Paintball: How to Choose the Most Appropriate Barrel

In paintball, a barrel is nearly as important as the marker that fires the paintball through it. Barrels determine nearly everything-your accuracy, range, power, and overall precision. No, precision and accuracy are not the same thing.

Anyways, there are many determining factors to consider when it comes to choosing the most appropriate barrel for your paintball marker. Some people believe that paintball barrels get better as they increase in size. This is true, but only to a certain extent.

To understand, you have to think of exactly what a barrel does to a paintball. A barrel puts a small amount of friction on the paintball, causing it to shoot much straighter and shoot much further as a result. Without a barrel, the ball never gains proper speed and therefore is very inaccurate and doesn't make it very far.

However, too much friction on the ball can cause excessive problems. The ball will actually start slowing down before it even leaves the barrel, decreasing accuracy, and complicating things further. It's true that they do manufacture 24 inch barrels and longer. This is nuts. These are impossible to clean, break paint constantly, and are very inaccurate due to the long barrel length. Of course they make cool, but what are looks going to do for you while you're out there on the field not able to hit anyone?

So how do you know which barrel to get? I'll try and narrow it down for you.

Some guns come with stock barrels 12 inches, some even as small as 8.5 inches. Personally, I would upgrade either one of these to a longer, more quiet and light barrel.

Ceramic barrels are lighter, and usually are self cleaning, eliminating the need to squeegee a broken ball (if it even happens).

I would go with a 14 or 16 inch ceramic barrel. They're both ideal for accuracy and dependency.
A ceramic barrel is more likely to cover all of the important factors that are important when it comes to choosing a barrel than any other types of barrels.

Other types of barrels use heavier steal or aluminum parts. Ceramic are actually more durable, will lost longer, are typically quieter, always lighter, and always easier to clean and maintain.

Brand isn't that important. However, J&J, Spyder, Tippmann, Evil, and Special Parts all make wonderful barrels of this type for relatively cheap.

I hope this article helps you decide your barrel and will increase your game play!