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