How Fast Does a Paintball Travel: The Science Behind Paintball Speed

How Fast Does a Paintball Travel: The Science Behind Paintball Speed. For paintball fans, the speed of a paintball is a hotly debated topic. This is because paintballs are often seen as dangerous projectiles that can cause serious harm, and therefore the speed of these balls needs to be known for safety reasons. But how fast does a paintball travel?

 

How Fast Does a Paintball Travel: The Science Behind the Speed of a Paintball

Why does the speed of a paintball matter? – How Fast Does a Paintball Travel

The speed of a paintball is one of the most important factors to consider when buying a gun. The speed of the paintball is usually measured in feet per second (fps) or meters per second (mps). The more paintballs traveling at a higher speed, the more likely you are to hit your target.

For general reference, a paintball travels around 65 fps, while others travel faster like 93 fps and 302 fps. Paintballs are not created equally, with some just hair faster than others. Sadly, paintball guns will not get you the fastest time, but they will get the job done.

There’s a misconception that paintballs enter the barrel of a gun towards the rear of the gun and that they then travel in a straight line toward the target. While this is true for paintballs, it isn’t the only way a paintball actually travels. The paintball actually enters the barrel from one of the two surfaces it contacts.

This can differ depending on the type of paintball, but generally speaking, it’s either the back/sides or the front/tips of the barrels. This can have a huge effect on the spray pattern as well as the pressure of the paintball fired. In terms of pressure, the higher the pressure, the more pressure will be exerted on the main traveling surface of the paintball.

This can have a significant effect on its travel and its ability to hit your target. These factors, along with the shape of the barrel, determine the maximum range of the gun when firing a paintball. For pistols, this is the standard size, while shotgun-style paintballs for snipers travel in much smaller increments — around 6 mm.

Shotguns need to be much shorter in their target to hit than a pistol-style single-shot paintball. Pistols generally travel around 20 fps, while snipers are a few hundred fps faster. Paintballs for sniper rifles travel through one of the two barrels and travel relatively slower than pistols because of this. Some paintballs travel too slowly, and others wildly.

 

How can you measure the speed of a paintball? – How Fast Does a Paintball Travel

The speed of a paintball can be measured using a chronograph. A chronograph is a device that measures the velocity of a projectile. To measure a paintball’s speed, you simply point it at a chronograph and the chronograph will measure the speed of the paintball. According to the video below, it takes a standard paintball 2800 feet to travel 3000 meters.

In layman terms, this means that you can shoot a paintball twice as far before the paintball would need to be reset. Using PPG (Point-of-Performance) figures, paintballs have actually been measured at speeds exceeding 3900 feet-per-second. However paintballs are stabilized by relying on dropped paintballs and air pressure when traveling at great speeds, which results in PPGs being expressed with decimal points.

In layman’s terms 1/400th of a second equals 393 feet, For example, when you used a standard PPG paintball (38 RPM) to shoot a 400 yard of football, it would travel 400 yards in 2/319 of a second. Recently there has been greater debate about the use of RC (real-time clock) technology, which uses a computer to determine how long it takes to shoot.

Using this technology paintball chronographs have been shown to be unreliable; the first time someone successfully shot a standard paintball from 1000 yards, the chronograph said it took 43 seconds and the second shot took only 18 seconds.

However, this type of chronograph cannot correctly determine the locations of the chronograph’s chambers or the locations of the players due to where the player is positioning themselves in relation to the chronograph’s chambers.

One way to overcome these challenges is to utilize multiple chronographs in conjunction to increase accuracy. Multiple chronographs are used to measure and map the locations where different elements of the chronograph believe paintballs are traveling.

A player will be able to perform actions in-game that would be impossible if the ball had not traveled any of the indicated locations by the time it reached that specific predetermined target.

 

What factors affect the speed of a paintball? – How Fast Does a Paintball Travel

There are a lot of factors that affect the speed of a paintball. The most obvious factor is the weight of the paintball. A paintball that is lighter will shoot faster than a heavier one. Paintballs are also affected by temperature. As a paintball warms up, it means that it will travel faster.

Another factor is the type of lubricant used on the barrel of a paintball. Some paintballs are lubricated by WD-40, while others are lubricated with OLIVE oil. The higher the quality of the lubricant used, the faster the paintball will shoot. Another thing that affects the paintball speed is the amount of air pressure that is used.

The less air pressure used, the faster the paintball will go, but again, the lubricant plays an important role here. One final caveat is that there can be some variance between tanks used in different paintball setups. Some first-generation tanks use half the water for a single shot whereas some newer tanks just refill themselves.

This means that the total amount of water used could be slightly different depending on the tank used. You’ll also hear paintballers refer to paintball shot as “hold the line”. This is just common colloquial language but means to ‘hold (or stay) around the one represented by the number.

For example, a 10-shot hold at 50 feet is shorthand for ‘10 shots from 50 feet with the paintball flying at an average speed of 75 mph. This is important because paintballs are actually made to travel faster than that. Speed does play a factor when designing the cartridge. The speed of a paintball will also vary depending on where you buy your paintball gear.

Paintball players usually go with premade sets, which come with all the bits and pieces you need to play. That way, they make sure they are getting the best coverage for all the kickers and lights. You’ll also hear paintballers refer to premade sets as ‘paintball buckets’. You are absolutely correct in saying that most paintballs are designed to go extremely fast.

 

How fast does a paintball travel?

A paintball travels at around 300 feet per second.

If you get hit on the hand with a paintball, it will sting, but it won’t break the skin. If you get hit on the arm, the force of the impact will be enough to bruise the skin, but not hard enough to break it. Paintballs can also be deflected and are frequently thrown in different directions so even if you get hit in the arm, it will not always be your arm that is broken.

For paintballers and sports enthusiasts who love them, the speed of a paintball is vital. As a population, paintballers are hardwired to want the latest and greatest paintball marker and gun, but the truth is, you really can’t go wrong with anything under 1000fps. The most popular sorts of paintballs are the M3 and M1, and as you might have guessed, these are the fastest paintballs on the market.

A few other types are also available and these are the “standard” paintballs, speedball markers, and some international market options.4 The M3 paintball is the flagship ball for the military-grade marking systems used in law enforcement and military units.

They are specifically designed by Demeter to have a high rate of return in emergency situations, but also to be the fastest balls to operate. Tuffed Speedballs in particular tout their 11,000fps max speed.

Originally developed in the 90s to be used by hunting Zoosk employees to reduce the risk of contracting Foot-and-Mouth disease, the M3 ball has gone through many iterations, but it now largely serves the same purpose for law enforcement agencies all over the world.

A rough M3 ball from Evike is around $998USD and you can usually find them on e-bay for around this price. Speedball markers are specifically designed to provide you a fast, accurate shot at longer ranges. At one end of the spectrum, we have the Tuffed Speedball, which boasts a 9,000fps max range.

 

Conclusion:

Paintballs feature a variety of speeds depending on their size and weight, which is why it’s best to use them with protective gear for your own safety.

Paintball guns come in a variety of sizes and speeds, and it’s important to make sure you’re using the right paintball gun for your game. Paintballs come in different sizes and weights, and you need to make sure you’re using the right size and weight paintballs for your gun.

Paintballs smaller than .5” are too small to be effective for long-distance shooting, so if you’re only going out to play games in a park, try to go with one that’s at least.5” in diameter. Paintball guns come in a variety of speeds, as well. Trapping Speed is one of the most popular speeds, and this is the speed that most paintball guns have.

As you’ll see below, the Speed Trap Speed paintballs have a slower maximum velocity and a much shorter effective range. Blast Speed is another popular paintball speed, and it has an even lower maximum velocity and a longer effective range than Trapping Speed, so if it’s safer to play at lower velocities, that’s what you’ll want to use.

If you’re going to be shooting videos, the faster your gun, the faster the action will be, and the closer the target will be, which will always help to make things more entertaining. Depending on how cagey the league or tournament organizer is, they may not let you shoot at full speed, but slowing down the action and slowing down the targets is something that will help draw more attention to the game if you’re having a lot of fun.

Paintball guns come in a wide variety of various sizes and weights, as well. Here’s an example of a standard paintball gun, shot from the side: Now here’s an example of the same paintball gun from the front: Again, this is one of the most popular sizes, and it’s very easy for paintball guns to come in different weights.