neither is better than the other in the greater scheme of things. A closed bolt fires with the bolt forward and up agianst the ball, while an open bolt fires from the rear position and shoots forward into the ball then blasts the air. Some people will say that closed bolts are more accurate, and there is some truth to that, but its not really that different. As far as price goes, take a look at angels. They are open bolt and its hard to find anything more expensive than a Cl*ss or Dark.
Just a suggestion, but there are least three threads that discuss closed and open bolts in length. They will probably give you all the information you need.
Sweet, thanks for the explanation. sjreg1, i just read all the stuff on closed bolt/open bolt. It did a great job, like Wicked F00 of explaining what the mechanism is. It also listed what guns are closed and which are open.
Wicked raised a question though that I don't think was addressed:
Wicked alluded that there is some basis for arguing that closed bolts are more accurate... Anyone know why closed bolt systems would be more accurate than open bolt?
Thanks
__________________
Hey are those my balls on your chin?
The closed bolt design is inherently more accurate as the breech is fully sealed by the bolt and the bolt is not travelling at the moment of firing. Also, range is increased, as all the gas is used to propel the ball and none is vented away to work the action. However, closed bolt designs must have perfectly tuned valves because they rely on an EXACT amount of gas to be released for every shot.
Huge, I think you may get some replies to those statements arguing physics this and real world that...
I think what you will find ,SuicideBunkerer, is that if you took two very similar guns Like the viking which is open bolt and the excalibur which is closed bolt, Both made by aka and have very similar parts and very tight tolerances.... if you bench mounted both guns and used the same barrel/paint/fps/air system/drop whatever the guns would be very close in range and accuracy.
But what I have found on the field (since I am not shooting the gun bench mounted) is that I can shoot the excal more accurately at a long range than the viking because the viking has just a hair more kick to it. In shooting a long string of paint that only really affects the first few balls then it's easy to walk either gun to your target and hold it there. But for small bursts I would rather be shooting the excal.
SuicideBunkerer
Threads like this usually end up getting locked because they promote myths.
But, a closed-bolt is NOT more accurate then an open-bolt, and it does NOT give you more range. There have been many, many tests that show they SHOOT EXACTLY THE SAME. In fact, there has never been an unbiased test that showed otherwise. The science is pretty simple.
Why do people still buy closed-bolts when they are most expensive, and shoot slower? Hype.
Fact is, pretty much everyone now shoots open-bolts now.
I agree that closed bolt may not be more accurate than open bolt.
The point I was trying to make was that one gun had a tiny bit less kick to it and that due to that I was able to shoot the excal more accurately at a longer range.
I also didn't mean that all closed bolts have less kick than open bolts.
Just wanted to clear that up.
as far as hype goes. .. If the snake oil boosts your confidence and allows you to shoot better then did it do it's job? I think personal preference, shooting style and what ever will make one gun work better for someone than another.
Obviously making a shooter more accurate and adding 20 yards to the range of the ball are two different animals completely.
This is why it's so important for people to try as many different guns as possible before they make a selection. What is right for one person may be totally wrong for someone else.
Frankly I think byoung is in a good position to make a personal judgment on it. He's got 2 essentially equal guns with the primary difference being the bolt mechanism. He felt a tangible difference, which he alluded to could partially be mental. However, from personal experience I felt a similar difference, and its well beyond urban lore that an autococker is generally more accurate than an angel, or any other open bolt systems. Is the difference large enough to be worthwhile? Probably not, any gain is likely nominal, ask any angel owner like myself and i would tell you that my angel is accurate as hell. However, that doesn't negate the the theory behind the two systems and their differences. I understand the mechanisms well and the ratioinale behind closed bolt systems being more consistent is logical. However in practice the difference may again be nominal, and could be exaggerated by mental perception. Given all that, I still maintain there is a slight difference, and I give my personal experiences prima facie evidentiary weight over any third party tests.
that sounds ominous... and its new to me. What exactly is SP claiming? Hmm i guess it has to be patent related, i'll do a patent search and see which patents have been issued to them.
Actually most are Open bolt. The only "more expensive" markers that are closed bolt are Excalibur and fancy e/cockers. Even the 03 shocker is Open bolt! Yes, despite the marketing before the product was made, the 03 Shocker even is open bolt. They couldn't get it to fire fast enough in their closed-bolt form so they switched.
But over all... every single Intimidator, Impulse, Xmag, and Angel.... those are all open bolt.
that sounds ominous... and its new to me. What exactly is SP claiming?
SP claims alot of things, includes ALL guns that use electronics.
They have sued nearly every company that has made some sort of electro. They usually loose, but they have managed to put a couple companies out of business simple because they couldnt afford to defend themselves.
They have also claimed to own all rights to ported barrels, and have sued most of the barrel companies. Thats why most companies try to use a different hole-pattern then SP.
The sad thing is that they didn't even invent the electro or ported barrel. Both designs were purchased from other companies, then patented somehow.
Why is SP so sue-crazy?
The owner IS A PATENT LAWYER! He obviously knows the ropes. He used to run one of those "invention submission" scams in the 80s, and was sued by the people he ripped off.
His patent for the closed-bolt Shocker03 was rejected because it looked just like the Mayhem. I guess thats what they call "sweet irony"!
That said, they make high quality products, even if all there claims are 99% junk.
Woah. I checked out some of the smartparts patents... they were granted 10 paintball utility patents and each patent has like 20 claims or so. Here's one that's interesting: Pat. No. 6349711 which is about "Low pressure electrically operated pneumatic paintball gun." This patent went nuts on covering a myriad of low pressure setups for electros, as such any company that sells low pressure electros using a pretty standard regulator/valve assembly is infringing on their patent. And they tried to cover all possible setups... They've drafted it pretty well so that its not too broad as to be unenforceable, and its narrow enough to catch most competitors.
They just got this particular patent approved in 2002,which probably coincides with them going on a sue spree...
I don't see any relevant case law yet, so i guess people have either settled, or are currently litigating... its possible that these guys could turn into the microsoft of the paintball world, but i'm sure they'll realize that would be bad for the sport and they'll end up selling limited licenses to their competitors... although it is a possibility that we could all one day be asking... so what kind of gun do you own a shocker or a shocker?
alot of paintball technology was pre-existing thus the only thing SP will be able to sue on is a gun that uses the same dimentions. im suprised they were even awarded a pat on half their stuff.
Well, like I said, the SP owner is a patent lawyer, and even ran a patent submission scam in the 80s.
He definetly knows how to use the system.
Perhaps he has friends at the patent office?
The joke is that SP has a patent on orings.....
nick
__________________ http://www.montneel.com My crappy MYSPACE "the evidence strongly suggests that neither Billy nor Adam (Smart Parts) could have invented the electronic paintgun"-Garr M. King, U.S. Judge
alright here is my take on it....ive owned nice cockers, shoot one now with an eblade...shot tons of angels, and have owned a timmy...oh yeah and a shocker
closed bolt- the actual shooting of the ball is a seperate function of re-chambering a ball (im talkin cockers here...i know nothing of how a trix works). since shooting the ball relizes on only one action, the gun will generally be more conistent...also matching paint to bore is more successful ina closed bolt gun...leading to even better consistency...
with good paint, and me sizing it correctly in my freak...ill shoot consecutive numbers at the chrono on a regular basis...like 295 295 296...i have a 14 inch barrel, and a shorter barrel is generally more consistent.
open bolt- usually with these markers, a little bit larger paint to barrel match is better, most of the time bc the bore of the breech of the gun is a little bit bigger than most smaller bore barrels, so the ball would have to go up a lip to enter the barrel (if the barrel was a smaller bore), so if u have a larger match to your paint, that will make you even less consistent, hurting accuracy....the actual firing of the ball in most open bolt markers is controled by air (pneumatic open bolt guns) and therefore if the lp reg is les consitent, you will get less consitent shots over all.
the aim of accuracy and range is to get good consistency...usually with todays plethera of barrels, as long as the paint match isnt incredibly off it will shoot good....but to get he best out of your guns performance, get a kit that way u can get the closest fit and helping to get the best consistency possibel....but most of all good paint is a must for accuracy...
to sum up, consistency is key to accuracy and range...all balls will go equally far with similar velocities...so the more consistent yuor gat is the closer to 300 u cna chrono without worry of spiking over the chrono....
get good paint, a consistent setup and you should have a very accurate gun...
closed vs. open = slight differences that arent worth spending mad cash or getting rid of a gun u already like to get the other....each will have their slight advantages, and both will have their slight disadvantages
That study is a little flawed since they use stock(different) barrels and air sources. I would have liked them to use the same barrel in ALL setups, the same reg in ALL setups, and the same airsource in ALL setups.
