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