| Choose Your Hopper | | | | the balls around may also break them if the ball |
| The mechanism which holds your paintballs prior to | | | | casement is weak, resulting in a jamming situation that |
| firing is known as the hopper. Hoppers can be critical in | | | | might effect your whole gun, not to mention your |
| whether or not your team or you as an individual are | | | | usefulness in the rest of the match. |
| successful in your paintball missions. There are several | | | | Stick Feed hoppers are located parallel to the barrel |
| types of hoppers, each with different mechanisms | | | | and the balls are held in a line. In order to load the balls, |
| used to drop the ball and each with different | | | | players need to rock the ball forward and then bring |
| capacities. | | | | the sights to bear for the shot. A more useful model of |
| Gravity feed hoppers operate exactly as the name | | | | stick feed is the vertical one, but these models can be |
| suggests, and are the original paintball hopper. The | | | | outlawed at certain tournaments. |
| paintballs are stored in a compartment that consists | | | | Force-feed hoppers are the most popular loaders |
| only of a plastic holding container and a lid. The hopper | | | | among paintball hobbyists. Most of these pros have |
| is connected to the body of the gun by a feed tube, | | | | guns whose potential would be wasted if they were |
| which is only wide enough to allow one ball at a time | | | | to use gravity as the primary loading mechanism (not |
| to drop down in front of the bolt. The sides of the | | | | to mention they themselves would be wasted by their |
| hopper are all sloped so that balls naturally slide down | | | | opponents!). Force feeders have feed systems that |
| to the area where the feeder tube is. Although the | | | | will force balls into the gun, and grab the ball and load it |
| simple design and the cheap materials used for gravity | | | | instead of just mixing the balls up. Electronic models |
| feed hoppers make them the most inexpensive form | | | | are especially useful as they can keep track of the |
| of hopper out there, they do have several | | | | number of rounds left in the hopper. |
| disadvantages. The first is that balls tend to get stuck | | | | Agitating hoppers utilize a propeller to keep the balls |
| in groups that jam up at the top of the tube. Although | | | | from jamming up at the top of the feed tube. These |
| this problem can be taken care of by shaking the gun | | | | hoppers still operate using gravity to bring the ball |
| about, thus breaking up the group and allowing the ball | | | | down, but the risk of having a jam is lessened. These |
| to fall down the tube, it creates problems of its own. | | | | were the first type of hoppers to be equipped with |
| First of all, the shooter loses some valuable seconds | | | | high-tech devices which would keep the shooter from |
| trying to get a ball down. As all players know, this time | | | | firing without a ball in the chamber. This cuts down on |
| is all that is needed for an opposing player to take you | | | | battery usage as well as gas in older models. |
| down or for you to miss an important shot. Shaking | | | | |