The mechanism which holds your paintballs prior to firing is known as the hopper. Hoppers can be critical in whether or not your team or you as an individual are successful in your paintball missions. There are several types of hoppers, each with different mechanisms used to drop the ball and each with different capacities.

Gravity feed hoppers operate exactly as the name suggests, and are the original paintball hopper. The paintballs are stored in a compartment that consists only of a plastic holding container and a lid. The hopper is connected to the body of the gun by a feed tube, which is only wide enough to allow one ball at a time to drop down in front of the bolt. The sides of the hopper are all sloped so that balls naturally slide down to the area where the feeder tube is. Although the simple design and the cheap materials used for gravity feed hoppers make them the most inexpensive form of hopper out there, they do have several disadvantages. The first is that balls tend to get stuck in groups that jam up at the top of the tube. Although this problem can be taken care of by shaking the gun about, thus breaking up the group and allowing the ball to fall down the tube, it creates problems of its own. First of all, the shooter loses some valuable seconds trying to get a ball down. As all players know, this time is all that is needed for an opposing player to take you down or for you to miss an important shot. Shaking the balls around may also break them if the ball casement is weak, resulting in a jamming situation that might effect your whole gun, not to mention your usefulness in the rest of the match.

Stick Feed hoppers are located parallel to the barrel and the balls are held in a line. In order to load the balls, players need to rock the ball forward and then bring the sights to bear for the shot. A more useful model of stick feed is the vertical one, but these models can be outlawed at certain tournaments.

Force-feed hoppers are the most popular loaders among paintball hobbyists. Most of these pros have guns whose potential would be wasted if they were to use gravity as the primary loading mechanism (not to mention they themselves would be wasted by their opponents!). Force feeders have feed systems that will force balls into the gun, and grab the ball and load it instead of just mixing the balls up. Electronic models are especially useful as they can keep track of the number of rounds left in the hopper.

Agitating hoppers utilize a propeller to keep the balls from jamming up at the top of the feed tube. These hoppers still operate using gravity to bring the ball down, but the risk of having a jam is lessened. These were the first type of hoppers to be equipped with high-tech devices which would keep the shooter from firing without a ball in the chamber. This cuts down on battery usage as well as gas in older models.

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The debate between gravity fed and agitated hoppers rages on as paintballers everywhere try to decide which choice will provide them with the best possible results. Here are a few key points for each style and how they compare head to head.

Gravity-Fed

A gravity fed hopper is essentially a container with paintballs in it. It sits casually on top of your gun and feeds those paintballs one at a time into the gun - or at least they are supposed to. These are generally the cheapest hopper options available and have a low rate of loading due to the speed of gravity and the bouncing of the paintballs off of each other. If you are firing too quickly, the balls in the hopper will stick to each other and form an arch over the hole, stopping the feed of paintballs. You can shake the hopper to fix the problem, but it will generally slow your rate. The basic problems with gravity fed hoppers are the reason why an agitated hopper was developed.

Agitated

These hoppers contain a motor that connects to a paddle spinning and breaking up the arches that form when the paintballs gather over the feed hole. This ensures the paintballs keep feeding into the gun at a steady pace, pushing through the hole and not slowing down your shots.

The speed difference between from a gravity operated to agitated hopper is actually non-existent. However, because there is no break in the feed of paintballs, you do not need to stop and shake them free for any reason. They will continually feed. Agitated hoppers are slightly more expensive than their gravity fed counterparts - starting at $25 and rising rapidly from there.

The agitated hopper comes in multiple different forms as well. You can find some with very simple, straight paddles that push the paintballs through the feed hole. Others will have paddles that are shaped like propellers to physically move the paintballs downward into the gun. They will not spin constantly most of the time; rather they move only when the balls stop feeding into the gun, making them more efficient. This is done with a small sensor that will detect a gap between paintballs feeding through. If the gap grows too large, the paddles will start spinning. A single 9-volt battery is usually sufficient to run an agitated feeder.

Force Fed

A force fed hopper does a little bit more than an agitated hopper by actually forcing the paintballs into the chamber from the hopper. It will usually have the paintballs fall to either side of a cone, then rotate the cone to drop the paintballs into the chamber one at a time. This kind of hopper will continually force feed paintballs for as long as necessary to keep you firing at a constant rate. These machines are highly efficient and reliable, but can cost as much as $100 for a low end model.

When making a choice between hoppers, remember what you need for your outing. If you are playing speedball, you will definitely need at least an agitated feeder to ensure constant firing - while woodsball with a few beginner friends will likely be okay with a gravity fed hopper.

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About the Author:

Tony Brian is a freelance writer for outdoor sports magazines and a contributing writer for paintball store specializing in force fed hopper and gravity fed hopper.