Hopper

A hopper is an ammunition holding device standardly used with ball blasters such as Nerf RIVAL blasters, Adventure Force Tactical Strike blasters, and Dart Zone BallistixOps blasters.

Details
Hoppers are ammunition holders that hold loose ammunition to be fired off in a blaster; they can be integrated into the blaster itself, like the Nerf Hyper blasters, or a detachable accessory, like the Powerball. While some are intended to be swapped around a la clip system, others are only meant for their patron blasters. Some hoppers are also only meant to be detachable for fixing jams and feeing issues, as their bulky size makes them too unwieldy for reloading.

Unlike something like a clip or drum, loaded ammunition do not have followers or a feeding system. Instead, ammo is fed through the hopper and blaster by gravity. Due to this, shaking a hopper or blaster can help agitate ammunition down through the loading port. Some blasters, such as the 2018 Accelerator, have a built-in agitator for this purpose.

Ammunition is loaded through an opening, usually found at the top or rear of the hopper. A mechanism or door often blocks the opening as to keep ammunition from falling out during play.

Hoppers often have a high capacity, ranging from fifty to two hundred pieces of ammo. Like other ammunition holders, there is a suggested, advertised maximum capacity of ammunition. While this can be exceeded, this can lead to feeding issues.

Tactical Strike and BallistixOps hoppers are not compatible with Nerf RIVAL blasters, due to their magazine wells being too long and having a different feeding direction.

Dart hoppers
Dart-loaded hoppers work similarly to High-Impact Round-style hoppers, but are not commonly used. The four stock blasters to feature a dart hopper are the 2018 Commandfire, the 2019 Destructor, the 2020 Sportsman, and the 2021 Matrixfire.

Within the blaster modification and homemade blaster communities, dart hoppers have been used as a means to automatically load darts. These, unlike RIVAL-compatible hoppers, are vertical in design, with darts loaded in a line, rather than in a big container. They are attached to blaster at an angle, as to help gravity auto-feed darts down and into position.