This winter has been the Battle of the Loaders, one piece of equipment that virtually every paintballer needs and depends on. A loader needs to feed quickly and reliably, stand up to abuse and have a motor that can stand up to long periods of running under tension without burning up. Weight is a serious consideration as well, because a couple of ounces doesn’t seem like much until you’ve been packing a marker all day long. While a war of marketing has been going on by two manufacturer’s over their new loaders, there’s another loader that’s been flying under the media radar but gathering a cult following… the Pinokio.
The Pinokio Loader was designed with the big game/ scenario player in mind but has been showing up on the markers of well-known tournament players such as and Nicky Cuba of the LA Ironmen and Team Destiny. Due to its unusual shape its scorned by some players… then again, so was the VLocity and HALO when they first came out! We just brought the Pinokio in to stock so I decided to delve a little more into them… and was pleasantly surprised.
Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning… the Pinokio is not a Ricochet! While OEM’d from the same factory and sharing some components from the now-defunct loader company, the Pinokio is quite different. Paintballs feed down into a carousel where they are indexed between four soft paddle arms. A flexible flap sensor extends in the feed path. When the sensor is up the motor turns on until the feedneck is stacked with paint, holding the sensor in the down position. The soft paddles doesn’t so much forcefeed as it shuttles paint into the feed path, alleviating the ’soup maker syndrome’ other forcefeed loaders often have with brittle paintballs. Its a simple system without eyes to get dirty or misaligned.
A quick word about the servo motor. This unit was originally designed for remote control scale racing boats… its sealed very well! I chatted with the designer of the Pinokio today, who told me that not only do they routinely demo the Pinokio running underwater but that they’ve actually used a loader to blend margaritas. While I don’t recommend this (using it as a blender, not the margaritas), I mention it because a little rain isn’t going to shut down the loader. The motor is rated to 37 volts, but the Pinokio only uses two 9 volt batteries. No worries about overloading and burning it out as the motor is never even close to being run at full power. The manufacturer’s claim is 30 BPS… while I don’t have the equipment to properly refute this claim, I will say that you will be hard pressed to outrun this loader short of a very irresponsible and dangerous ramping setting on your trigger !
The body is where the Pinokio derives its obvious name. The shell of the loader is in four pieces: left body, right body, battery door and nose cone. The nose cone slides on via two grooves in the sides and secures in place by a spring loaded latch. Two noses cones are provided, Stage 1 and Stage 2. The Stage 1 nose cone is a traditional loader shape for a capacity of 250 balls. Most other competitors max out at 170-190 balls. Stage 2 is an elongated cone that extends out the front for an insane 400 ball count!
Now before you judge the looks of this, think about the possibilities… it takes no tools and about 10 seconds to switch between cones. Imagine you are playing in the woods, fighting your way to a fort which you need to take and then hold. You use Stage 1 for mobility on the way there, then switch to Stage 2 for when you need to lay down some serious paint in defense. Nothing stops your opponents like a never ending stream of paint coming at them. The Pinokio will hold almost three full 140 round pods! Some back players on speedball fields are picking up on the Pinokio in Stage 2 as well. The long nose cone is still the same target area when viewed from the front and even from a bit of an angle you’re still going to get nailed in the hard goggles. They can go over twice as long off the break without reloading or even need to reload at all in shorter three man formats where you rarely shoot more than three pods.
The battery door slides on and locks in place without tools. The body lines are designed to add structural integrity to the overall shell and make wiping hits off between games easy and fast. The lid snaps down like the older Halos and will accept most feed gate systems like the CORE Halo Speed Collar and the Virtue Crown. One button turns the Pinokio on and off, recessed into the rear of the body where it won’t break or accidentally get turned off.
You’ll hear many players who’ve never actually seen a Pinokio in person complain how ‘big’ they are. Big? With a Stage 1 nose cone the Pinokio is virtually the same height and length as a Halo B/ Reloader B and less height than a standard VLocity. It is longer than the VLocity but not as wide.
Want yet another awesome stat? The Pinokio with Stage 1 nose cone and two 9 volt batteries weighs in at 1 pound ! Stage 2 complete with batteries weighs in at 1 pound 3 oz. Compare that to the Halo B’s 1 pound 8.4oz or the VLocity’s 1 pound 2.4oz. (Thanks to Mike at TechPB for the weights)
While the Pinokio is a bit more expensive than most loaders it is surely not the most expensive either. What you’re getting is an insanely light, crazy fast loader with the ability to quickly increase ball capacity to the scenario equivalent of a heavy machine gun. Designed for rec ballers but getting noticed by speedballers, the Pinokio is a solid investment to compliment your marker.
If you’re reading this, then you’re probably a paintball player. So am I, going on 20 years now. Ever since my first game in 1987, I have been involved in this crazy sport of ours as a player, marker tech, player, referee, player, salesperson, player, store manager, player, buyer for Paintball-Online.com, and a player. Why do I mention being a player so many times? Because that's what makes me qualified for the job that I do in choosing the products that we sell. I love my job and get to see, test and experience all the cool new toys, trends and changes. This paintball blog is to give you a view into the huge and crazy world that is paintball - in all its forms.
