SpudFiles

Suppose you had two bb guns, one relying on the "cloud" method and the other the "vortex" method.

Their barrels, chambers and all those measurements are all the same, same dia, same length, thus same volume.

Would one of these use less air to acheive a higher ROF, higher FPS, and thus be more efficient with air usage.

Another thing, what is the optimum diameter of a barrel, one that strikes a balance, between less wastage of air and one this prevents jams and is large enoguh so that the BBs go through unhindered (I dont mean that the dia is smaller that the BB, I just mean there must be some sort of chance that dictates wether a BB goes into the barrel in its revolution around the vortex block, or as it bounces around the chamber in a cloud.

Thankeye greatlye.

Would one of these use less air to acheive a higher ROF, higher FPS, and thus be more efficient with air usage.

Neither, they're both horribly inefficient.

Another thing, what is the optimum diameter of a barrel, one that strikes a balance, between less wastage of air and one this prevents jams and is large enough so that the BBs go through unhindered

As tight as you can find, as it will have a significant effect on performance. I had done an experiment back in the day on spudtech, using a true 0.177" barrel compared to a 0.196" barrel. The difference of a mere 0.019" translated into an average increase of 33% of muzzle energy.

The hole from the vortex to the barrel doesn't make a difference to air wastage because the restriction of the barrel diameter remains the same.

Would one of these use less air to acheive a higher ROF, higher FPS, and thus be more efficient with air usage.

I would say that in general, the consensus is that a vortex design has higher ROF.
There is probably little in FPS to separate the designs on that criteria alone.

As to air efficiency, I would imagine the vortex came out on top.
Both will use a similar amount of air in the same time, but the vortex is likely to fire more BBs in that time, that would equate to a better efficiency.

Ok, I have here a barrel that would fit a BB very snugly, I shall use that instead of a larger barrel I was planning on using.

The answer of that question seems obvious

In practice, the vast majority of BBs are of regular shape and size, the chances of a jam are minimal - you can always make a funnel and pass them to a piece of barrel material before use to eliminate defective BBs.

Thats a pretty good idea, I do occasionally find mutant BBs that look like two stuck together, and halves of BBs, but Ill have to live with those.

Thanks people!