.  There is a great deal of controversy on the best air tank (which we won’t get into here), but there are a couple of good questions to ask when determining if the air tank will do what you need it to do: 1) does the tank have a good system to regulate air flow? and 2) does the mounting style of the tank offer the opportunity for any inconsistencies (such as a crimped hose or O-ring failure)?  The answer to the second question is always going to be “yes,” but it will help you consider the quality and design of the air tank as you make your purchase decision.