Shocker NXT
by Bill Mills - Photos by Dawn Mills - Aug 2007

How It Works

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Operating on a spool-valve principle, the Shocker's valve is moved forward and back to alternatively seal a gas accumulation chamber allowing it to charge with gas, and then dump that gas into the breech, firing a paintball. Keeping moving parts to a minimum, the spool of the valve, also serves as the marker's bolt, chambering a paintball and sealing the breech before the propellant gas is release from the accumulator.

At rest, the bolt is in the rear position. A ridge on the bolt sits in side the bolt sleeve. Gas, directed from the solenoid valve (attached to the bottom of the receiver) pushes on the front of the ridge, keeping the bolt back. At the same time, gas routed directly from the vertical regulator through a hole in the front of the firing can fills the accumulator space – area inside the firing can - with gas up to the marker's operating pressure.

When the trigger is pulled, the electronics in the lower circuit board send a pulse of electrical current to the solenoid valve, actuating it. This allows the air space in the front of the bolt sleeve to be vented out of the solenoid valve, while pressurized gas is fed to the back of the bolt sleeve. The build up of pressure in the back of the bolt sleeve presses on the bolt's ridge, pushing it forward.

As the bolt moves forward it pushes a paintball forward into the back of the barrel, and passes the Shocker's SFT o-ring. This o-ring is what gave the Shocker SFT its name, and is still featured in the NXT. SFT stands for Seal Forward Technology. Rather than putting a breech-sealing o-ring on the bolt as many marker designs do, the Shocker's breech sealing o-ring is in the breech, which means that the bolt only rubs against it at the end of its stroke, providing less friction than a bolt based o-ring that would be sliding against the receiver through the whole bolt movement.

When the bolt has reached the forward end of its stroke it affects two gas paths. First, an o-ring on the outside of the bolt blocks gas ports in the firing can, so that no new gas will flow into the accumulator space during firing. The second is that a ring of slots in the bolt cross over the forward o-ring on the bolt guide. The gas in the firing can, and even that in the spindle of the bolt guide is now free to flow around that front o-ring, through the slots to the center of the bolt, and out through the bolt face to push the paintball out of the barrel at 285 fps (or wherever the velocity has been set.)

Once the Shocker NXT circuit board determines that the dwell time has expired, it stops sending power to the solenoid valve. The solenoid valve then resets to its default state which vents the rear half of the bolt sleeve, pressurizes the front half. This pressure differential pushes the opposite direction on the bolt ridge, and drives the bolt to the rear, resealing the bolt with the front bolt guide o-ring and allowing the accumulator space in the fire chamber to be recharged for the next shot.

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