Manufacture- Smart Parts
Propellant- CO2 and HPA
Cost- $700 to $800+ dollars depending on features
The Shocker was the first electro-pneumatic paintball marker on the market. It was orginally produced by a company called PVI, but a few years ago PVI and Smart Parts broke up and Smart Parts took over full manufacturing of the Shocker. The Shocker Sport comes in several different models the 4x4, select fire, and turbo. In this review I am going to give a in depth review of the many parts of the Shocker.
The batteries are housed inside of the trigger frame.
The batteries are
custom made by Smart parts. After each time you fire the gun you must remove the batteries
because there is no on/off switch.
All of the major primary electronic components are housed inside the the lower half of the main body structure, these are what fire the gun. First, is the controll board. It sends signals telling all the other components of the gun what to do, like a brain.
Next, there are the firing and bolt selenoid. In the cause of the Shocker the Selenoids are used to controll the flow of gas throughout the gun. The Controll board sends sends the signals to the selenoid telling what direction and where the gas needs to go.
Finally, there is the Bolt, Poppet, and Fire Piston, seen above. The bolt is located on the top of the picture above. Notice that the bolt is connected to another object, the bolt functions a piston or ram preesurized gas move the bolt forwards and backwards. Below that and to the left is the firing piston, and to the left of the firing piston connected by a linkage rod is the fill poppet assembly. These are what do the work of getting the ball down the barrel and out of the gun. Read on to see how all of these things tie into the firing of the Shocker.
I am going to divide the firing process into three phases still, firing, and reloading.
Still
When the gun is sitting still, not being fired, propellant is held in a chamber in front of the piston, see picture above. This gas forces the linkage rod connecting the firing piston and the poppet backwards sealing the chamber off, this is the gas that will be used to fire the next shoot. Also note that there is a spring inside of the poppet that held under pressure by the gas. This is how the gun functions when it is still.
Firing
Remember that the gun is controlled by a central controll board that relays signals to all to the gun. When the trigger is depressed the controll boards sends a signal to the firing solenoid to cut gas flow to the firing piston. Once the gas flow to the firing piston is cut off the linkage rod in the poppet moves forward, remember the spring, simultaneously closing the poppet and opening up the firing piston. The gas that was held in front of the firing piston nows moves out through the now opened firing piston and into the bolt which brings the gas in contact with the ball, firing it out of the gun. Now that the gun has fired it is out of gas and needs another ball to fire, in now enters the reloading phase.
Reloading
The contoll board agains sends a signal to the firing selenoid, like in the firng phase, but this time it tells the it to the fire piston to close. Now the second of the two solenoids, the bolt solenoids, is activated. It vents the gas that held the bolt forward out of the side of the gun,this extra gas can be used to power the air assist function, see picture to the left, blows the gas down into the power feed tube forcing another ball down. While the bolt is push back a new ball can fall into place. Now the bolt solenoid then routes gas back into the bolt assembly. The gun now returns to the still phase ready to fire again.
I really love the way the Shocker Sports performs. It has great long and close range accuracy, quiet, and reliable, for the most part. All of this and not to mention it can shoot around 10 balls a second.
Now what I did not like. The gun is kind of tall and bulky, but really not has heavy it appears. Also the Shcoker does come with a on/off switch for the batteries,one can be purcahsed extra, because of this the batteries must be removed after each game. The gun only accepts the custom batteries made by Smart Parts, they cost about $10. Another thing I do not like about the Shocker the large silver trigger, to me it is very ugly.
