When the Dye Rotor was released in 2008 it changed everything. Many of the older loaders quickly become obsolete. It set a new standard for loaders in every way. It was faster, more durable, and more reliable than anything on the market. From that point on everything had a new standard to live up to.

I picked up my first Rotor to replace an aging Vlocity and it is hard to describe how much better it was in every way. The shells on older loaders felt like a Kinder Surprise when compared to the Rotor, other than pre Brass Eagle Revys of course. Other than the Halo every top end loader from that era has come and gone but the Rotor stays alive in the LTR and the R2.

Flying Blind

If you haven’t used a Rotor before it is a surprisingly simple design that I am sure every product designer at the time looked at and couldn’t believe they didn’t think of it. The Rotor uses a gear system that has two moving parts. The lower arm pushes paint down the feedneck while the top ring spins in the opposite direction to make sure that nothing obstructs the lower arm. If enough paint is present in the ball stack the gears moving the lower arm will spin an internal sprung gear to press an internal switch to turn off the motor. While at rest the loader maintains tension on the ball stack and will instantly start feeding when you fire unlike loaders that rely on eyes seeing a gap in the paint before starting their motor.

This system has some major advantages. One big advantage being aside from the LED on the power button the Rotor uses effectively no power when it is not loading paint. This made Rotors the most battery efficient loaders at the time, and still holds up today. The other advantage is pure speed. To date the Rotor is one of the fastest loaders ever built, other than possibly the Q Loader.

Almost to fast

This speed comes at a price as the Rotor is prone to jamming. Those opposing forces will sometimes catch a ball in just the wrong spot and stop as if there is a full stack of paint. Often this can be countered by pulling the “shark fin” on the bottom of the Rotor. To help with this it is possible to adjust the tension of the motor with an allen key, slowing the speed but reducing the jam risk. I did this on both my Rotors and I will note that one of mine did start to jam after turning the tension too far down, so proceed with caution and don’t over do it.

Also worth noting is the force fed nature and speed of this loader has counterintuitively made this the loader of choice for players using mechanical markers. With no eyes to prevent the marker from chopping a ball in half if it has not been pushed all the way into the breach, the Rotors speed and force is a good way to prevent this. With modern electronic markers all having eyes and usually limited to a 10.5bps rate of fire this is less crucial and having less pressure on the paintballs can be a plus when using the most fragile paint.

These days, it is hard not to recommend the Rotor. It is well priced on the new market with the LTR and on the used market you can pick one up for a very good deal with the confidence that it will last you years thanks to its durability. It made our top three loaders in its price range in my list of best loaders for 2025 despite being older than nearly every option on that list.