HK Army Sonic Loader !

[Meleager7]

Ok, this new HK Sonic loader is looking a lot more interesting to me than the JT Triad, I posted about this morning !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEIeHHEdFyc

https://ansgear.com/hk-army-sonic-paintball-loader-black/

The pricing looks great, and I'm really digging the looks. I've read this is basically a re-design of the Speed, and I think it looks a lot better

The single 9volt and the super light total weight is another plus.

Me thinks I'll be grabbing one of these to try!

[BrickHaus]

Ya know. I kind of want one.

[Siress]

That does look nice. Not sold at $100, though, unless the shells are nylon 6/6 with 30% glass-fiber and that sensing finger can withstand a torture test. I like the similarities to the original revy... 9v, that paddle, simple features...

[glaman5266]

I'm actually not too worried about the tongue sensor. It is a concern for sure, but the Pinokio/HK Speed & the Ricochet hoppers all had tongue sensors & have performed fine in my experience. I'm hoping this one will be at least as good as those.

[jokers]

I like the looks of that one a lot better than the Triad. One 9 Volt is nice, looks like it might fit the Virtue Crown Speed feeds, as well as it almost looks like it has the same top shell as a CTRL so that might fit as well with a loss of paint. If you look at the battery compartment it seems to have an option for a second 9V or they were planning on it. If marketing is to be believed though 1 9v = 35 cases so in my case 1+ year of use. If a flat top was printed for it that may be a great small hopper.

[glaman5266]

Lone Wolf Paintball (eh.....) did a video on the Sonic & said it can take all the Spire speedfeeds and demonstrated how to attach it.

[zinger565]

In the HK discord they talked that they had initially designed it around 2 9v, but changed the board components to run effectively off the single 9v for weight savings. (Sounds like that directive came from Mark H himself)

[glaman5266]

My initial thoughts on this loader...

-I like agitated & semi force-feed hoppers. Still fast enough for most applications but not as hard on paint.
-I liked the Speed's weight distribution, with the impellor & motor in the front. Balances out the tank nicely IMO. This seems to draw heavily from the Speed, so it might feel very similar.
-The Speed's design keeps the feedneck in the middle of the loader, which I like.
-The tongue sensor in the feedneck might be a concern, but it's probably not as bad as one might think considering how well the Speed & Ricochet hoppers were regarded.
-I'm curious exactly how much paint it can go through on one 9V battery. The Ricochet AK ran fine with just one & was an agitated loader, but at the speeds the Sonic claims to feed at I'm skeptical of the battery life claim.
-I wonder how much space there is between the lid & the floor of the hopper with the ramp spring depressed. My chief gripe with the Speed was that speedfeeds are VERY difficult to work with because of how shallow the back end was (had to fight to get the paint past the speedfeed fingers). I find it faster to use the standard lid on my Speed.
-If this is anywhere near the weight of the Speed it will have my undivided attention. I've been on a mission to cut the weight of my setups for a couple years now.

[Meleager7]

how well did your Speed loader feed when you had your marker tilted up for longer shots? Was the impeller being located near the front of the loader a problem when long balling like that?

[glaman5266]

Meleager7 It was just fine. I don’t long ball much, but if anything it might have made those shots *slightly more stable, though again it’s never did it much.

The bulbous front doesn’t get in the way as much as you’d think and the back end of the Speed is almost v-shaped so you can see around the back end of the loader better. That & the weigh/balance are my favorite things about the Speed.

EDIT: I just realized what you meant, lol. I think it fed fine. The impellor sort of feeds them backwards into the feedneck, so as long as you have paint in the front you’re good. The floor shape helps ensure that. It’s when you get to the last 20 balls or so it gets iffy, but you get that with most loaders.

[ford]

The tongue sensor on my speed lasted about two years with use almost every weekend. This looks like the speed of my dreams. If I wasn’t swimming in hoppers I’d pick one up.

[Chuck E Ducky]

That’s actually disappointing. 2 years?

[Brokeass_baller]

Too many balls on the tongue wears it out.

[zinger565]

I'll definitely be picking one up. Biggest concern right now is how secure that single 9v is in the compartment. I may also experiment with replacing it with a rechargeable 18650 (or similar). I'm planning on palying around with the same idea on the JT Triad as well.

[glaman5266]

The HK Speed runs on 2 9Vs mounted in a similar fashion. I've never had issues with them coming dislodged. As long as there's something sitting against it from underneath or behind (even just a nub or a fin from the bottom tray) it isn't going anywhere.

[Meleager7]

May I suggest you also find yourself a Nasty Typhoon and run both loaders at the same time to compare!

[Tinybear]

Hmm interesting. I had a Pinokio speed for a while and I liked its size/weight. But it didn’t do well on my RTing Automag and was replaced by a rotor. And for my other shooters I found a revy just as good.

The only thing I would dislike about using a revy these days (no longer have an RTing mag or any electro) is cleaning and the speed didn’t aid that much. This looks like a good improvement.

That being said I literally JUST PICKED up a spire ir2 for$130CDN with spring ramp and speed feed for my purpose lol so I won’t be trying this one.

[zinger565]

Yeah, I found my pinokio speed best on sustained fire, but it definitely struggled with high ROF bursts. I believe that's due to it not having any stack pressure at all.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I think the LTR is still a better deal it takes a better style speed feed as well. It’s just heavier at the same price.

[Brokeass_baller]

I have an OG Rotor and an LTR, but I really like my SpireIR with BK speed feed. It's just so nice. I've considered upgrading to the HK aluminum speed feed.

[Chuck E Ducky]

They break when shot. The exalt Speed feed I have on my Gen 1 rotor lasted 6+ years and then got replaced for free. It’s still working today so is the rotor. I blew a window out and picked up an LTR for $100. Ended up finding a window replacement and the Gen 1 is back up and running again it’s never let me down since 08 ish when it was released at Cup. The LTR is a beast it heavy and loud when shot empty but it’s durable the spires fingers go bad after a few seasons and the speed feeds are one bad shot away from junk. I still think the LTR is the best bang for your buck. It’s the same proven design without the windows that can break over time and they take the best speed feed on the market.

[scrounger]

Ill give my impressions on it just from what has been put out on the videos.

one.. i like the ease in disassembly. Not groundbreaking since this has been now standardized for all loaders with each being just slightly/cosmetically different.

two.. one nine volt battery powered. Again very nice..
it used to be one then two nine volts.
then replaced with two or three AA batteries.
i like the one battery and the robust 9 volt is nice touch.

three.. the ease of lid changing..
I personally dont use the speed feed lids (too old school) but nice they make replacement of broken standard and if one wanted to change easy.

four... 16 bps feed rate
honestly more than enough for most applications
alot of fields and events have caps on BPS so 16 is more than plenty.

five.. the price
its nice they are not going the "how much more from the last model can we get them to pay".
IMO 99 dollars is good price and hope they keep it for a good all around loader.

now one thing i will mention this seems alot like the valken VLS loader.
i have one and alot of this is quite similar with some changes like the lid changing being nice (the opening seems identical) but he paddle system IMO is just different.. Neither better or worse.

I hope it sticks around and people realize that you dont need to spend 220 plus on a loader to get the job done.

now i must use a disclaimer here
all this is based on what i have seen. I reserve right to change review if i get to see (and better test) one in person.
because lets be honest HK is known for copying others products to varying degrees of quality
some like cases slightly less quality (not bad) from others
to some (like their goggle case i reviewed before) that they had great idea but destroyed it by cheap construction, materials, or both.

scrounger

[zinger565]

I like that it takes the Virtue Crown speedfeeds, which are about half the cost of the HK ones.

The feeding system and positioning are directly inherited from HK's previous hopper: the Pinokio Speed. I have one of those and can vouch that it works well. It's very similar to an Eggy, but doesn't run when empty.

The spring ramp is a nice addition. With the Speed the last 10 balls or so won't feed without tilting down.

One "downside" with the feeding system is there's no pressure on the ball stack, so the speed can suffer with bursts at high rof, but lower sustained fire is no problem.

[Cunha]

Pinokio speed 2!!

looks awesome, added capacity, less 9 volts. The feed design is robust and never jams so for non high speed it’s awesome, tough to beat!

i was hoping the next hopper of this type would have the feed tray in the back vs the front like the speed but hey this looks great, I’d buy one right away if I was playing any semi auto paintball these days.

the mechanism doesn’t have a lot of preload but sometimes it does have pressure on the stack it just depends on how the thing stops. Not that 50/50 pressure does much but it’s better than none. The sensor works as a one way gate so you’re usually going to have a ball in the breech no matter how much you move around but it’s another drawback of this system versus a prophecy or rotor that really has pressure on the stack all the time.

[Cunha]

With this fancy new shell and the 1x battery instead of 2x battery I wonder if it’s really lighter than the original Pinokio speed.

[zinger565]

I'll be able to tell you in a few days, mine just shipped from LoneWolf.

[glaman5266]

I'm not sure what the shell is made of, but if it's GRN or something heavier than what the Speed is made of I'd guess it's a wash.

I'd like to pick one up to review as well. Hopefully soon.

[Cunha]

Can whoever gets one confirm it’s got actual 200 round capacity versus the “200” capacity of the original speed?

it looks like it’s wider and with the springy tray to make up the volume the original speed was lacking.

[zinger565]

Will do. Mine has shipped, scheduled for Tuesday delivery.

[Cunha]

One of the videos has the actual weight with a battery. I had a review with that info but I guess it was on the old site so RIp

[Meleager7]

Looking forward to a review by Zinger !

[zinger565]

UPS was a day early. Got mine and here's weight comparison on my kitchen scale.

HK Pinokio Speed w/universal speedfeed and 2 9v: 1lb



HK Sonic w/Virtue Crown speedfeed and 1 9v: 12oz+



I used the same 9v I pulled out of the Speed to check the Sonic weight, so no battery weight discrepancy. I'll try to get a video done tonight with a capacity test and some thoughts.

[Brokeass_baller]

How well does it reload? Like, does the ramp in the front of it slow it down, or prohibit a full pod from entering? I'm thinking about picking one up, but my SpireIR feeds and reloads so well.

Edit: Holy crap. Sorry for all the typos.

[zinger565]

Better than the Speed, but I won't know for sure until I play with it on Wednesday.

[zinger565]

Capacity video:

[zinger565]

Lol, no worries. I only went through the "full rigor" of counting so nobody could accuse me of not counting it out.

I'm curious to see everyone's opinion! I'll have a more full picture after Wednesday for sure. My biggest concern at the moment (and the same one I have with the Speed) is that if you run empty, and happen to end with a paddle finger over the raceway, there's no way to "restart" the feeding process without turning the hopper off and back on.

[glaman5266]

I never had that issue with the Speed. But I never run my hoppers completely dry. My biggest concern is whether I can load through a speedfeed or not. The Speed is too shallow on the back end to get paint past the fingers once they fold in. The spring ramp in the Sonic looks like it'd fix that.

[zinger565]

Fair point.

The spring ramp definitely helps, even just in the few drop tests I've done here in the basement I can tell a difference.