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Paintball Hoppers
Writen by Blake Gilson

Hoppers, get the paintball into the chamber of the marker fast enough so when the trigger is pulled the whole paintball comes out of the barrel. If the ball only partially enters the chamber when the bolt is moving forward it can cause the ball to be broken in side the marker. The result is a bunch of paint with bits of shell coming out of the barrel, decorating the inside of your barrel with colorful bits of paint and paintball shell. If you shoot again after a break the paintballs are thrown off target when colliding with the obstruction in the barrel. This requires you to remove the barrel to clean out the inside of it with a Squeegee. So here lyes the importance of having a proper match of hopper to marker. The hopper has to be able to keep up with your marker and your happy trigger finger.


Types of Hoppers
The Gravity Feeder 'As long as you don't play upside down'

There are different types of hoppers. The first type of hopper is the sole gravity feed. As the name implies it use the force of gravity to feed the paintballs into the marker. This hopper is very inexpensive and works great for pump guns and mechanical semi-auto markers.


Electronic Agitator Hopper

A second type of hopper is the electronic agitator hopper that uses battery power to power a electrical motor to turn a propeller looking device or agitation paddles, to agitate the paintballs to fall down the feed tube faster. Some agitator hoppers have infrared detectors that detect if there is a ball in the feed neck, and only run the the motor if the infrared beam is not obstructed. Hoppers without a infrared detectors (on/off loaders) run when they are turned on without stopping. This can be irritating to some players, so many people pay the extra cash and get a hopper with the infrared detector. These hoppers are used mostly used on low to mid range electronic markers, but even then, it is possible to out shoot the hopper. Think before you hold down the trigger.



VL Revolution w/
X-board

 

Super Hoppers

The third type of hopper are the professional grade hoppers used by professionals such as the halos. These hoppers use a force feed system that is not limited by the speed of gravity. These hoppers stand out from other hoppers and the price reflects that. If you are willing to invest in a high end marker clearly a high end hopper is the way to go. Odyssey's Halo B is regarded as one of the best, but if you have a marker that can not reach 16+ bps (balls per second) it would be better to save the money and go with a cheaper hopper. Halo B feeds balls when it senses motion which sets it apart from agitator hoppers.


Tippmann's Cyclone Feeder

The last type is the cyclone feed by Tippmann used on the Tippmann 98 Custom/Custom Pro and the Tippmann A-5. These are revolutionary hoppers in there design and function. They use no batteries but utilize some of the extra C02 to rotate the cyclone feeder and place the next paintball in the chamber.
 
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