50 Caliber Revolution

[Chicago]

So, for the record, you believe these new paintballs perform as well as .68 caliber paintballs, will not hurt more than .68 caliber paintballs, and will be cheaper than .68 caliber paintballs?

Do you also believe that selling paint for less is better for the rec paintball business?


If somehow these paintballs do perform as well as .68 paintballs, and don't hurt significantly more than .68 paintballs, and are cheaper, I will be incredibly impressed. I just don't see how such an outcome is reasonable, and I have yet to see any explanation whatsoever as to how such a thing might be possible.

 

[Dark Warrior]

There is no way that a 0.5 ball fired @ 300 ft/s of smaller diameter and same mass will hurt the same or less than a standard 0.68. That is just a physical impossibility.
Yes the smaller paintball will impact with less of the skins surface area and therefore less nerve endings, but what you need to realise is that it will still impact at the same force and this is dissipated over this whole contact area. So the smaller the area then the more force on each nerve ending therefore greater pain. Just by reducing the size of the paintball from .68 to .5 means the contact area reduces by 45% so each nerve ending is impacted by 1.8x as much force.
Note this does not even take into account that to keep the mass the same the fillings has got to be denser. A denser liquid tends to holds its form more and will not spread or spray far from the point of impact.

 

[Robbo]

Chris....when are you ever gonna learn mate???

This world you inhabit, I'm afraid there are others who reside in it who are able to reason as well as you, and in some cases, better than yourself.

I know this irks you to even consider there are more intelligent people around but it is the fact of the matter.

You, like brockdorff, default into this peculiar mode of thinking and posting that is best described as 'ever decreasing circles', and those circles describe the room you leave yourself, in terms of escape.

The outcome for you is predictable because ostensibly we are witness to a bright guy assuming less and less rationale as desperation becomes the main determinant in your debate.

I'm not sure if you have the same phrase over there in the US but we have one here that best describes your next course of advised action, 'Wind your neck in Chris' ..... it makes sense to ...

 

[Chicago]

The only circles here are the ones I'm running around the complete lack of any opposing argument other than "But you just don't know anything!"

If a .50 cal paintball is created that performs as well as a .68 cal paintball and doesn't hurt any more and is cheaper, well, you can say "I told you so". But I personally don't expect the laws of physics to be violated in the near future.

By the way, you never answered the question as to whether you had actually seen and used these newfangled paintballs yet. So have you seen any of these new paintballs? Shot any of them?

Because if not, it seems pretty silly to say I can't be skeptical of all the claims because "I don't know anything" about these new paintballs when, well, it doesn't appear anyone else does either. And while I have some pretty solid reasons why a paintball can't be smaller AND perform the same AND not hurt more AND be cheaper, I have not seen even one explanation as to how it might be remotely possible for a paintball to achieve all of those things.


Here, because I'm an incredibly nice guy, I'll even make the opposing argument for you, since you guys seem to be having trouble coming up with one on your own.


Here's the best case scenario.

.50 cal instead of .68 cal reduces the surface area by 46%. So to keep roughly the same flight characteristics, we'd need 54% of the mass, or 1.6 grams. That will up the density, since you only have 40% of the volume to work with. Now have 54% of the mass, but only 40% of the impact time*area, so your "hurt" is up 35%. And that's assuming you don't get more viscosity with the denser fill, and also assuming nothing is done to make the .50 cal paintballs perform ANY better than the .68 cal paintballs. If you put more mass in the paintball to make it perform better, or raise the velocity to make it perform better, then then you have even more hurt.

 

[Chicago]

Paintballs.

I win, you lose.

You can fit 30 skids on a 53' semi-trailer. 30 skids of 100 cases of 2000 3.2 gram paintballs = 42,329 lbs. GVW limit on US highways is 80,000 lbs, and your garden variety refrigerated trailer is going to weigh at least 35,000 lbs. So you've got a truck at the weight limit at 100 cases per skid. Put 130 cases per skid and you can't fill the floor of the truck. The limiting factor is the weight, not the volume.

Ergo, reducing the volume isn't going to save you any money on full loads, and won't save you much money on LTL since the freight company will have to pair your shipment with something less dense.

 

[Buddha 3]

1)So, for the record, you believe these new paintballs perform as well as .68 caliber paintballs, will not hurt more than .68 caliber paintballs, and will be cheaper than .68 caliber paintballs?

2)Do you also believe that selling paint for less is better for the rec paintball business?


3)If somehow these paintballs do perform as well as .68 paintballs, and don't hurt significantly more than .68 paintballs, and are cheaper, I will be incredibly impressed. I just don't see how such an outcome is reasonable, and I have yet to see any explanation whatsoever as to how such a thing might be possible.

1) C'mon now Chris. I know you can read, so stop trying to put words in my mouth. There has been no moment that I have said that they will perform as well as the current paintballs, there has been no moment that I have said they won't perform as well as the current paintballs. So for the record, I'm not commenting on how they will perform, because there are simply to many "known unknowns" (if I may quote your former secretary of defense) to be able to say anything meaningful about them. I'm not for or against, I'm just curious to see them in action.

Truth be told, I think it's gonna be damn hard to come up with a paintball that's smaller than .68, but will still perform like a .68 or better. But unlinke you, I'm not saying it's impossible.

2) Selling for less to who? The sites, the customers, or both?

3) I have yet to see an explanation as to why it would be impossible. Hard, yes. Impossible, no. All I see is people using the current state of the art as an example. We just don't know what's being cooked in "Dexter's lab".

 

[Buddha 3]

There is no way that a 0.5 ball fired @ 300 ft/s of smaller diameter and same mass will hurt the same or less than a standard 0.68. That is just a physical impossibility.
Yes the smaller paintball will impact with less of the skins surface area and therefore less nerve endings, but what you need to realise is that it will still impact at the same force and this is dissipated over this whole contact area. So the smaller the area then the more force on each nerve ending therefore greater pain. Just by reducing the size of the paintball from .68 to .5 means the contact area reduces by 45% so each nerve ending is impacted by 1.8x as much force.
Note this does not even take into account that to keep the mass the same the fillings has got to be denser. A denser liquid tends to holds its form more and will not spread or spray far from the point of impact.

It can if it's lighter. But that would have an adverse effect on it's ballistic properties.

So yes, it might hurt more, but I doubt it will be as big a bloodbath as people claim it to be. It'll go from stinging a little to stinging a tad.

Besides, anybody claiming that paintball hurts is a girly man.

 

[Buddha 3]

You can fit 30 skids on a 53' semi-trailer. 30 skids of 100 cases of 2000 3.2 gram paintballs = 42,329 lbs. GVW limit on US highways is 80,000 lbs, and your garden variety refrigerated trailer is going to weigh at least 35,000 lbs. So you've got a truck at the weight limit at 100 cases per skid. Put 130 cases per skid and you can't fill the floor of the truck. The limiting factor is the weight, not the volume.

Ergo, reducing the volume isn't going to save you any money on full loads, and won't save you much money on LTL since the freight company will have to pair your shipment with something less dense.

Perhaps differing "rules" in the US compared to Europe?

I still win, you lose a little less...

 

[Buddha 3]

it seems pretty silly to say I can't be skeptical

Ah, now we're getting somewhere!
Amazing how a choice of words can make such a difference. Nobody at all has said (well, not me anyway) that you can't be skeptical. Sh*t, I'm probably one of the most cynical and skeptical people on this planet! Be skeptical all you want man. But if it's skepticism you claim, it would make more sense to say "I have major doubts that they're gonna succeed", rather than just flat out stating it's impossible. Because it ain't. It might cost a lot to get it fixed, it might not. But smarter people than you and I get to try that out.

Had you just flat out stated that you are skeptical, rather than screaming it can't be done, you would not have ended up looking like this guy. (just messing with you...)

PS Your ''scientific" explanation at the end....very much flawed....

 

[Reiner]

Leaving the scientific stuff aside, my concern is this (from the Paintball Business Journal):

``We've been talking to several people involved (but unnamed for now) that are saying a move to 50 caliber could almost double the number of balls you'll get in a case of paint, with only a $1 or $2 increase in price.``

Twice the balls at basically the same price. If this were aimed at field and store owners and field and store owners actually used that extra margin to create healthier businesses and better facilities, then no problem. Unfortunately, field and store owners, as a whole, are not that smart. Field and store owners WILL pass these cost reductins onto thier customers (they always have in the past). From an individual player`s point of view, that may seem like a good thing. But from an industry perspactive, it sucks.

Cheaper paint WILL mean less, not more players in the future. Cheaper paint will keep new players from returning to the field after having experience high volume playing on their first visit. Less new players today means less regulars and less tourney players tomorrow. This trend has been happening over the last few years (started long before the recession started) as paintball prices have been dropping. One cent paintball (which is basically what this will amount to) will do much more harm to the industry than it will do good.

Yes we can wait to see what happens, but then it may be too late. It`s very difficult to reverse the trend of dropping prices.