In the late 90's Smart Parts was the first company to release an electro-pneumatic paintball marker. The original Shocker was produced by Pneuventures. A few years later Smart Parts and Pneuventures split with each designing their own gun using the basic Shocker design. Smart Parts was the first to release their Shocker Sport. Pneuventures' Cyber 9000 never made it to the market.
Smart Parts has constantly updated and improved the Shocker Sport, the Shocker Sport 2000 is the best they've released yet. For this review I used a late 99 Shocker Sport. It has all the newest upgrades except for Smart Parts' new circuit board. The new board incorporates a level style micro switch, a new two-color LED and an on/off switch. Any new Shocker Sport should come with this board from now on.
The Shocker is a true closed bolt electro-pneumatic. Which means matching paint is especially important. The stock barrel is a 16" All American, .689 bore. The barrel works great with mid-quality paints, but for smaller tourney paints you're going to need a new barrel. The All American barrel is one of the quietest barrels made. The barrel is also one of the best "stock" barrel to come on any marker, making the Shocker Sport extremely accurate out of the box.
The Shocker Sport is available with three feed options: standard, powerfeed or vertical feed. The model I reviewed had the powerfeed with air assist. According to Smart Parts the air assist keeps a larger stack of balls ready in the feed tube at all times for more reliable feeds. I also found that it helped feeding slightly when tilting the gun at extreme angles.
The Shocker is one of the most consistent paintball guns. This is so mainly because every Shocker comes with a Max Flow regulator. The Max Flow is a balanced regulator design, which basically means it can be run by itself, and provide better consistency than most dual-regulated setups. The Max Flow in three different setups: on gun, remote and vertical. I used the vertical Max Flow setup. The Max Flow in the vertical position provides a stable foregrip. All and all the Shocker of any model is my choice of paintball marker.