Halo Poll. Problems or everything ok?

[alf]

load,

i had the same problem you did (yesterday in my backyard)...shooting stars...VERY same setup that fed a case of marbs flawlessly...one star was stuck at the top of the warp, and wouldnt clear the feedneck...priming the warp, or shaking the hopper of course didnt work...

i wonder what thats all about...

jurassic - when is the bearing kit available?

vil3 - i think they made it large so that you can sand it to fit

[Restola]

wow so far the poll only shows a 2:1 positive ratio... i dont think that sounds very appealing for a $115 hopper.

[MicroB]

Halo

I had nothing but good things to say about it when I first got it. No problems for the first case of marbs everything after that nothing but trouble. It makes soup inside the hopper. It never fails to break a ball on the inlet to the feed neck, smashes ball between paddles and inlet. Double feeds my vert feed micro rt the ball detent is not strong enough to stop the ball from being forced forward, cuasing another ball to drop 1/2 way into the breach. Real problem in rapid fire as my detent will not return fast enough to stop the next ball in line. Very noticable after you shoot a string rapidly almost guarnteed to break next shot fired. I understand this is a problem with my gun and its detent but, this hoppers force feed nature cause the problem. My halo actually forced itself out of my vert feed with a stack of balls. Have no trouble with x-board revvy or rico. Halo works terrific on my power feed e-mag except when it chops internally (all the time). Have tried all kinds of paint now with the same result. I would like this hopper to work for me. The design is the best looking in the industry. I would like to utilze its performance if I could get it to work properly and stop breaking paint. I have taken it apart and found nothing to be the cause of my problems. For therse reasons I voted "wish had never bought".

Thx, B

[DjGruv]

I love it. Nothing is perfect, especially the rev.

[dmonahan]

They are great targets. Much easy to hit than a Rev or R2k. I shot out 2 palyer at the Pan Am this weekend who had them.

[Doobie]

I still have not chopped a single ball inside of the HALO. I have been shooting mostly Diablo blaze and midnight. Like I said before, I still like. For those having problems, you should get in touch with the HALO people and see what their customer service is like. If it is anything like AGD they will probably make things right. If you do send it in or get in touch with them, let us know your results here.

[Ghost Stalker]

I personally dont own one but two people on my team own them. The first one they bought was DOA. Then after about 2 weeks of play the lid broke in half causing them to have to replace it. They are huge and make alot of sound. Also we noticed no significant difference in feeding the balls into our guns when we used them. Sure they feed the balls really fast but can you actually pull the trigger that fast? I can't.... But if you put it on fullauto then the full extent of the hopper comes into play.
But most fields wont let you use full auto.

So what is the point of a hopper that feeds 14+ balls a second when you will very seldom shoot that fast with your marker. Also when a ball busts in that thing it proved to be very hard to clean out and then put back togeather. We weren't too impressed with it.

[Load SM5]

The idea behind the HALO from what I understood is that it does'nt just feed fast, it feeds reliably. Instead of flinging balls all over the inside of the hopper it actually sorts them and flings them down the feed tube. I played agian with my HALO and with the exception of one mysterious broken ball in the hopper itself it fed great.

[magic55]

i refuse to ever use it again. i'd rather use a regular hopper. it maybe just be a defect but mine doesn't feed reliably like someone said. i had many misfires and it just pissed me off how bad it preformed. its rediculas to have to worry about your hopper chopping durring a game. thats the reason i got my gun, so i could get away from chops but with the halo it made it pointless. i use my nice reliable old 12vt xboard rev. its smaller, lighter, and feeds "better"

[Bwaites]

New products usually have a few teething problems, remember the Superbolt?

But my experience has been exceptional. I have played several times now, First time with new Allstar and Slamball, second with Power Ball, third with new Allstar.

Put about a half case of each through each time. I had a single Power Ball break up in the hopper, but the paint was very high in the front of the hopper, so I expect it was broken when I put it in and I just missed it. It did not cause any problems, and it just kept going.

This was the first time I have played in months without chops or breaks in the barrel. It didn't matter how fast I shot, I couldn't do anything wrong!

By the way, my superbolt has worked very well also.

I shoot an emag, with CP barrels.

Bill

[21caballer]

first day= steel paint, 1 case, absolutly worked fine no problems at all. very happy.
second day= attitude field paint, 1/2 case, worked fine. very happy.
third day= attitude fp, 1/2 case, worked fine. not one jam or break or anything up to this point.
first game of panam in phoenix= 3rd marb, jammed. could not get it un jammed. I tried for about 5 min while i was still alive. finally reduced to loading 5 balls at a time into the powerfeed. a ball ended up getting chopped in the gate while i was attempting to clear it.

i don't know what i am going to do with it know. i don't think i can afford to keep a hopper that i don't trust. plus if it does get jammed it just does not feed at all. i like how fast it feeds. i really cut down on my chopping, infact i don't think i had one.

i think i am going to have to sell it.

[billmi]

Mine has been performing flawlessly - but some problems I've head of from HALO owners, and from the HALO designer.

Some black shelled paintballs are not very reflective to infra red light, and some downright absorb IR with no reflection. With black shelled paint there can be a problem with the HALO over-driving the paint and breaking it (I notice the paint in the pic in this thread has a black shell on half of it).

Closed bolt paintguns offer less ball drop time than open bolt - on closed bolt paintguns it is best to lock out the HALO's ball detent.

On vertical feed necks, without a positive pressure system like the Warp, and waiting for a gap in the ball stack to activate the loader (which the HALO does) there can be feed problems caused by balls bobbling back up the feed tube. It doesn't matter if you have blowback or not, there is a mechanical interaction of the bolt on the bottom of the ball. I tested a prototype HALO on the same test stand as the WARPIG Ballistic Labs loader lineup last fall and could not get the same feed rates as Odyssey could achieve on a powerfed e-mag - I believe this is why. A powerfeed takes care of the bobble issue, and I believe the gated feed WDP is putting on the IR3 probably will as well. However, the bobble only seems to be a real issue with the HALO over 13 bps, so in real world semiauto use, it's probably not a problem anyone will ever see.

Also some of the problems I've heard of are related to assembly errors. There should be a spring, and a plastic tab that looks like a strip or zip-tie sticking out of the wall of the catch-cup inside. If either of these are missing, you will likely have problems with jams and or breaks.

I've seen a number of HALOs in use at Mardi Gras Open and Pan Am Phoenix, all running well.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills

[torment]

my HALO has been working great on my RT pro so far. worth the investment.

[PhantomX]

I can say for sure they will be hard on any black shell paint! The Halo was causing the black and gold Blaze paint I was shooting (Trying to that is) to almost double feed. That extra push down caused by the Halo not seeing the black shell caused a chop about every 2nd or 3rd ball.

Before anyone gets on the paint/barrel waggon I will say that the Diablo paint was very fresh. 30 Balls tested at between 8-22 drops before breaking. The Barrels were a 12' Boomy and a Freak using .689 and .687. The Boomstick and the .689 freak allowed this forced feed and chop issue. The .687 insert for the Freak stopped the problem. Or so I thought....

After finishing for the day and thinking all was well I took my Halo of the Mag and BEHOLD! The ball in the chamber had a large dent in it from the force of the balls on top of it!

The next day I was at the Odyssey web site and read about the black shell issue...

Also, my Halo came without the detent parts in it! I don't know if I need them or not but a $100+ loader should come with all its marbles!

Over all I think its a good loader. It needs to have some weight trimmed of it and these little function issues need to be ironed out. I can stand the weight...but missing parts and being picky about paint shell color is a no no!

[manike]

I have to just re-iterate to NOT use any paint with black in the shell. I've had problems with victory and zap which were half black half shell and marballisers that had black in the shell.

It seems to work ok with these paints when not feeding into a gun but makes a mess when in actual use...

manike