paintball physics

[KEN CRANE]

http://home.comcast.net/~dyrgcmn/pball/pballphys1.html

[wdp child]

reading hurts my brain......

[dynastySSS]

kool ken

[1boobfromSector 7-G]

If anybody would read though all of that and gives us a summary that would be great.

[BuNkErEd]

:dito:

[MachineGunKelly]

Physics Good!!!
Chopping Paint Bad!!! :elephant:

[Botmaster5]

anyone play with the java trajectory thingie... i got 351.7 ft =) :cheers:

[127.0.0.1]

All of that basically comes down to...

Quit bitchin' about accuracy/range, STFU, and PLAY! :smiley:

It's very hard to improve the current accuracy and range of paintball guns without modifying the shape of the paintball itself.

[TaterSalad]

Yeah, as long as paintballs are filled with paint we aren't going to see a great gain in accuracy. My father has a Ph.D. in Physics and we both have the same opinion. Shape, wieght, and the liquid content of paintballs hinder them from being highly accurate. As for a paraphrased edition of the link above... i can't help all that much. It's way too long.

[1boobfromSector 7-G]

I always figured if paintballs came in the shape of a bullet they would be better on accuracy and so on, but I never have been able to come up with a way to get them in to the gun, expect for some type of a magazine, like a 9mm has.

Can you see somebody having 150 round magizane sticking up from behind a bunker? There would have to be some type of rule saying hits on the mag. didn't count.

[TaterSalad]

Another hard concept to grasp is that if a gun is fired parallel to perfectly flat ground and a bullet is dropped from the same height as the chamber of the gun, and the gun is fired at the same instant the bullet is dropped from the hand; both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.

As a rough experiment you can take any two of the same objects and through one in a parallel fashion to the ground and drop the other from the same hieght at the moment you let go of the object being thrown you will see that they both fall to the floor at the same time. any inconsistancies in the experiment are due to human errors. what i have said above is a fact. the velocity of the item thrown or shot does not have an effect on the timing of the impact of the object.

paintball trajectory works in the shame way. wind, and or air pockets may cause the paintball to change its time of impact, but under the perfect circumstances the paintballs would have the same result as the bullets.

[127.0.0.1]

AGD's less lethal FN303...

http://www.automags.org/~Manike/fn303-3.jpg
http://www.automags.org/~Manike/fn303-5.jpg

It has more range and accuracy compared to regular paintballs... take a look at the shape.

And yes it is a PAINTBALL... just not a regular one.

Ok maybe not range, but definitely accuracy is much improved.

[Jouster]

AGD's less lethal FN303...
...snip...
It has more range and accuracy compared to regular paintballs... take a look at the shape.

And yes it is a PAINTBALL... just not a regular one.

Ok maybe not range, but definitely accuracy is much improved.
omg id totally put a maxflo on it d00d, or it won't fire for $h**!!!! lolkthx

o btw Angels are teh sux0rz!!!!111!!!! ur gay

...

Sorry, couldn't resist imagining the PBN kiddies' reaction to that gun.

Jouster

[127.0.0.1]

No it's not for sale to the masses like us... :(

[NotALamer]

d00d stfu!!11 i'd still put a maxflo on it

kthxbye

[NotALamer]

I didn't read the whole article but I will attempt a summary. The only forces affecting a paintball after it leaves your barrel are: gravity, drag, magnus effect, centrifugal force.

Gravity
Gravity causes the paintball to fall towards the ground (duh). We can't affect gravity so we're stuck with what it does to our paint.

Drag
Drag exerts a force opposite the direction of flight, causing the paintball to slow down. The only way to affect the drag is to change the shape or speed of paintballs.

Magnus Effect
The magnus effect can give the ball lift if it is spinning in the correct direction. I believe this is what the Tippman Flatline barrels are supposed to accomplish. By getting the ball to rotate around an axis perpendicular to the ground, and perpendicular to the direction of flight, the Magnus Effect exerts a force opposite the direction of gravity, causing the ball to stay up longer. I've never used a Flatline so I can't say if they really work.

Centrifugal Force
The author doesn't seem to make a distinction between centrifugal force and rotational momentum, not in the part of the article I read anyway. Centrifugal force can distort the shape of the paintball slightly, depending on how fast it is rotating. It doesn't seem to have much of an effect on accuracy or distance. There is nothing we can do about centrifugal force.

Rotational momentum keeps the paintball moving in a straight line. You can see the effects of rotational momentum when using a gyroscope; as long as it is spinning, it resists being turned. This is why rifles are rifled, causing the bullet to rotate around an axis parallel to the direction of motion. Since the bullet is rotating, it has rotational momentum, and therefore resists rotating in other directions, keeping the bullet pointing in the right direction to reduce drag. This doesn't help with paintballs because they are spheres and have the same drag no matter which direction they are pointing.

One other force the author mentions affects balls with seams, like baseballs and cricket balls. He says that it has an effect on baseballs and cricket balls about the same magnitude as the magnus effect but he hasn't found any references describing the effect on something comparable to a paintball (slightly misshapen sphere with only one seam). This could be eliminated by making paintballs perfectly round but I imagine this would be too expensive or difficult, or someone would have done it already. I hope I've managed to summarize this article and keep it fairly nontechnical. I've left plenty out but if you want to know everything the article says then read it. :P

[127.0.0.1]

Magnus Effect
The magnus effect can give the ball lift if it is spinning in the correct direction. I believe this is what the Tippman Flatline barrels are supposed to accomplish. By getting the ball to rotate around an axis perpendicular to the ground, and perpendicular to the direction of flight, the Magnus Effect exerts a force opposite the direction of gravity, causing the ball to stay up longer. I've never used a Flatline so I can't say if they really work.


He also mentions an important point... Magnus Effect only takes place when the ball is rotating fast enough about 25000+ RPM... otherwise, it's a REVERSE Magnus Effect, so if your backspin isn't fast enough it's actually will decrease your distance.

Pretty interesting, eh?

[russ]

Please....
don't make me come on here and correct all of you now.

[NotALamer]

I'm guessing reverse magnus effect is a force in the opposite direction from regular magnus effect? If so you just have to make the ball rotate in the opposite direction and the reverse magnus effect would still give it lift.

[Rain-Man]

If you've ever watched a flatline barrel in use, the ball actually "floats up" a couple of feet before levelling out. If you know where that break point is you can actually turn the marker on its side and shoot around corners.

The reverse magnus would therefore pull the ball down into the ground, unless you had a very extreme angle up. :scratchhe

[ezrunner]

that one is loaded with nylon projectiles, the paintballs it fires do have stabilizing sabots that have the rifling on it.

It shoots close to 400fps btw ;)

-rob

[NotALamer]

I am 100% sure the Flatline doesn't impart a spin of 25k rpm so it must be using the reverse magnus effect. If the magnus effect would normally pull the ball upwards, but it is spinning too slowly and the reverse magnus effect pulls it downwards instead, I think reversing the spin on the ball will cause the reverse magnus effect to pull it upwards.

[kissmyassassin]

damn man, that is alot of reading, but it makes me smart. :bigok:

[El Pirata]

Please tell me what is this?

http://home.comcast.net/~dyrgcmn/pball/pbeqn22.gif

[Neo]

Please tell me what is this?

http://home.comcast.net/~dyrgcmn/pball/pbeqn22.gif

that is the force in terms of its vertical and horizontal components (just call "&" theta) Fcos & is the horizontal component because:

cos & = u/r where u is the horizontal component and r is the magnitude of the total force (referred to as radius)

therefore, after doing some simple algebra, u, being the horizontal component, is r cos & which translates to F cos & (r = F)

same thing goes for the vertical component which is F sin &

of course if you want the force in scalar terms, meaning magnitude and no direction, then square root the sum the squares of the two components:
|F| = square root((Fcos&)^2 + (Fsin&)^2)

and if you want the angle at which the force is acting do this:
& = tan^-1 (v/u) or & = tan^-1 ((Fsin&)/(Fcos&)) = tan^-1 ((sin&) / (cos&)

hope this helps

[Neo]

btw, if i messed something up, sorry - i was typing really fast and not paying much attention. there, now i have a disclaimer.

[OverweightAngel275]

A girl in MA got killed by one of these during a riot when it blew through her eye and into her brain.

[Neo]

While I extend my sympathies to her family and friends I can't help but ask - why did you post that here in this particular thread??

[El Pirata]

A girl in MA got killed by one of these during a riot when it blew through her eye and into her brain.
Got killed by what?

[El Pirata]

that is the force in terms of its vertical and horizontal components (just call "&" theta) Fcos & is the horizontal component because:

cos & = u/r where u is the horizontal component and r is the magnitude of the total force (referred to as radius)

therefore, after doing some simple algebra, u, being the horizontal component, is r cos & which translates to F cos & (r = F)

same thing goes for the vertical component which is F sin &

of course if you want the force in scalar terms, meaning magnitude and no direction, then square root the sum the squares of the two components:
|F| = square root((Fcos&)^2 + (Fsin&)^2)

and if you want the angle at which the force is acting do this:
& = tan (v/u) or & = tan ((Fsin&)/(Fcos&)) = sin& / cos&

hope this helps
Yeah it helped remind me why I quit math in the 6th grade.

[OverweightAngel275]

She got killed by one of the less than lethal weapons shown earlier in the post, made by AGD. It was really sad.

[OverweightAngel275]

Earlier in the thread there was a picture of one of the less than lethal weapons and there was a discussion going on about the accuracy of paintball and stated was that AGD make an eaxtremly accurate less than lethal paitball gun for police riots in witch the paintballs are shaped like bullets and i wus just saying that this may have some downsides if paintball were ever to use something like this. Sorry if i didn't nake sense or still don't or if i offended anyone.

[Bigal1]

Another hard concept to grasp is that if a gun is fired parallel to perfectly flat ground and a bullet is dropped from the same height as the chamber of the gun, and the gun is fired at the same instant the bullet is dropped from the hand; both bullets will hit the ground at the same time. .

didn't Isaac Newton prove that point already? He was a true pioneer in the sport of paintball. :beer: