Shocker Shutoff Bolt:
This is a bolt modification I derived that is designed to aid in the efficiency of the stock bolt. Unfortunately it's a permanent mod and has some disadvantages, which leads to the reason this hasn't yet been marketed (and won't be). I formally call this the "shutoff Shocker" although it has another name in the paintball industry...FEP Quest. It's essentially how a Shocker that was rearranged to function like the Quest would operate.
This mod basically converts the bolt guide to refill the fire chamber with pressure to fire. normally this pressure comes from an air port in the bolt chamber wall, but the "shutoff" system uses the position of the bolt to control the filling of the fire chamber. While the bolt is in the rear position, pressure travels down through the bolt guide and makes its way into the fire chamber through the bolt's porting. When the bolt fires forward, the bolt guide air supply is cut off, and the fire chamber is released to fire the ball. Then, when firing is complete, the bolt returns backward to open the breech, and refills the chamber at the same time.
For this mod I had to first plug the input hole in the stock fire chamber. After that, I counterbored the bolt guide similar to what was pictured above, then threaded it at the rear for an air fitting.
Sometime after I came up with this idea, I was discussing it with interested parties only to find out that the creator of the marker came up with the same design back in 2003, and patented it in his HE bolt patent in early 2005. So sayeth the designer, he never had any plans on making it, but did want to stake claim on the idea (which unfortunately yanked it away from me, rather obviously).
This mod works okay but it limits you to using an unusually high input pressure; 200-psi or more is required. This is due to the smaller air volume of the stock fire chamber. It's not really a problem but the marker's performance wasn't really increased other than about 15$ increase in efficiency. The gun wasn't designed to accept this type of modification, so I didn't pursue it any further.
Spring Forward Shocker / Abomination Shocker Mod:
This is a modification I performed to my "junkyard" Shocker. Basically, the goal was to increase efficiency of the marker by removing part of the solenoid's cycle. This involved modifying the marker to use a [single-directional] three-way solenoid instead of the [bi-directional] four-way. To do this I added a spring to the front of the bolt guide to push the bolt shut, thus replacing the energized pressurizing of the bolt (that pushes it forward).
This mod had benefits, the efficiency was noticeably higher, but the cycling speed of the marker was reduced as well. I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to make any more bolt modifications along these lines without making a whole new fire chamber, which is too far from the original design for my tastes.
Later (2009) people started adding springs to their Shockers to gain the same benefits. The spring location was changed to behind the bolt guide, which is better for airflow reasons and allows you more options when it comes to getting the correct spring.
Shocker Dreambolt / Mini-Shocker Concept:
One night I had a dream that I created a bolt like the one displayed below. It works very similar to the stock bolt, except the porting is in a different position, and the bolt guide is shortened.
I didn't think much of this at the time (probably because there would be no benefit, except possibly more air consumption). However several days later I started working on some modified designs that would essentially take a mainstream marker and move the dump chamber into the frame (hence the design behind the Invert Mini). Naturally one of the first markers I tried out was a Shocker, and this is what the results yielded:
I made the addition of a new component inside the frame that would serve as the dump chamber. Using the functional model I created above (and others like it), pressure to move the bolt would be piped along the back side of the added dump chamber component, to the solenoid which has been moved to the bottom of the frame. This eliminated the use of the solenoid inserts so the body height is decreased by nearly 3/8" by that alone. Additionally, the overall diameter of the firing assembly has been decreased thanks to the loss of the dump chamber.
This would be very well-performing and have similar results to the stock assembly, except for perhaps a slightly increased input pressure I expect. The relevance to the "dreambolt" is that the porting being located within the bolt sleeve itself allows for a massive reduction in body length, virtually eliminating the entire fire chamber. Without that difference, the length of the fire chamber would still exist in the marker, even though the chamber had been moved to the frame.
Anyways, I applied some quick compound-loft milling to the marker, and made these comparisons with the current Shocker NXT:
It's interesting that this quick "milling" attempt above resembles the milling used on the Invert Mini marker. It shows that the aesthetic designers for that marker were trying their best to go for the absolute lightest weight reduction possible, while still maintaining a simple, sleek look.