I remember the old days, when men were men and practically every other person at the field who played any kind of competitive paintball shot an Impulse. Those were good days. What I liked about those days was that even though so many people shot Impulses, no two of them were alike thanks to the myriad of upgrades out there and how many custom, private label Impulses were available. While the Impulse may have gone the way of the Dodo in favor of the Shocker and Ion in recent years, Smart Parts is again reaching a point where every other person on the speedball field might shoot one of their guns. While this is thanks in no small part to the Ion, the Shocker too is looking good after a feel-good season in the hands of numerous top teams like the Russian Legion, Miami Raiders, Dynasty, the Philadelphia Americans, San Diego Aftermath and the Naughty Dogs, all of whom won 2006 tournaments of one format or another shooting them.

At the 2006 PSP Mid-Atlantic Open, Smart Parts brought out the newest version of their flagship paintball gun, the Shocker NXT. While its stock version is an extremely attractive, high performance paintgun, there are numerous private label versions already available, including the Dynasty Shocker, Naughty Dog Shocker and Russian Legion Shocker. The NXT platform, a marked improvement over the successful SFT that has carried the Shocker name for over three years, is also the platform upon which Evil constructed their new rendition of the model, the Evil Factory Team Shocker. Though no members of NPPL professional team Chicago Evil actually shot the Evil Shocker in 2006 competition, having taken a good long look at it, I can see why they'd want to.

If I were to build a custom version of a paintball gun and wanted it to be competitive with anything in the industry, the Shocker NXT platform would be very high on my list of places to consider starting. The NXT is packed with features straight from Smart Parts before aftermarket customizers even get their hands on them. Break-beam anti-chop eyes, a high-efficiency bolt kit, low rise clamping feed neck, rebound board, double trigger, snatch grip, integrated dovetail mounting rail and Smart Parts on/off bottle adapter, high-flow Ion vertical regulator, two-piece All American barrel and nine-volt battery power are all standard on the new NXT platform. The new NXT's milling is very attractive and lightens the receiver a great deal, and anodizing is much harder on the new models so it won't wear off after a few trips to the snake or bouncing around in a gear bag.

The Evil Factory Team Shocker takes all the features of the Shocker NXT and adds to them, building on an already successful and impressive package. A Q-lock lever low rise feed neck is standard, as is a matching Freak barrel system with a single sleeve. More importantly, the receiver is threaded to accept Autococker barrel threads rather than Impulse/Ion threads like the standard NXT. The Smart Parts .45 grip frame has been replaced by a custom model with a forward sweeping double trigger and Hybrid wrap-around grips and the gun's receiver is milled in an aggressive, flowing and smooth pattern integrating both the Evil “e” logo and the Evil Factory Team logo jewel. Available colors include dusted silver, blue and black which are very attractive.

Picking up the Evil Shocker for the first time I was surprised to find the grip frame a bit large in my hands and the receiver very wide at the mid-point. That's the trick with custom Smart Parts Shockers, they cut so much meat off the receiver at Smart Parts that to make anything custom that looks truly unique, the only option is the add some metal back to the receiver and then cut it. The added girth did increase the weight of the Evil Shocker a bit, which is slightly heavier than the NXT but not so much so that it could conceivably decrease performance of the player using it. Were this to be my full-time paintball gun, I would find the Evil Shocker more comfortable with grip panels rather than wrap-around grips.

A nine-volt battery was already installed in the grip frame, so all that was necessary to get the ball rolling was to push the button recessed into the rear of the grip frame, like any other Shocker. Adding a Crossfire low pressure compressed air system and Boost modified HALO made the Evil Shocker ready for action, with a hopper full of XBall Gold paintballs. While I wasn't too big on the size and feel of the grip frame when I first picked up the Evil Shocker, once I pulled the trigger and started sending paintballs downrange my concerns quickly evaporated. With the rebound or ramp mode kicking in at fifteen balls per second, the trigger pull was so soft and smooth that I found myself almost able to find a sweet spot in it, where I could hold the trigger in and let the gun's minor recoil activate the micro switch and fire it. Walking the trigger in basic semiautomatic mode like the NPPL pretends to have allows for solid rates of fire, though ramping rebound mode is really where the fun is.

Over the chronograph, the Evil Shocker NXT offered strings of extreme consistency, intermittently interrupted by occasional shots ten to twelve feet per second out of the norm. This was puzzling, as the paint matched the Freak insert perfectly and the weather was calm. I feel certain, however, that once the regulator and paintgun break in, velocity should even out to near perfection, as occasional three shot strings yielded 286, 286, 286 feet per second and other similarly impressive readings. As the median velocity was kept in the 288 feet per second range, even the odd angry shot did stray above 300 feet per second. Due to the combination of the always-accurate Freak barrel system and the consistency of the Evil Shocker, shots over all ranges landed where expected. At close range, the Shocker drove nails, at medium ranges of between thirty and fifty feet, shot groups a few inches in diameter were the norm, while at longer ranges paint fell reliably into a group a few feet in size allowing for easy, effective laning or domination of key bunkers from long distances. The included high efficiency bolt kit delivered as advertised, as I was able to obtain roughly 1,200 shots per 4,500psi compressed air fill.

All in all, the Evil Factory Team Shocker NXT is an impressive piece of equipment. Though it is equipped with practically every bell and whistle known to top-level competitive paintball and delivers performance on par with anything in the world, its price sits below that of many of the most expensive custom paintball guns from competing manufacturers. While it was not used in 2006 by Evil Factory, it may be in 2007 and any player with a love for the Shocker would do well to give this attractive, high performance piece of Evil gear a shot.