[EricH]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

From a Physics standpoint I'm not sure that argument holds water. With all things being equal, the amount of time that I apply a given force will directly affect the velocity of an object. The more time I have to apply the force the faster the object will travel. For example: compare the muzzle velocities of a pistol vs. that of a rifle.

True. However, we are dealing with relatively short range, low velocity objects. As 2006 showed, teams that don't have a lot of contact time are about equal to teams that have more for this type of application. Especially this year...

From a practicality standpoint, it doesn't really matter. Use a rifle at 10 ft and a pistol at 10 ft. Sure, the rifle gives more speed. But at that range, the pistol is just as effective. Extend the range to a mile and the rifle wins, but we aren't talking that range here, we're talking a few feet.