Lock & Load Mag Fed Hopper

Hoppers sure have come a long way from my loading a 45 round BE hopper ball by ball.

Few questions:

1. Will the pods be clipping into the system allowing for them to act as the actual hopper?
 - If NOT, then your capacity for rounds will be severely diminished, since the system would only be dumping rounds into the neck of the cyclone, which if I remember correctly holds about 20-30 rounds

- If SO, then the fact that it is horizontal will require that you keep tipping your marker forward to fill the cyclone, or you'll have balls rolling to the back of the pod and blowing back out of the cyclone when you fire since there's no actual 'cap' on the neck. Put a few balls in a cyclone feed and shoot it without capping it, and see what I mean. This is what you'll have happening constantly.

2. What capacity will the pods be?

Anything less than 200 will require twice the reloading. The process might be quicker, but if it has to be done twice as often, its not going to matter much between this and the use of a conventional hopper.

Have you done any practical design and testing of the product or is this just a concept?

Hi there Reb Cpl! Thank you for your questions and comments!

The pods do lock into position (as shown in the animation). We have a 50 and a 100 round magazine.There is a 2 degree slope located at the feed neck area (not in video) that allows for a natural flow (hardly noticeable to the eye).

Similar to a hopper equipped cyclone, the balls don't actually pop back out. The rise in the feed neck of the receiver is more than enough to compensate and react just as a standard hopper does.

In between mag swaps, the receiver gate covers the cyclone allowing you to contain and fire approximately 20 rounds.

Pods only hold up to 160 rounds, so they never do offer a full load and @ 160 rounds times 6 pods, it starts to get heavy and expensive. The average size pods you see in a players carry rig are 120's and 100's (woodsballer's are also known to pack 50 rounders as well).

Based on our own experience, we have found that the average player does not fire 200 to 400 rounds per game (@10 to 15 mins. per game) simply because at that rate its going to cost quite a bit to keep up and play all day.
The cost of paint ball's on woods-ball fields (here in Canada) is substantially greater than speed-ball fields (comparing 40$ a case on speed-ball fields Vs. 80$ to 100$ case on woods-ball fields). That being said, every time you put a 'full load' into your 200 round hopper on a woods-ball field, it will cost 8-10$. Therefore, @8-10$ or more per game, how many games will you end up playing in your day before going broke?

The Lock & Load is not a replacement for the hopper, but rather a different way of loading.
Our product is designed for the mod player...or players that simply don't want to pour rounds from pod into a hopper.

You can view more details on our website if you haven't already been: http://pblmag.com

Thanks for taking interest, hope to hear from you soon!