94
the paint was removed and the
water shaken out
of the hopper, the
electronics came
back to life and
worked without
any issues.
This makes the Gear very gentle on
paint, and prevents ‘popcorning’,
the bouncing of paintballs inside
the hopper. Machine claims this
also makes the Gear unable to jam,
and in theory I would agree that it’s
impossible for the hopper to jam.
Promotional videos put out by Machine show paintballs super glued
together feeding through it, and
various odd shaped and obviously
abused paint feeding through the
raceway without incident.
During the course of this review the
Gear was used with Valken Graffitti
and Echo paint. Testing started at
Low Country Paintball’s “301” event,
which rain was an unwanted visitor
for a majority of the event. One
of the Gears we had on the field at
that event had the ‘Insta-Gate’ on it,
which allowed rainwater to get into
the hopper. This in turn did cause
the hopper to shut down, but once
August 2014
On the field, the
Gear is noticeably louder than
the DYE Rotor, but
I suspect as the
materials wear in,
the character of
the noise as well
as the overall noise
output will come
down. During actual playing conditions on a gun
with a screaming player behind it,
increased noise output wasn’t noticeable. One thing we did notice is
that when the Gear it out of paint, it
stops running, rather than whirring
along. In a tight situation against
another player, this can be a telltale
that you’re out of paint and trying
to reload, making you vulnerable to
being bunkered. Without the telltale whirring, the Gear gives a player vital seconds to get reloaded and
minimizes his vulnerability.
Additional testing was done at Orbital Paintball in the Tampa Bay area
and at First Strike Paintball in Newberry Florida. As the conditions at
those two fields were ideal for paintball, no failures were noted. During
the course of the review, which 10+
cases of various grades of paint
were put through the hoppers, no
jams were noted, and the hopper