Muffle that Hopper!

The harsh rattling sound of a half-filled hopper always seems to give you away at the wrong time.  Silence may be golden, but it’s hard to achieve.  Let’s first try for “muffled” and “easy.”

One word: Moleskin

Look around in the camping or footcare sections of any sporting goods or major retail store. Moleskin already has an adhesive backing and is strong enough to stick even while wet.
They come in sheets that are meant to be cut in order to get the shape you need for a blister and so you won’t have a problem snipping the edges to fit your hopper’s internal contours.

Crack open your hopper (not literally of course), line the insides with moleskin, and you’re good. Save the snippets for your gearbag. You never know when you might need it for the real purpose during a scenario game.

Materials Needed:

Hopper
Screwdriver
2 Packets of Dr. Scholl’s Moleskin (they come 3 sheets to a packet. I used about 4 1/2 sheets to coat the inside of my A-5’s hopper)
X-Acto Knife
Scissors (Optional. I had them handy, but never used them. The X-Acto was all I ended up using)
Chopping board

Procedure

Use the screwdriver to remove the bindings of your hopper. Make sure that as you separate the halves, you take a moment to look at how the lid and spring are assembled. It will help you when it’s time to put the lid assembly back in when you are finished.

Before peeling off the adhesive backing, premeasure what the moleskin sheet is going to look like. Cover as much area as you can, but make sure you don’t coat the area right around the funnel at the bottom of the hopper.
Leaving this area clear serves two purposes:
1. It ensures that there is no chance that a ball will get clogged at the feeder neck end of the hopper by having that extra bit of moleskin layering making the opening too tight for a paintball to fit through.
2. If a ball ever gets chopped, you won’t have an absorbent layer of Moleskin right there soaking it up.

Once you’ve eyeballed how the portion you’re covering is going to look, lightly score the moleskin with the X-Acto knife…drawing a line at the portions you’ll have to cut away to make a snug fit.
Next, remove the moleskin from the hopper and place it on the chopping board. Using the score lines as a guide, apply some pressure this time and cut off the pieces you won’t need to cover the surface you’re working with. Make as few cuts as possible, leaving pieces that can be used to cover other areas.

Once you have your piece cut, peel off the adhesive backing and apply it to the surface area. Start with adhering one edge of the moleskin and slowly working your way across to the opposite end that you started from. This helps eliminate air bubbles. You want to get every bit of the adhesive you can snug against the surface of the hopper, so go slowly and try to press the air bubbles out of the moleskin as much as possible.
If you’ve ever done any wallpapering, it’s probably a familiar process.

Take your time and work your way from the bottom area of the hopper towards the top end where the lid is. Use the largest pieces possible at the bottom, and save the snippets for areas along the “roof” and sides of the hopper’s interior. Let’s face it…wear and tear on your hopper might eventually lead to pieces of moleskin to lose their adhesive properties. The portions at the bottom of the hopper will probably see the most wear, so having large surface area pieces there ensure that small snippets are less likely to come loose and clog the funnel end.

Once you’ve gotten the large areas completed, doublecheck that there are no portions of moleskin that overlap with the edges where the hopper sides fit together. Trim any pieces that might overlap or otherwise prevent the two halves of the hopper’s body from fitting together snugly.

When coating the inside, keep in mind that not every square millimeter of surface area needs to be covered. Look for areas that have uneven surfaces. Make sure that these areas are covered, as they are more likely to cause a rattle.

Closing it back up
When you are satisfied, close up your hopper. Fit the two halves together without the screws. Eyeball the outside and make sure that there are no small areas of moleskin protruding from between the halves. Go back and re-trim any portions that do poke through.

Replace the spring & lid, then put the two hopper halves together again. Doublecheck that the spring is doing its job before screwing the hopper together again.

I ended up having to use my X-Acto blade to help me re-set the spring onto the hopper lid. It took a little bit of fiddling with, but I eventually got it to re-seat before I put the two hopper body halves together.

Once finished, cover the bottom funnel with your hand, pour a couple handfuls of balls into the hopper, and shake it around a bit.

You’ll notice that there’s no longer a harsh, plastic sounding rattle. Yes, there’s still some noise, but it is a softer, muffled sound instead of a loud clatter. Rattle around the same amount of paint in one of your paint pods to get an idea of the difference.

If you do still hear some clattering sounds, you may have missed a spot. Keep rattling the balls around until you get an estimate of where inside the hopper it is coming from before you take the hopper apart again.

Proper Sight Configuration

There are a lot of topics that talk about which kind of scope or sight to get and the benefits that they can give you. There is not, however, a guide on what the best way to go about making your new shiny toy work for you once it’s in your grubby little hands.

There are a couple of topics to cover. I’ll list them off at the start, and work through each one in detail later.

It is widely accepted that a magnifying scope is not a good idea for paintball use. By the time you’d get any use out of magnification, you’re at a range that is far too great for a paintball to be launched.

For the purposes of this post, we’ll assume that you are going with a more natural choice for a paintball application: the red dot sight.

1. Zeroing your sight

2. The benefits of risers and offsets

3. Mounting your sight

Zeroing your sight

Picture yourself staring downrange at your practice target.

Your new sight is positioned just perfectly. The sun glints off of the black finish and illuminates your target like an aura from heaven. The stock of your marker is nestled snugly against your shoulder.

You press your bare cheek against the warm plastic of your stock and line up the brilliant red dot with your target…it can’t run.

It can’t hide.

You are one with your weapon.

A staccato burst of three shots strikes the target with unerring accuracy…your enemies stand no chance.

You have evolved to the penultimate level of predator.

Sounds good, right? Who can tell me what’s wrong with this picture? It’s a very small detail…

“Your bare cheek”…Doh!

I made this exact same mistake my first time…I zeroed the red dot with my mask off.

This is probably the most common error. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

If you’re like me, you love shiny new toys. Just like a kitten, you get tunnel vision when something new and preeeeetty glistens in front of your eyes. It’s hypnotic. You don’t think straight…you can barely walk straight.

Much like when that cute gal at the bowling alley winks at you and smiles.

Alright…enough goggle-eyeing the pretty girl…back to serious, manly business…there’ll be plenty of time for that after you show how great a hunter you are. (Natural Selection baby…chicks dig guys who can align a paintball sight properly. Just ask ‘em…and give me her number.)

Take some time to go back and re-zero with your mask ON this time.

Practice your normal snap-shooting pose a couple dozen times before you start. Get a feel for the most common position you’ll be using while looking through your sight.

This is the position you’ll want to use for zeroing.

If you try to zero from your most comfortable pose (meaning you take about 5 seconds to get it “just right” when you’re lining up on a target), you’ll find out that it doesn’t work out quite the same when it comes to the real thing.

When it comes to red dot sights, it doesn’t matter at what angle you look through it…the dot will always be lined up with where you’ve zeroed. At least, that’s the theory. If it’s good enough for Special Forces, it’s good enough for me.

I too subscribe to this theory behind the red dot, but with a caveat: it better feel natural when I’m sighting, or it isn’t worth the extra edge a red dot gives me.

There is a method to zeroing. Probably the best description of both the process and the physics was made by Lothen in this thread. No sense re-inventing the wheel when it’s put so eloquently by someone with a much better grasp on it than I do.

Risers and offsets

Some folks mention buying an offset or a riser when mounting your sight.

You mentioned you don’t want to spend any money on these things though…after all, you want to buy that gal a soda and a round of pins at the bowling alley, and that ain’t cheap. Heck, I can’t blame you. Why back in my day…a game of bowling only cost…alright, ALRIGHT I’ll shut up with the reminiscing.

But from a hypothetical perspective, it might not be a bad idea. Let me clarify though just so you don’t get the wrong idea that it’s an absolute requirement to get your red dot to work properly…

The exception to this absolute requirement rule I just made up is how your hopper is mounted. If it is not offset somehow or another (Q-Loader, stovepipe, etc.) then you might want to settle for just buying the girl a soda and forego the round of bowling…you’ll need a little cash for one of the following…

Oops…wait a second…

The other exception to the same absolute requirement (darn loopholes…there are always so many!) is how flexible your mask is. If you can’t mash the lower part of your mask close enough against your stock to see through the sight, you’ll probably want to look into one of these as well.

Or you could just take off the stock…but that’d be an exception to an exception, and we’re not all willing to wait for an act of congress to push through all this legal jargon just to put a red dot on a friggin’ paintball marker, so we’ll forget I even mentioned this last option.
Right then…on to those things you might want to spend some money on…

1. An angle-mount for your hopper.

These come in all varieties and are referred to by a number of names. I own a Tippmann A-5 and they call this gadget a stovepipe. Others call it an elbow. There are plenty of hoppers out there that are already angled, so look at those too.

2. An offset rail.

These are gadgets that screw onto your marker’s built-in rail and are meant to jut out to the side with a new rail for mounting such things. They range in how far this jut is, but it’s usually a good inch or three.

3. A riser.

Just like the name implies, it raises the point at which you mount the sight by a margin. Some of these risers are actually more like a handle with the added bonus of being able to mount a sight on top. Others are a rectangular chunk of metal that looks kinda like a really long LEGO block.

It all depends on how much you need to raise the mounting point to make it comfortable, as well as bypass any obstructions (such as your hopper).

Given that your hopper is somehow mounted at an angle or is a very low-profile model, the only thing a riser or offset rail will do is make your posture feel more natural when trying to look through the sight.

If you can cram your face down far enough and your mask has some “give” to it, you really don’t need these accessories. They’re just going to help you feel like you’re not crammed into your mom’s clothes dryer while you’re trying to aim.

I have an offset rail, but it is still difficult to get the “feel” that seems normal for looking through a sight…which means my eye is square with the center of the sight optics.

I intend to buy something to give me some more elevation…I’m a tall gangly guy with a long neck, so I need that extra height a riser will give me compared to looking like I’m trying to snap my own neck every time I try to aim. I’m looking for the handle/mount combo for that extra elevation.

Regardless of what I end up purchasing, there is one thing that will happen before I waltz over to impress that girl with my sight mounting skills and a Dr. Pepper (Diet…it tastes just like the real thing!)…

Mounting your Sight

Once I get my new riser purchased and installed, I’ll have to re-zero the dot again.

But you ALREADY zeroed it you twit…go say “Hi” to the cute girl already!

Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. But there’s a reason.

Every time you make a modification to the position of your scope on your marker, you’ll need to re-zero.

Just remember that, and you’ll have no problems. It’ll save you some embarrassment when that pretty girl checks out your hunting skills in sight alignment too.

There’s one slight problem to having these extra doo-dads in addition to your sight of choice…

They’re attached with screws. Even the normal vibrations of my Tippmann A-5 firing on single shot cause these screws to loosen over time.

The more extra mountings you plop on to accommodate a sight that feels comfortable, the more likely they are to fall off in the field. Some Blue Loctite should help. Just be sure that before every round, you take a brief moment to inspect your screws and make sure nothing is coming loose.

There’s nothing worse than having to worry about some idiot with a screw loose running around the field with a loaded weapon. (Oh c’mon…you saw that joke coming a mile away)

If you’re using both a riser AND an offset, it’s a fair bet that you’ll always use both pieces…so why not permanently attach them? A wee bit of superglue and you have two less problems to worry about.

That’s right…TWO problems.

Number one: screws loosening.

Number two: attaching the two pieces in different places every time they are assembled.

One thing to always keep in mind: if you take a moment to ensure that you ALWAYS align the sight on the marker in the exact same place, you’ll never have to use the excuse of “My shots were off because my sight rail was two millimeters further up the mounting bracket that it was when I zeroed it.”

Oh yes…that’s right.

No more excuses…you forfeited your right to make excuses when you decided to take up the position of Sniper.

If you zero your red dot and permanently etch a couple of lines (a carpentry nail does the trick) to mark the front and back positions of your sight/offset/riser combination, you’ll always have the confidence of knowing that when you re-mount them before a match, they’re being put back on in the exact same spot as when you painstakingly zeroed it the first time.

You COULD take it a step further and just superglue or JBWeld the whole contraption in place, but I would STRONGLY advise you not to for numerous reasons.

First off, the whole idea of customizing your marker is the idea that you can always un-customize it back to the factory defaults. Why? What if your marker is completely pooched and you have to buy a new one? Or maybe you scored some cash in the lottery and bought one of those wiz-bang new markers (and took the pretty girl out for a movie with a LARGE popcorn thrown in with the spare change)

That’d mean buying the whole sight set again.

Secondly, when it comes time to strip your marker down to the bare components for cleaning, you may or may not have a problem doing so because of the addition of this permanent fixture.

Third, think about transporting your gear. Most totes don’t take into account “breathing room” in the bag for what might turn into a huge bulge from the offset, riser & sight.

Fourth and finally, you may switch positions on the field. Not because you suck at sniping…I’d never imply that.

Okay, I might…but we don’t know each other that well yet, so why don’t we just be friends? (Be prepared…that’s the line you’re going to hear from the pretty girl if you don’t have your paintball sight alignment skills in top shape)

Let’s just say that you are so uber-sneaky that they beg and grovel for you to go Light Rifleman in the next round.

That big honkin’ rig you have for your sight is next to worthless for this position. (No flames guys…It’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.) Why not leave it off so you can dash around without all the excess baggage?

Before going off the deep end and permanently affixing everything together, keep these thoughts in mind.

Wrapping Up

Alrighty then…I’ve covered all the basics. Get out there, get that sight zeroed and mounted properly, and by all that is holy…make sure you freshen up that deodorant before going to talk to the pretty girl.

You smell like soggy burlap. Actually…what the heck are you doing in a Bowling Alley with your Ghillie Suit on?!?!? Freak!!!