by Austin Hale

Created on: July 07, 2009   Last Updated: July 09, 2009

You're taking heavy fire. The trees around you are dripping with paint as your opponents drill them with paintballs. You quickly run in a serpentine pattern to a better tactical position. You ready your marker as your prepare to snap off some killing shots. As you turn around the tree you squeeze the trigger in quick succession but only air comes out. Paint explodes on your chest as your still live opponents shoot you.

As you take the walk of shame to the dead zone you inspect your gun to see what happened. After thorough review you discover your paintball reserve held in the hopper on the top of your gun has become jammed.

This scenario has become far too common in recent years as gravity fed hoppers haven't been able to keep up with new technologies increasing paintball guns rate of fire. Inventors have started to address this problem by building new and improved hoppers namely motorized hoppers.

Gravity Fed Hoppers

Gravity fed hoppers are the most basic and cheap type of hopper made. It's a cylindrical drum that is held on the top of the gun which holds approximately 200 balls. They rely entirely on gravity to pull the balls down into the gun so they can be shot.

The problem with gravity fed hoppers is in their feeding method. They feed the balls into the gun through a single tube. When a paintball marker is shooting 32 balls a second the gravity fed hoppers aren't able to keep up. Another problem is that the balls build up arches over the tube preventing any balls from entering the gun which can only be solved by shaking the hopper violently.

Motorized Hoppers

The motorized hopper was built entirely to fill the voids that gravity hoppers created. They work by having either a paddle or a cone shaped rubber fin move the balls inside the hopper. Some models only move the balls around in a circle to prevent clogs or arches while others actually push the balls down the feeding tube so that rapid fire can be achieved.

Motorized hoppers are however not clear from any negatives. In paintball your success is largely determined by your ability to regulate your supplies. You can only carry limited amounts of Co2, paintballs, and by adding a motorized hopper battery power.

Take into account each of the positives and negatives before deciding on which type of hopper to buy, but if your paintball marker doesn't shoot all that fast you should be fine with a gravity feeder.

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