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Poll suggested by Philld77

I used to it with my first space marine army, then I didn't for my dark angels.

I think for my liking, for this Crimson Fist Army, Im going to drill the barrels.

I like to see drilled barrels. I think they look nicer, and are more fun to paint, too. However, I ain't one to judge people that don't do it. You see some folks get proper worked up about gun barrels not being drilled, and that sort of thing. It don't bother me if they're not done, but I do think drilled barrels look better, yes.

I like to see them drilled out, but I don't think it's necessary.

I think its nice, but not nearly necessary. If the models look good then thats all it takes.

A drilled barrel is a must for me. If you cant drill, please try to black dot the end of the barrel- if its left plain it looks awful.

i would like to drill my barrels, but i dont have the tools to do it (well i have a dremal but im not confident enough to do the barrels with it), but im not fussed after all i only paint to play

Drilled barrels look good but it doesn't matter if they're drilled when I buy the fig.

I don't really care about it that much.
Most of the guns in my army are small and would be to hard to drill. The rest are big guns that already come with a hole in the barrel.

Does It Really Matter? I don't think so. I plike my models to look good but at the end of the day I am painting to tabletop level really.

If painting to make the model look as realistic as possible to win a painting trophy them yes it nice to see that the extra work has gone in to it.

Most of the time I really can't be bothered. If I particularly like the model I will.

I like to see it, would defo do it if in a competition, but haven't done it on any of mine yet. But hard to do with dark eldar though

as i play Deamons i dont have many to worry about, but i do like the look and feel of them being drilled out

Yes, I do this with my Orks. So many shootas...

The beauty of a Necron army is the lack of need to drill barrels.

It does look nice, but I won't freak out if it's not done.
Hell, I barely do it on any of my own units if it can be done.

I would like to but don't have a drill.

Also, it is in the future, and now a days soldiers have muzzle covers that can be shot of, maybe someones units just keep there barrels capped to the last possible second.... LOL who wants to clean space sand out of a barrel? No one that's who..

In my local FLGS I have heard about a local painter who missed out on the final round of judging at a GD level painting contest simply because he did not drill his barrels. Bolts, bullets, ordinance etc. does not come out of a solid metal pipe...

Drilled barrels look way better, and no, none of mine are drilled out. Some people get extremely bent out of shape on this subject. I for one think it is infinitely more important to clean your mold lines than to drill your barrels.

They look far, far better and I usually drill mine out. I HATE seeing no treatment of the bore of the weapon. At least black dot it... even a magic marker will do the trick.

Some folks may be hesitant about getting it perfectly centered and round... my answer for that is just drybrushing the muzzle with a little black to represent soot from firing. That will disguise an unsteady hand.

The muzzle is usually an extraordinarily prominent portion of the model. It's usually pointing up, or forward so catches your eye both on table top and on display. It's better to ignore the eyes than ignore the muzzle IMO.

I think it's completely unimportant, and since I don't paint anyway (please don't preach to me about it) I don't have any drilled barrels.

I couldn't care less if my opponent's barrels are drilled either to be honest.

While I don't drill due to lack of tools, I do the black dot, which I am sure smellyoldgamer will be happy about.

mega_bassist wrote:I like to see them drilled out, but I don't think it's necessary.

I agree. It does look better, but out of the hundreds of minis Ive done Ive never bothered to drill a single one.


Maybe one day ill buy the proper tool, but Im not trying it with my power drill.

Unless you make a mess of it, guns always look better drilled out.

I drill out large heavy weapons of all races, notably Tau and guard, with some exceptions for types of energy weapon.

I drill out practically every gun for orks and marines. Centering thr drill hole I find suprisingly difficult, but I find a misdrilled hole is still better than no hole. I dont get to write off too many bolters and shootas.

Given that heroic scaling has fallen out of favour with me, my answer is "At 32mm, ideally no". I prefer realistically proportioned models, and that means that most calibres would be small enough as to be nearly invisible (requiring drills that are both expensive and fragile).

However, with the massively oversized weapons in 40k (which are about double scale size, based on the art, known dimensions and contemporary equivalents - the 28mm range provides most of the weapons for my truescale 54mm work), I suppose it does look better than not, but I think the people who get worked up over it need to chill out.

I drill out my heavy bolters as i think it improves the look but leave the standard bolter as i looks fine as it is and I can't be bothered to drill out several dozen bolters on my sisters and csm.

It's hard to get it centred, but I do it. I'm considering just doing the black dot. Especially for the bigger weapons. Otherwise it requires all different drill bits, and there's the risk of wrecking the model (think assault cannons). I think when it looks like solid steel it looks really bad.

I almost always drill large barrels heavy bolters, lascannons etc. But i dont always have time to drill out all my smaller gun barrels and i am not fussed at all if people havent bothered to drill the barrels, but yes it does look aestheticly better when they are drilled out.

I think drilled barrels always look better (as long as they're not drilled lopsided or sloppily), but I don't think it's always absolutely necessary. It's definitely a nice touch though, and makes a bigger difference on heavy weapons.