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Virtue Spire 3 Paintball Hopper Review
Looking for some paintball fun?
For a great paintball game, you need to be well prepared with all your gears. A paintball hopper is one thing you don’t want to overlook. After all, you want to load lots of balls and shoot at your opponent’s chest. Have you got the right hopper yet?
Ever since its inception, the Virtue Spire 3 has taken the paintball world by storm. The most recent offering of the Spire series gives most high-end paintball loaders a run for their money.
It’s lighter, compact, and works just perfect. With all the benefits that it has to offer, it’s arguably the best paintball hopper in the current market.
Let’s uncover the details about amazing loader.
What Does The Virtue Spire 3 Look Like?
Talking about the aesthetics and designs, The Virtue Spire 3 appears to be a smarter sibling of older Spires. The loader is quite similar to Spire 260 and Spire 200 for its designs.
Spire has always been impressive in its designs. Back when the Spire 200 hit the market, it was highly lauded for its angular ergonomics. The Spire 3 retains the same theme with its sharp and angular designs.
Top Upgrades In The Virtue Spire 3
The Virtue Spire 3 has got all the good qualities of its predecessors. However, the interesting thing is that it tries to compensate for the drawbacks as well. The new model has some major upgrades to it.
Here are the top changes in the most recent Spire version.
Shells
Shell is the biggest update that you would notice with Spire 3. Previously, Spire had 3 shells including top, back, and bottom shells. Most users never got the top and bottom shells apart.
So basically it was more like just the back shell and either of top or bottom shell acting up. Also, you needed to remove the back shell while taking out the internal tray. This often resulted in a dismantled or broken back shell.
As a solution to the above back shell issue, the Spire 3 just got rid of it Now, the hopper has no back shell, and it’s more like a normal shell system which splits it into two pieces.
So now it resembles the other popular high-end models like Dye Rotor or HK Army TFX. But there’s stays a difference. While the others would just split into top and bottom halves, the Spire 3 keeps the parts attached through a hinge.
Feed System
Tray Spire hoppers had forever been a big name for their trays. It’s been a sure shot winner among the high-end hoppers for this feature at least. The Spire 3 takes the game a notch up.
The Spire is famous for its capability of loading any kind of paint at any point in time. The Spire 3 does that even better. The drive cone design of the previous models has been retained with great changes.
With older Spire hoppers, the speed of feeding was an issue. The all-new Spire 3 uses long fingers in its drive cone enabling a faster and smoother loading.
Also, the loader’s software and motor are enhanced to give better feed rates. Moreover, you can quite easily dismantle the tray now. You can split the tray and board raceway promptly without any tools.
Reload Indicator
The Spire 3 now comes with an attached spring ramp. This spring ramp used to be separate from older Spire versions. And, the spring ramp’s gotten smarter than ever. There’s a microswitch under the ramp to indicate the fully extended position of the ramp.
This is the position when no paint is pressing the ramp down. The smart ramp can judge the absence of paintballs in the loader. Then comes a beep and two red LEDs keep glowing till the ramp identifies paintballs reloaded.
The smart ramp feature is a handy feature while in a paintball battle. It would quickly remind you when you need to refill the gun with more paintballs.
Also, if you want the beep sound to go away, the Spire 3 has brought a force-feed button right at the bottom to be pushed. You can push the button again to get the sound back on.
How’s The Performance
Performance is what you don’t want to compromise within a paintball loader. You’re going to a battle and you need it to work well throughout. Obviously, even a slight ditch of the hopper can give an edge to your opponent.
If you were happy how your Spire 200 and Spire 260 worked, you’re going to be positively startled with the Spire 3. The new version is quite an improvement to its older counterparts.
It now has a software, a better motor, an advanced drive cone. Performance is bound to be better with such amazing updates.
Going by the user experiences, the new Spire 3 can feed around 19 BPS. The loader works just fine throughout the day without any issues.
It’s most probably the best performance you would find in any hopper today. A great loader is meant to serve its purpose and get out of the way. This is what the Spire 3 does the best.
- The design looks better and is more durable
- The hopper provides a much faster and consistent feed
- There’s no concern of loader jamming in Spire 3
- It’s quite soft for brittle paints
- The unit can be dismantled without any tools
- The loader works great and is easy to use
- Being a high-end paintball loader, it's slightly more towards the costly side.
Bottom Line: Virtue Spire 3 Paintball Hopper Review
Adding complex features never makes a great product. Most amazing products are always simple. The Virtue Spire has always carried this simplicity with all its paintball loaders. And, the Spire 3 certainly takes it further close to perfection.
What makes the Spire 3 an excellent hopper is that fact that it overcomes the shortcomings of already great products. It's a simple design high on performance.
Spire 3 is more durable, compact, lightweight, and easy to take off. It's meant to let you reap its immense benefits without even feeling its presence. Got a question? Feel free to comment below.