[Methodcaptain]

I have prophecy Z2's as my main hoppers for all of my markers. I love the easy of use and disassembly. They are also well balanced and low profile.

lately I had been noticing that the hoppers were crushing paint (I use fragile paint in tournaments), so I decided to do some investigation as to what was causing it. I thought that it was echo due to my indoor play lately, but using the same paint, I had the same breakage/crushing issues outdoors.

through various trial and error, I found that the hopper was repeatedly hitting the 5th ball in the stack with the hopper paddles and not stopping. It would basically shred this ball, or hit it enough times, that it would start to crack the shell so that when it finally did reach the breech, it would crush under the ball stack. I spend hours and hours wondering why my angels which normally shot fragile paint with ease was having such a hard time shooting without breaking paint.

I found that when the hopper body was totall flush with the feedneck it would do this. If it was about 3/16 higher, it didn't have this problem, and shot the paint fine. I tested with 2 1/2 year old evil, and it shot great.

My solution for now is to use a few of the old angel feedneck o-rings from the old A4 series feednecks. It gives enough space so that I'm not getting the paint breaking in the hopper. Ghetto, yes, but I don't see much else for a solution (Don't like rotors, haven't tried a spire). I just wanted to let other angel owners know of my issue with the Z2 hoppers, and I'm curious if anyone has similar results.

[dr.strangelove]

I don't use a Z2, but was thinking a rubber hose gasket or small section of ABS or PVC might work for a spacer as well.

[greatwolf329]

I have run my z2 on everything from my SBs to Luxe's and have noticed a similar issue on all markers. It would run great for a game or two then turn into a blender. I have tried the recalibration and futzing with tensions and such and just am not impressed all around. If the spacer idea works, let me know. It might save me from throwing it out the window. For now it's back to the rotor.

[Methodcaptain]

Messed around with it again today.

Even on speed setting 1, which is the lowest setting, I still had crushing in the breech. The spacer didn't seem to make much of a difference, and I ran about 1000 rounds of paint through with and without.

I don't really want to chalk this up as a loss just yet. I'm too stubborn for my own good lol.

Either it is now a "clipping" issue, and that is leading to the breech crushing, or the paint I have is utter crap and it doesn't matter what hopper/gun I use. I refuse to deal with the latter theory, because i have put some horrible paint through these angels with my old Halo hoppers, and I didn't have this issue.

If it is clipping, I'm thinking it is because the Z2 lacks the spring tension of the original Halo drive. When the bolt goes forward to fire, the next ball is the stack doesn't have any "wiggle" room, and thus gets clipped. I don't think I'm too far off on this theory, as the drive is much tigher on the stack in the z2 than it is with a halo.

If they don't work, I may be throwing all of mine out the window.....

[Intern1]

Use diffrent paint and see if the problem occurs. Even if its crappy walmart brand atleast its something diffrent. Also use a diffrent hopper with both types of paint and see of the problem occurs. If you change the paint and that solves if then its not the hopper. If when you change the hopper it solves it then you know its the empire loader. While it doesn't solve what would be wrong with the loader atleast you know what is causing the problem.

[Methodcaptain]

I did use a Halo to compare, and It does look like the Z2's are going to be going out the window....

I was right about the fact that there isn't any wiggle room from the Z2's drive cone. The paint has nowhere to go once the bolt goes forward. So much for being able to shoot brittle paint.

I just shot the same paint with a halo and a rotor without issue. The Z2 still shreds the paint.

I know it's not an angel issue as I originally thought (ball stack height).

[lpmaster]

I actually had this problem very briefly with an ir3, i took a dremel and ramped the top of the bolt just using one of the sanding wheels, kind of like you see on the ego bolts, I didn't slant the ramp too far down the bolt just to try and help prevent any blowback and it worked like a charm for a few cases but I ended up going back to my halo anyways cause I don't think I'll ever get over the look of a halo. For some reason I just like it and have no problems with any of mine.

[Methodcaptain]

A1's actually come stock with that ramp to move paint up and away so it isn't clipped.

I'm still trying to work through the issues with these hoppers.