Fox squirrel taken with homemade dart and gun

[josephlys]

I dont understand why the barrel of a paintballgun has holes in them, wont this affect the darts velocity. Also why is the barrel quite irregular in shape, I mean wouldn't a uniformly straight barrel produce more uniform accuracy. I hope this doesn't kill the possibility of  a good hunting paintballgun. Thank for your help.

[Forum Admin]

That is called porting, it actually can improve accuracy by reducing the blast behind the dart as it exits the barrel. It will strip some velocity, I'd look for a barrel that only had ports near the end. The irregular shape is external, the inside should be a .68 caliber pretty much the whole length. Try to find one with as long a barrel as possible, this will help you get as much power as is possible from a paintball marker. Paintballs can weigh up to 54 grains and have some blowby. A 40 grain dart with a good seal might achieve 400+ fps with the right barrel and tuning.

[boar]

hey congrats on the tree rat good shot cant wait to see more

Boar

[josephlys]

Thanks again for your help

[Pellethuntr]

Hey Joe sry haven't posted anything here didn't realize there was a sub discussion going on...I have tried a paintball gun and I found that they just don't put out enough air to get what I wanted...you could prolly heavily mod it and just shoot darts and have a pretty decent squirrel and rabbit gun

[josephlys]

Pellethunter, well i think thats not going to be a problem cause the paintballgun's use for me is to shoot light weight darts at crows and pigeons at a distance of 10yards or 15yards the most. Doesn't take much to kill them, a 40-60 grain dart travelling at 280- 300ft/s is actually sufficient for plinking these pest IMHO. Plus the advantage is I get a couple hundred shots without the need to refill. Bigger varmints still need to be taken out with the good ol homemade AG with 180gr nails, sweet.