BNB Loco Review: Does It Deserve Paddle of the Year?

At the end of 2025, a bunch of paddle reviewers crowned the BNB Loco as the Paddle of the Year.

When they first came out, I briefly tried my friend’s widebody Loco and it was poppier than I would like, and I didn’t play too well with it in stock form.

A month or two later, I played a game with the elongated Loco and I felt like it was pretty controllable. I played well with it, but didn’t think too much of it, especially after just one game.

People in my Discord mentioned the hybrid is easiest of the 3, so let’s see if the Loco warrants the Paddle of the Year award.

My name is Pickle Li. I’m a 5.0 pickleball player and reviewed over 40 paddles on this channel. I created MyPickleList, which does community driven paddle ratings, and there are currently over 750 ratings.

Caveats & Disclosures

Reminder: This is a first impressions review, not a full review. I played with this for a few days so I can’t speak on long-term durability.

I’ll be rating this paddle on my website MyPickleList at the end so stay tuned for that.

I don’t have a discount code for BNB, but I think there should be some floating around.

Shout out to bobpickle in my Discord for letting me borrow this for the review.

Check out my Discord for the best pickleball steals, advice, and paddle talk. Link in bio.

Quick Specs Overview

Bread and Butter is known for their marketing and unique designs. They’ve always made solid paddles, but maybe slightly pricier than other paddles with similar performance.

I’ll be honest, before this review, I was a bit skeptical of BNB. I remember when the Shogun came out and Pickleball Studio gave it a bunch of praise, my brother even bought one because of their review. Long story short, he didn’t really think it was that great and he ended up returning it, so I thought the Loco might be the same way.

Anyways, like I mentioned earlier, the Loco comes in the 3 typical shapes and it features a gen 4 dual density foam core.

For those who don’t know, full foam cores are the latest technology in pickleball that greatly increase core durability in paddles.

My paddle weighed in at 8.18 oz.

On-Court First Impressions

Pop

The Loco has above average pop. Good amount where you won’t have any trouble with counters or hands battles, but not so much that it’s uncontrollable.

I will say it probably leans towards the poppier side than the plush side.

Control & Feel

So having played with the Inferno recently, I felt like these two would be a good comparison, since they are both poppier gen 4 power paddles that aren’t the Boomstik.

I started dinking with them side by side and I will say it is pretty close.

Both are on the hollow side, but not as hollow feeling as the Boomstik. From dinks alone, there weren’t any huge differences.

The shape could have impacted it, but I do think the Loco is a bit more dense and a bit softer.

I did really enjoy the feel of the hybrid Loco. Like people were saying, it is an easy paddle and I didn’t have to think too much to play well with it.

Shots went where I wanted and resets were super easy, and it felt like the sweet spot in stock form was really good.

I surprisingly don’t think I remember a bad mishit on an out-of-the-air reset or whatnot.

The ball always seemed to find its way back over and the paddle was intuitive enough for me to easily make my way to the kitchen.

If I wasn’t in a scramble or anything, nothing really popped up more than I expected, which is super nice.

The one thing I did notice is I mishit my topspin drops a bit more than the Inferno and the Gherkin Draco.

Maybe I’m just bad, or perhaps the top part is slightly deader on the Loco, but just wanted to mention that. Towards the later sessions I didn’t notice this as much, so maybe I adapted back to the shape.

The grit on the Loco is slightly above average. This paddle already had mileage, not sure exactly how much, I think it’s on the lower side, but just noticed that the grit was still slightly above average.

Grit is not the only determining factor of spin, other things play a role.

In general I was able to spin the ball well and had no complaints in that department.

Overall the paddle was indeed very easy to use like people were saying.

I used it in stock form and it was easy to control yet still has pretty aggressive pop.

Power

I would put the Loco right at the mid tier category.

I think it’s pretty similar to the Pro IV’s and other paddles in that range.

I hit drives with it side by side with a Inferno, which I classified as a mid to high tier power paddle, and the person receiving the drives said the Inferno was more powerful.

There is a shape difference in this example, but I think it would apply to the elongated as well based on my game with it and what I saw online.

I think serves can be good if you put in effort, just doesn’t have effortless power in terms of a deep serve.

It’s that power level where your shots will probably stay in if you don’t do anything too dumb, yet more than enough power to put stuff away.

Early Verdict

Now let me rate this on MyPickleList.

MPL is a website I built that does community driven paddle ratings. The purpose is to be a quick and easy way to see how good a paddle is without having to watch YouTube videos like this one.

We currently have over 150 members and over 740 ratings, and it’s only going to get better with more ratings so please join!

If you’re in the Atlanta area, you’re in luck since we are currently giving $20 giftcards to Premier Racquet Sports if you rate and comment on 5 paddles. We had 29 out of the 100 people redeem them so far.

Back to the review.

I came into this review pretty skeptical of the Loco, and I’ll have to admit the hybrid is a very good paddle.

It has a really nice intuitive feel. On the poppier side but has a very slightly softer feel than the Boomstik and even the Inferno.

The power level is toned down a bit as well.

The widebody didn’t impress me as much, and I didn’t have too much time with the elongated.

I really did like the overall playability of the hybrid and I could basically do whatever I wanted and it felt good, which is what I ultimately look for.

I’m going to rate the Loco Hybrid a 9/10.

It’s not introducing anything too different compared to other paddles on the market, but it does basically everything well and I enjoyed the feel.

In addition, I like how BNB made it in all 3 shapes, as opposed to other brands sticking to only elongated paddles.

Since I play mainly doubles, hybrid and standard shapes just typically have better performance so I’m glad there is a good hybrid gen 4 power paddle option.

I think this paddle is for you if you want a power paddle but care a bit more about control and feel.

If you want the most power available, this won’t provide that, but I think it is enough for most people.

I also think hybrid specifically there aren’t too many gen 4 options out right now. So if you are a hybrid main and want something with a lighter poppy gen 4 feel rather than dense, this and the Gherkin Draco may be your main options.

Overall, I can see why this was so many reviewer’s paddle of the year, at least specifically the hybrid one for me personally.

I don’t think it is way better than other top paddles but these marginal gains here and there and personal feel preferences are the differences you can expect between the top paddles since so many paddles are good.

Thank you guys for watching.

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