A. A paintball bolt is the part of a paintball gun that moves the ball forward into the chamber, seals off the chamber and then releases compressed gas to propel the paintball down the barrel. With a classic bolt, the air comes out of the bolt through a large hole and propels the ball forward. Since paintballs are not hard, they partially warp when the air whacks into them. To solve this problem, Venturi bolts were designed to dissipate the air and allow lots of little blasts of air to hit the ball, thus reducing warping and theoretically increasing accuracy while reducing breaks in the firing chamber. Think of the normal bolt like a pipe for your shower that shoots out a bunch of water; a Venturi bolt is the same pipe but with an insert (the shower head) that disperses the one large stream into many smaller streams.
So, is a Venturi bolt better? I've heard people who claim that a Venturi bolt made their average gun a super star and I know other people who think you should just rip the Venturi insert out of the bolt and let all the air come out in a blast. As for me, I don't worry about it. If a paintball gun has a Venturi insert, I leave it alone, and if not, I don't go shopping for a new bolt. There are bolts that can increase gun efficiency, but it has more to do with the actual design of the bolt rather than just a Venturi insert. In the end, it's up to you, but almost all new guns come with them now (more for advertising purposes than anything else, I suspect), so it may just be a moot point.
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