paintball sniper hopper/loader

if you are any kind of good at paintball sniping, you've spent a lot of time practicing, prepping yourself and your gear, and most importantly, actually playing. and, if you're any kind of good at paintball sniping, you dont need  huge 200 round hopper giving the other team more to shoot at. so, since you need a low profile and one (MAYBE two) shots per target, i offer you what i believe to be a good solution that reduces your profile and makes it possible to get lower to the ground and become less visible.

Step 1 Supplies needed

1.hacksaw or hacksaw blade taped to scrap of wood. (lol)
2.utility knife
3.about 4-5 feet of BLACK 9/16" P.V.C. pipe. (so when it gets scratched up it wont have white streaks on it)
4. 24-hour epoxy or P.V.C. glue
5. piece of wood to make plug for end of hopper piping
6.scrap of wood or cardboard to mix epoxy with (if using epoxy) and something to use to mix it.
7.two non-adjustable paintball feed neck adaptors

Comments

[GeekTinker]

It's good to see this as an Instructable. We called these "stickfeeds" back in the days of pump paintball before the large aggravated hoppers came about. I have bought a few and made several more through the years out of various materials including PVC pipe and metal conduit pipe.

One suggestion, is to use a pipe cutter instead of a hacksaw. You'll get level and better looking ends to the PVC pipe and you won't need the vise or "elbow grease" for the hacksaw. They don't cost much and it's a good item that every home should have it the tool kit.

Also, since you are plugging one end of the hopper with a piece of wood and epoxy, I'm going to assume that you'll need to remove your "hopper" in order to reload it. What we used back in the day was a laundry aid to keep pairs of socks matched up while being washed.

Sometimes called a "sock lock" or "sock sorter" (see photos), these rings are just about the circumference of the end of your PVC pipe, but they will allow a 10 round tube of paintballs to be pressed through it to release the paintballs into your stickfeed.

You could epoxy one of those into the back end of your pipe and reload from 10 round tubes while it is still attached to your paintball marker. That is, if you have a set of the plastic 10 round tubes. You should still be able to find them to purchase online. They were originally made to hold cigars.

You can also make or purchase harnesses, belts, wrist bands, and belt packs that will hold those 10 round tubes, as well as find speed caps for them in bulk. With RIT fabric dye packs, you can dye the translucent tubes nearly any color you want.

StockClassPaintball dot com is a good place to start.

[jester_5123]

nice points geek tinker. i've been playing for 9 years now and i've always wanted to try stock class or pump play. since i have extremely limited income though, my dream is destined to stay just that. i figured the next best thing is to practice limited shot-count with my semi-autos along with cutting down my marker profile. this loader along with the marker in the pics i posted is what i came up with. 12-gram quick-changer, red dot sight, and this loader all on the most basic, reliable marker i have completes my choice of marker for this past season. so far its working great. thanks for the ideas and keep on keepin on :-)

[fire-is-fun]

Don't really need this on my phantom, but cool none-the--less

[cam.dav32]

Good way of making a low profile hopper, good work. but I must ask one thing, because of the natural angle of the hopper do you have to tilt the gun to load it?

[jester_5123]

side note: pump players that play with stick-feed hoppers often refer to playing with this particular style of non-spring-powered stick feeds as "rock-and-cock" because of the motion required to feed a ball into the chamber. you must tilt the gun down, cock the marker, and bring it back up to fire.

[jester_5123]

for markers with an angled feed port coming off one of the sides, no. all you have to do is slightly turn the loader. because it is at an angle, it will slightly raise the rear end. and that is a problem i meant to address when i published but it was about 3 A.M. when i published this 'ible and i forgot. for markers with vertical feed ports, you would need to attach an EXTREMELY low-pressure spring to the plug of the hopper tube. if you must do this, i would suggest putting some type of pad on the end of the spring that will be contacting the paintballs. thanks for checking out my instructable! :-)

[SandWolf]

Good -Ible. Only thing I would add, is, be sure to ream the F out of the areas of the hopper where your paintballs will contact. Jams suck. Btw nice marker! Did you do the paint?

[jester_5123]

indeed i did Mr. SandWolf. its got a creme colored heat-resistant base coat with a forest green topcoat. after that i used a black paint marker to put on the camouflage designs. thanks for taking the time to check out my 'ible!

[jester_5123]

p.s.constructive criticism only please. this is my first 'ible. any ideas or problems, you can message me or comment back. other than that, i hope you guys enjoy!!!