The Bottom Line
The Halo B was one of the original high-speed, force-fed loaders on the market and it still performs very well. It is on the heavy side and a few upgrades might be warranted, but it is still a great choice. The Halo B is the little brother of the Empire B but, depending on your preference, might be better for your game.
Pros
- Fast and reliable
- Easy to find
- Very customizable
Cons
- Heavier than other hoppers
- Difficult to disassemble
- Brittle shells
Description
- Force-fed, belt-driven hopper
- Holds approximately 170 paintballs
- Requires 6 AA batteries
- Shells are interchangeable with the Empire B
- Unhook your batteries from the hopper after use to make sure they don't drain
- Manufacturer's Site
Guide Review - Halo B
Design:
The Halo B by Odyssey is a force-fed, belt-driven, motorized hopper that can feed paintballs into your gun at over 20 balls per second. It is simply laid out with batteries in the in the nose of the hopper, the circuit board opposite the batteries facing the shooter with the motor underneath. The Halo B functions by rotating a drive cone (a round tray that holds balls like an egg carton holds eggs) that physically forces paintballs down the feedneck. The Halo B continually forces balls forward until a reflective eye stops the motor when the feedneck is full. It is very similar to the Empire B.Performance:
The Halo B has been one of the top loaders in the industry for such a long time for one reason: it works well. Its design is simple enough that few things go wrong and it can easily keep up with the fastest shooting guns. In my experience, as long as my batteries are fresh I have very few jams and breaks and I have never been able to out-shoot the hopper. Most of the chops I have experienced come from very brittle paint. Unfortunately, the disassembly and cleaning of the Halo B is a time consuming process.Problems:
The Halo B shell is quite brittle and it is not uncommon for it to break, so be careful about hitting things. The feedneck is on the large size and doesn't fit well into all paintball gun feednecks. Also, some brands of paint don't work well with the reflective eye.Upgrades:
There are many upgrades available for the Halo B including upgraded boards, batteries and shells. The one major advantage some aftermarket circuit boards have is an auto-reverse anti-jam function. The one almost necessary upgrade is the Rip drive (it comes included with some Halo Bs) which is a manual drive shaft at the bottom of the hopper which allows you to manually load balls if your batteries die or to reverse the hopper to free jams.
