This is something I’ve heard quite a lot, is it true? I believe the question is self-explanatory, but if you need more details let me know.
It depends. If it didn’t break, either it was frozen, or it wasn’t going fast enough.
Personally, I have never noticed the difference when I get hit, if the ball broke, i’m out. If it didn’t, I still felt it, but, hey, I’m still in the game.
So my answer is,
To me, if it is going at regular speed and doesn’t break, I feel no difference.
I have to agree with feppytweed. I could never really feel the difference. I’d get hit, and look to see if it broke. It stings a bit either way, but I was usually so into the game that it didn’t really hurt much.
It does make sense that if I had 2 paintballs impacting my arm at the same speed, the unbroken one would hurt more than the splattered one, but I don’t think the difference is really that great. Now if you were to load marbles and crank up the pressure, that would be a different story.
I would think so as the break spreads the impact over a larger area and longer time.
But I have noticed that when they don’t brake they are:
Going slower, perhaps a longer shot.
Hitting something with more give (padded clothes* or someone’s butt ), which might hurt less then hitting a bony area and it breaking.
- One time I was playing in the late fall I had a camo down vest on, the darn thing acted like a bullet proof vest as the down allowed the p/b to slow down gradually enough not to break. It was not my intention but worked very well YMMV.
Wouldn’t the ball the breaks convey less energy onto your skin than the ball that bounces off. It has been awhile since physics, but impulse conveys quite a bit of energy, the example was that a rubber ball conveys more energy than a lump of clay of the same mass when thrown against an open door.
All other variables being equal, bouncers so hurt more than breakers.
When someone has mugged me out and put a 3-stripe or more into me, I have always had the worst welts from the ones which bounced off like marbles - I think this is to do with 100% of the energy being transmitted through the very small contact patch of the front of the ball directly into the skin, as opposed to being dissipated into shattering the shell, and then having the paint splatter over a slightly larger contact patch.
Obviously, if someone has chronoed at 200fps, is shooting at your from the far end of the field, or you are wearing a snowsuit, then you will get painless bounces (hurrah!!) but in my experience the nice ‘bullseye’ bruises tend to come from bounces at close range - even with top-quality paint these can happen at very close range if you get shot at a perfect perpendicular into a relatively meaty bit.
feppytweed is correct though in that you don’t really feel the difference that much when you are on the field, buzzed up on adrenaline - you may feel the impact, glance down and see that some or all of the hits have bounced, or not even feel it at all - it’s not usually that painful. When you have walked off the field, that’s when you feel the difference. I still have a couple of faint marks on my leg from a pair of bounces I collected back in 2001 :eek:
And that is why you shouldn’t let people get close enough to mug you, and only ever show your gun, half your facemask and one (gloved) hand round the edge of your bunker - hits on hardware don’t hurt in the least
This is the argument I’ve heard. But my understanding of physics is that energy transmitted to the skin shouldn’t be dependent upon whether the ball breaks (although the ball breaking does put an upper limit on this force). If the impulse force is high, that energy is transmitted back to the ball (Newton’s Third) and should break it. Otherwise, the energy is not as high and the ball bounces off.
One assumption of this reasoning is that all paintballs are equally hard. Is the reality that some happen to be much harder than the others, and those are the ones that bounce off (and transmit lots more energy)?
Well, you are right in that there are appreciable manufacturing variations in paintballs, and some are harder, less round, or whatever, than others. This does make a bit of difference, but not that much. I’ve picked up paintballs that have bounced and they aren’t noticeably different from any other paintball in use that day.
But as far as the physics goes, there is a fair amount of difference between what happens when a ball breaks and when one stays intact. You have to remember that even though the total energy in an equation is identical, the transfer profile, transfer area and so on can be radically different.
Think of it the difference between being hit by a hard-boiled egg, a soft-boiled egg, a broken egg and an omelette. If you leave the bits of shell in the last two, you’ll have identical masses and energy, but different energy transfer profiles and impact sensations.
I don’t really know, although the paintball that hurt the worst for me was one that didn’t break… it hit me on the back of my hand. I would imagine that would hurt whether it broke or not. All the other times I’ve been hit, I never noticed that much difference whether it broke or not.
See my above post
Yes the total energy is the same but it is the time and area of impact which will make a difference.
I play every week. There’s a ton a variables I can think of that will have the ball break or bounce.
The quality of the paint is first. Some are made with a harder or thicker shell than others. If the humidity is high or the paint has been sitting in the sun it gets softer.
Where you get hit. On a bone like a knuckle or rib or somewhere soft and fleshy.
How far away the shooter is and the speed. Is the ball lobbed in or a direct hit?
“Hurt” is so subjective I don’t think this can be answered without extensive field tests. Any volunteers? From years of experience of mostly woods ball, paint that bounces was from very far away, a glancing blow or hit me somewhere more padded. I understand the physics that a solid ball has a tighter impact area and should hurt more. But that’s assuming both shots were equal, one bounced and one broke. That’s not how it really works in game play.
Not in woods ball, maybe. But in sup’air it’s not at all unusual to have a situation where someone suddenly gets a clear shot, rips off 10 or so balls, and a half-dozen or more hit. In which instance you get a bunch of paint from the same hopperful, coming from the same gun at the same speed to the same target. It’s not going to all hit on exactly the same spot unless you’re really unlucky, but it’s often pretty close, and sometimes you see paint bounce for no discernible reason. I’ve seen someone take a string of half a dozen shots to a area the size of a playing card (on their ass-cheek no less) and have two bounce while the others broke. Owie. Got to love ramping boards.
But basically the story of paintball is that weird shit happens all the time. I’ve had Hellfire bounce off my goggles while the next identical ball broke clipped the sleeve on my jersey and broke on the cloth. Wha??
Quick anecdote, often claimed to be true but probably apocryhpal IMHO:
Scientists at NASA developed a cannnon to fire (dead) dead chickens at aircraft windshields to simulate collisions with birds (like geese).
They loaned a cannon to the Brits to test their high-speed train windshields. But they reported back that the windshields kept breaking. The NASA scientists told them they needed to thaw the chickens first.
The version I have seen numerous times had the Brits sharing the design with the Yanks. Either way, it’s been busted
Frozen paintballs, on the other hand - :eek: (provided they are still frozen). Thawed ones are actually softer than usual.