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50 Cal - the way forwards.....?????

manorman00

Member
Jul 26, 2010
13
0
11
East Anglia
Well girls and boys, having had a few 50 cal guns arrive at our site, we were keen to give them a go - 'the next best thing.....' we were told.
Brand new gats, Dark Sports Paint, what could go wrong?? Lots, it appears that 50 cal guns do not like the cold and out of 10 gats only 2 were anywhere near working after game 1 boo!! but worst of all, the acuracy of the paint was attrocious, it was oily straight from the off, not just one bag - the whole consignment!! Now I am not saying that I can shoot an apple off someones head at 50m - far from it, I would however, expect to hit a target no less than 6m away with more than 1 out of 10 shots! I needed to be sure that it wasn't just my gat (or lousy aim :rolleyes:) so asked the other 9 guinea pigs what they thought, the paint was swerving around randomly and even our 'dead eye' could not understand how with 10 shots from a stationary position how each and every paintball went in a different direction, with 3 kill shots and 1 on the target (a British Army standard target 11, so not even small) - a resounding thumbs down for our 50 cal experience! Now it could just be the paint and the cold weather letting the 50 cal side down...I am going to give it another go in the summer and hope that we were just exceptionally unlucky. 50 cal appeals because the undergrowth and scrub will be preserved (and my 10 yo can play!!)
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
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Glasgow, Scotland
very simillar experience to be honest. we got a couple of spyder .50 markers in and it is pure physics that the smaller mass is more subject to the wind. at least this seemed to be the case that of the few games i played with these the balls swerve left right and centre. due to a complete lack of time while at the field i've never went back to these however we've got a couple of bags of gi milsim paint which is meant to be the highest standard in this category (supposedly). so i think i will be doing simillar and cleaning out the guns properly and give it another go, but at first look it seems that just the sheer size is a bit of a problem. what i will say is that i can see the guns appealing to smaller players (as opposed to the typical infernos) in the sense that they are smaller and not as stretched out. obviously cant blame the paint but these guns did chop quite bad as they are just mech guns. however that might be my own fault for firing faster than the paint can fall in.
 
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manorman00

Member
Jul 26, 2010
13
0
11
East Anglia
i am hanging up the 50 cals until the spring / summer - perhaps the warmer weather will help stop the paint oozing oil and the gats (shiny new spyder 50 cals too) going wrong - all in all I can see the appeal, less pain and closer battles (range and wind) though so far I think that the accuracy would just put me off - and if i played my first ever game and that was how it went, I do not think that I would want to try the sport again...anyone for airsoft????
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
2,371
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Glasgow, Scotland
all in all I can see the appeal, less pain and closer battles
that being said one of the guys i was working with shot me from a couple of metres away in the back when i wasnt expecting it, and it hurts nowhere near as much as a .68. since its a supair field we use, inevitably the punters do end up getting mugged and come away with some bad bruises which predictably could turn them away. due to the nature of this kind of paintball we dont enforce the headshot/distance rules of other sites and so i think the .50 could be a good way of getting round this.
 

Robbo

Owner of this website
Jul 5, 2001
13,114
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London
www.p8ntballer.com
I think there are obviously pros and cons to anything new being introduced to any environment and I would hope these experiences are not indicative of the 50 cal product's shortfalls.

I also think there is no way the guys who sell this stuff would knowingly allow products that perform like this to be sent out .. nevertheless, it would seem you didn't have a good experience and so I can only surmise either you might have had a bad batch of paint and coupled with the cold weather gave rise to the problems you had.

I would add though, when Liam talks of pure physics explaining the lack of momentum in the 50 cal ball making it easier to be blown off line, he actually failed to mention another example of pure physics when the lack of surface area of the 50 cal ball would make it less likely for the ball to be blown off line.

I haven't done the mathematics yet to prove which factor, momentum difference or surface area difference has the more significant effect but I'm sure somebody will do one day.
Either way, you didn't have a good day and that's incontrovertible and so I'll make sure the 50 cal guys get this info.
Many thanks for your input anyway and let's hpoe your next 50 cal experience is a lot more enjoyable.
I hasten to add, I am not an employee of 50 cal nor do I get paid by them in any way.
Richmond, the guy who owns the 50 cal project is a mate of mine and so I try to make sure we get a balanced range of opinions for his sake.
I will always look after my friends, I won't ever lie for them!
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
2,371
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Glasgow, Scotland
I would add though, when Liam talks of pure physics explaining the lack of momentum in the 50 cal ball making it easier to be blown off line, he actually failed to mention another example of pure physics when the lack of surface area of the 50 cal ball would make it less likely for the ball to be blown off line.

I haven't done the mathematics yet to prove which factor, momentum difference or surface area difference has the more significant effect but I'm sure somebody will do one day.
whichever way round it works out all that i could describe was that it seems to swerve quite a bit more under the same conditions of a .68. Obviously i do not have a clue what the contributing factors affecting the travel were (the mass is just an educated guess) but as it seemed to be a uniform experience with the guys we sent out with some .50 guns it seems a feasible cause. anybody know how to work this out? i'm interested now :D

like i said i'm determined to make sure the guns are spotless and that i've got windfree conditions before i go out to test .50 and .68 side by side again, its a technology i would like to see work but at these preliminary stages it isn't looking so good unfortunately =\
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
2,371
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Glasgow, Scotland
Electro gats or mech?
What velocity were you shooting?
What grade of paint?

Got a 50 cal mech spyder which I havent tried yet but looking forward to getting it out. I really like the idea of 3000+ shots per air fill especially for the big games.
the exact same, 50 cal mech spyder as mentioned before. cant think off the top of my head what the brand of paint is, but there is definitely some GI .50 lying so goin to give that a go when its a bit warmer and i eventually clean the gats out
 

Random Invert

Well-Known Member
Oct 27, 2008
1,286
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N.Wales - Wrexham
www.outpostpaintball.co.uk
Id originally bought two, sold one on here and the lad said the main problem they had was the first few chopped and after that they couldn't clean the barrel.

Ive been looking at field paint for mine sure their not as brittle as tourny paint.

Try it at higher velocity 350fps see if it makes a difference.
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
2,371
587
148
Glasgow, Scotland
Id originally bought two, sold one on here and the lad said the main problem they had was the first few chopped and after that they couldn't clean the barrel.
haha i done the same, went to stick a fluffy down the end to find out it has no chance of fitting :p got a special .50 squeegie tho so all is good!