It's December of 2023 and the "new" Shocker Era has been released. We knew that there was going to be a gun release coming from Shocker Paintball since the Shocker Amp has been long discounted and frankly has had little interest with the duration that it has been on the market. The Shocker Era does offer some updated features which we are here to talk about and give our honest opinion.
PURCHASE THE SHOCKER ERA HERE!
The Shocker Amp offered some really ground breaking options when it was first released. Although the HPR and OLED board of the Amp was carried over from the Shocker XLS, the Amp paintball gun had a new and much more efficient bolt system (the Amp core), twist lock vent, toolless solenoid valve assembly, faster frame removal, and more.
The Shocker Era has now built on this with a redesigned bolt assembly for efficiency and reduced ball breakage. The Era bolt has improved airflow and can adapt to different paint qualities. However, we only really care about a few things: efficiency, shot quality and paint handling which we will get into shortly.
Other than the redesigned Era bolt system, the Era is relatively similar to the Amp with a new double trigger (man, do we love the Era trigger!), thicker front foregrip, and improved points of failure including the air passageways and trigger microswitch. Only time will tell if these things hold true. We do know that we currently have to service quite a few Shocker Amp boards who are either misaligned (upper vision board isn't talking to the main Amp board which can cause an eye fault) or issues with leaking when the frame is removed from the body of the gun (o-ring OM9M01). With that, do we really feel that the Shocker Era is a mid-level contender along the lines of the Dye DSR+ or the Planet Eclipse Gtek 180R?
In short words, no. In long words, man does this Shocker Era have a GREAT shot quality along with great ergonomics. HOWEVER, Shocker lacked in the areas of ease of use which is highly disappointing. I.E. no tooless eyes, no toolless battery exchange AND an increase of $100 compared to the full MSRP of the Shocker Amp.
WHY?!? Shocker claims to us that it was due to "increased costs of manufacturing" to not be able to create toolless designs. Yeah.... right.... The Luxe platform of markers has had the snap grip design on their grips for the last 5-10 years. You're telling me you couldn't at least do that for us Shocker? It is nice however, to know that you have water resistant grips and the trigger frame does feel nice with how slim it is! However, Shocker could have done better in our honest opinion. The marker is a better shooter than the Gtek 180R and is comparable to the Dye DSR+ in shot quality. Don't forget though that the 180R has a toolless eye system and the DSR+ has the very sleek 4th gen eye pipe design. Both the Gtek 180R and DSR+ make it easy to change your battery without tools.
So.. with all of this do we still recommend the Shocker Era? In general, yes. In comparison to its competitors it takes a 3rd place. We do however really like the ergonomics, trigger, and shot quality of the Era. Stay tuned to our YouTube page for comparison videos, brittle paint testing and an efficiency test!
