How to Choose a Paintball Hopper for Your Paintball Marker

Choosing a paintball hopper is very vital when creating a setup for your paintball gun. Your choice of paintball hopper may very well determine your success in the field. There are many kinds of hoppers out there, all appropriate for different roles and play styles. But you want to make sure that you know exactly what you're getting before you buy it, because this will determine your firing capacity, ammunition load, and to an extent, the reliability of your weapon. In rare cases, choosing the wrong paintball hopper can even cause complications with the internals of your paintball gun, complications that can be costly to repair.

The first thing you need to look at when choosing a paintball hopper is by identifying what kind of feed it utilizes. The most reliable kind of feed, in the sense that it will rarely break on you, is a gravity fed hopper. However, the downside to these is a modest rate of fire and the fact that the gun has to be held roughly upright at all times. However, there are electric powered force-fed paintball hoppers with a much higher rate-of-fire, but tend to not work at the most inconvenient of times, especially if they get wet. Then there are paintball hoppers like the Tippman cyclone feeds. These use a CO2 cartridge to force-feed the rounds, far more reliable and efficient than their electrical counterparts.

Another factor to take into consideration is size. The paintball hopper generally sets on top of the gun, often causing visibility issues. You want to make sure that you choose a paintball hopper that has a small profile, or one that you're comfortable enough with to aim through. Then you have to look at weight. The paintballs in a paintball hopper can add a significant amount of weight to the weapon, and if you're not used to the weight, this can cause issues with accuracy, reaction times, and general fatigue. Look at your role, figure out a safe number of paintballs that you need to accomplish that role, and start carrying around a couple resupply pods. There's no reason to put all that weight on your hands unless you're a machine gunner.

Ultimately, you need to look at the cost. This is the first thing most paintballers look at, and for good reason. A high-end paintball gun with its accessories can easily cost an excess of $1000. There's no need to spend $200 to $300 on a paintball hopper, which some can cost up to. When doing your research, you want to find a model that is durable, reliable, has a good track record for lasting, and doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.

Sources:

Paintball Sports Trade Association
Pump Paintball Guns