The first paintball gun I ever owned was a Spyder E-99 that came with a rechargeable 9.6v battery. On one hand it was great because I didn’t have to buy batteries. On the other hand, if I forgot to charge my marker the night before my day was ruined. To top it off the solenoid in those older Spyders needed more power than an alkaline battery could put out.

9 Volts aren’t just a number

If you are running a modern marker that uses 9 volt batteries I highly recommend avoiding rechargeable batteries. An alkaline 9 volt battery puts out 9 volts, who knew. It starts to put out a bit less when it starts to run lower on power. If you look into rechargeable 9 volt batteries you will quickly find that none of them put out a true 9 volts. The way a rechargeable “9 volt” battery works is there are multiple cells inside, each putting out 1.2 volts. This is why you will see many say they output 8.4 or 9.6 volts (some are as low as 7.2). On the higher end you run some risks of putting too much power into your board and causing some damage, where the low output batteries can not only cause some wonky behavior but you will likely see your low battery indicator going off non-stop.

So why are they called 9 volt batteries if they don’t put out 9 volts? Simply put, 9 volt is often being used as a form factor rather than just a specification. That said, many rechargeable batteries have a slightly different sized casing and may not fit despite being roughly the same size.

Also note that voltage isn’t everything. The capacity of some rechargeable 9 volt batteries can be less than half of that of an alkaline disposable. On top of that, because the rechargeables use multiple cells working together if a single cell ever dies the whole battery is done for.

For all these reasons I cannot recommend using rechargeable 9 volt batteries in a marker. That said if you are like myself and have some older loaders, rechargeable 9 volts can be a god send. I have multiple VLocity and Revy loaders that take 9 volts and thanks to more rudimentary electronics the short falls of the rechargeable batteries become less of an issue.

What about those AAs?

AA batteries are a bit of a different story. An alkaline AA battery puts out 1.2 volts, the same voltage as a rechargeable battery cell. This allows AA batteries to be used interchangeably between disposable and rechargeable without issue. I have replaced every AA battery in my life with a rechargeable, at home, professionally, and in my paintball equipment and have not had a single issue. You may run into the occasional dead cell but I have about thirty of them and have not had an issue yet.

The only real downside to rechargeables in a device that needs AAs is that they lose some of their power as they sit. This is called self discharge and can be a bit annoying but as long as I charge my batteries every now and then I always have some fresh AAs ready to go.

Built in issues

Much like the older Spyders, WDP built rechargeable batteries into their Angels back in the early 2000s. Tournament players frequently would mod their Angels to run off of 9 volt batteries, largely so that a dead battery cell or forgetting to charge your marker overnight didn’t cause too much of a headache. You did read that right, batteries took long enough to charge that overnight was often a good idea before a tournament to make sure they were fully charged.

Fast forward to 2025 and we are seeing multiple markers coming with built-in rechargeable batteries. I’m at odds about this as my experience has been largely negative with built-in rechargeables but the truth is that batteries have come a long way in the last twenty years. Not only do they hold enough power to make it through a full weekend on one charge, the charge speed for modern batteries is night and day to what we had in years past. On top of it all, unlike our cell phones replacing a rechargeable battery in a paintball gun is easy and cheap.

On the loader side of things I am actually surprised we have not seen more rechargeable options. Virtue has put out the N-Charge (review coming soon), but at the moment that is about it. I have one myself and plan to test it once my field opens so stay tuned for a full review. It’s a bit pricey so at the moment I recommend just picking up a cheap set of Power Owl rechargeable AAs and charger for a fraction of the price of the N-Charge. An eight pack of batteries with a charger is less than half the price of Virtues offering.