Ball Shooters

The mechanism that launches the ball from the shooter lane onto the playfield — the starting act of every game of pinball. Ball shooters fall into two broad families: manual Plungers, spring-loaded rods that the player pulls and releases to control launch strength, and electronic auto-launchers, which fire the ball via a solenoid at the press of a button. Manual plungers dominated pinball for most of its history, offering a skill shot element as players learned to dose the pull for precise placement. Auto-launchers became common in the 1990s and are now standard on many modern machines, trading tactile control for consistent, repeatable launches.