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: First you get as many opinions as people you talk to. But I'll try. : Materials. Weight, durability are the basic trade offs. : I have a Dye stainless 14" Came with the gun. : I have fallen, full force on it more than once. I am sure I would have bent an aluminum or brass and trashed a composite or ceramic barrel. After 180,000 rounds the bore still looks like new. Stainless is very hard stuff. It is also heavy to carry around. : Aluminum ( common) and Brass (Rare these days) are soft metals. Easy to machine, Makes them cheaper to produce. Your stock barrel is aluminum. My son had a junk spyder given to him with a Tasco aluminum barrel. The chrome is peeling off the outside. The bore is streaked from wear. It is 120,000 + round barrel and looks like junk but still shoots well. Streaks and all. : Ceramic is light and relatively fragile. They market the barrel coatings and accuracy. I'm not sold. : There are composite barrels. Very light. They are plastic barrel with the composite fiber material to give it strength. The bores will wear. Somewhat fragile. : Then there are TWO STAGE BARRELS. Some are also TWO Piece barrels. : The Dye Boomstick was the first with MANY imitators. They are quite fashionable in paintball right now. The first section is a smaller diameter than the second section. Theory is you want a good snug fit to accellerate your ball with little or no blowby. The ball deforms while accelerating. The second stage is over bore and is nothing more than a ball guide and porting. The ball stops accelerating and will literally 'round up' before it leaves the barrel. Thus it shoots a tighter pattern or group than a straight bore barrel. : The Freak is a two stage, two piece with different diameter sleeves to ensure you ball size to bore size can be matched properly regardless of the paint you shoot. Very popular with tournament players that have to shoot whatever paint the field uses that day for the tournament. Ditto the scenerio players that are stuck with a field paint only game. : JT makes a two piece, two stage. They give you a choice of an lightweight aluminum or durable stainless first stage and the second stage is aluminum. Dye does as well and their are others. : If you play year round and cold weather you may need a smaller bore barrel just for winter paint (smaller diameter). : The advantage of the Freak, JT etc is you can have two different bore sizes for less money than having two barrels. : The problem is how many do you have to buy to get the right combination. Again by the time you buy two barrels, you could have bought the whole freak system and not have to worry about it. : Length. Longer vs Shorter. : Shorter snap shoots quicker, sticks out less, easier to crawl with, harder to point and aim with. : Longer snap shoots slower, sticks out more, is harder to crawl with, and easier to point and aim with. In very heavy cover, bushes, tall grass, etc. it can be a pain to try and point a long barrel without having to move it excessively and be spotted. : You play tournaments or a lot of rec speed ball, or an aggressive players that fires a lot of close quarter balls at an opponent, then think 10-14" : If you play woods balls, like to snipe, long ball, and make your opponent come to you, think 16-18" : Just a personal choice after that. : Now, I'll best you are getting a barrel expecting better accuracy than you now have. I call this the "Quest for Accuracy". : I've played 8 years and am still doing it. : So here is some advice. Go to your local field and borrow somebodys super duper, the best that money can buy, barrel and shoot 10 rounds at the chrono with it. Then your stock barrel -10 rounds. : See the difference? Probably not! And that is the facts. : You then have to ask yourself whether or not you are willing to pay the price for a new barrel and not even be able to SEE an improvement in accuracy. : Yes, they ARE more accurate. A perfectly matched Freak can take a 12" pattern with a stock barrel and turn it into a 10" pattern at 20 yards. With really good paint that costs $70 a case that is. BUT.............. : With Field paint, that basically IS NOT ROUND, it will still be more accurate. It will turn a 30" pattern at 20 yards into a 27" pattern. Still not much of an improvement for $225. : You would feel a little disappointed and $225 poorer. : If you want an IMMEDIATE, VISIBLE, improvement in accuracy, start shooting HIGH quality, EXPENSIVE paint. : If you can't afford that quality of paint, don't buy a barrel. It won't make it shoot more accurately enough to justify the cost of the barrel. Like I said. Borrow a barrel and try it with your paint. If you can't SEE an improvement, is it worth having? : But you can't AFFORD expensive paint. You want to play and shoot people! Yes you CAN! : Think about it. When you shoot at a guy, what percentage of your rounds actually go where you were aiming? With field paint that has a 30 pattern at 25 yards, you miss the guy's facemask about 75% of the time. You literally shot 3/4 of your money away on paint that doesn't go where you pointed your barrel. : Compare that with some really good stuff. You have a facemask size pattern at 25 yards. If you miss, it was because YOU weren't pointing it in the right direction. : So what does everybody do? They try to put more rounds in the air so ONE ball out of that 30" pattern MIGHT be more likely to hit its mark before HE shoots you. Hence the Quest for Rate of Fire. It is largely to compensate for the LACK of accuracy. : So, take some advice, try some good stuff but also MAKE YOURSELF slow down and AIM. Get they guy zeroed in and wait for him to come up again. One SPLAT! instead of blasting away. : Remember that junk, antique spyder with the chrome peeling Taso Barrel that I mentioned earlier? It shoots like a nail driver. Beads on a string going right at your opponents facemask. : After a few games, people come up and ask about the upgrades in it. It is stock. They don't believe us. It is the paint we shoot. And the kid shooting it. It is not the barrel or 'upgrades' that makes it accurate. We tell them it is the paint. Diablo Inferno : There is a catch. It has to be FRESH. It has to be shot up. It will not keep for 30 days. They said it will, and it does out of fairness. But like I said, I'm an accuracy freak and if you want that nail driver accuracy, you won't get it after 30 days. No paint will, in my opinion...... : The trick is to get it within a week of when it was made....... Strictly, Mail Order. No time in a hot truck, hot ware house, hot storeroom, or shelf in a store or in your house. : Send me an E mail back and I'll tell you HOW. : I buy stock spyder barrels from time to time for $10. I add a little extra porting with the drill press. The boy carries two extra barrels on the field with him - Instead of a $10 squeegie. If he breaks a ball, just swap out barrels. You can squeegie a ported barrel for a half hour and you accuracy is still zero because of the paint in the ports fouling the barrel and ball. You become a target instead of a threat. : In the same time he can squeegie a barrel, he can swap out for a CLEAN barrel. Bingo, accuracy is 100% and he is still a threat. : My sniper barrel on my autococker is a custom 16" barrel. 10 inches of porting with a housing over it. Only 6" to get the ball up to 330 fps so it can slow down to 290 fps by the time it leaves the muzzle. Low pressure cocker at 270 psi, spring set, short 3 way, roller sear, etc. : Add my Auto Rangefinder and invisible paint, and I am a threat at 40-50 yards if you are a stationary target. You can't see me, hear me, see my balls comming. Just fear me. : : : What is the real difference between barrels and what are some of the best ones? What's the advantage or disadvantage of long or short ones? And what's the best material for them to made out of? Please hit my email with some answers because I'm about to replace my stock barrel on my Spyder Imagine within a week...P : : pthump@hotmail.com