What makes a Merlin cocker so special?

[Masonhd81]

What’s the hype behind Merlin cockers? Isn’t the lower tube different? Unsure but they’re expensive

[Psycho91]

Merlin's also aren't milled on cnc machine their extruded or something like that right, I could be wrong

[flyweightnate]

Extruded, milled, then honed.

The first real 11/16" lower, and well made; it's rarity/ history/ quality all in one.

[automeister]

Many take a different valve and feature a larger valve chamber in an effort to lower operating pressure. As far as hype goes I think a lot of it is nostalgia and the fact that they are recognized as "cool" within the community. Once something is bestowed with the honor of being fashionable and desirable it is hard to shift away from that. That said, I dig them.

[Blackmagic71]

Once something is bestowed with the honor of being fashionable and desirable it is hard to shift away from that.

It went something like this….

[Blackmagic71]

The inverse obviously being the ceremonial “casting into the pit of despair” for the markers deemed uncool.

[russc]

The lightnings made great pumps! The superbolts were pretty meh all around

[Magmoormaster]

lol but the PB guns were actually pretty bad. Trilogies, on the other hand...

[superman]

Merlin autocockers are a little different in that they have are not just normal autococker bodies that are bored to 11/16.
They are also thicker on the bottom and bored from front to the back. They use a different style front block that lowers to 3way to match the thicker bottom of the body and larger banjo bolt. The banjo bolt also has a spring perch that extends in the body to hold the valve spring.

merlins also use a slightly larger diameter bolt and often times evo length. Most use a pre2k style ivg or later aka made a threaded aluminum plug that you could adjust the tension based on set positions.
Some have pressed in feednecks and some are threaded for aka style threads.

Overall they are nicely built, lower pressure and hard to find.

[Meleager7]

They are crap. Whoever has a Merlin should just sell it to me dirt cheap, so I can properly dispose of it for you!!!

[superman]

This thread needs more pictures.

Splat Attack Revenge v2 Inline (inline has the timing rod connect to the top of the trigger plate through a slot in the top of the frame. see the 2 front frame screws and lack of timing rod hole.

[BrendanB]

Merlins are rare and considered cool. inline merlins are more unique than normal merlins. early merlins were JMJ, at some point became AKA. Some early Works cockers are made on merlin blanks, as well as newer round body by Ryan Jaimeson. Functional wise, not a huge amount of difference from any 11/16th lower tube, merlins just have more volume in front of valve, ( but so does adding a tall sidewinder, rudy deans, big volumizers, etc), trilogies for example are big ass tube 11/16th lower tubes. But rule #1 for cockers is coolness, and merlins have that in spades.

[Grendel]

The original Mac Dev Cyborgs were milled from AKA Merlin blanks as well IIRC. Always wanted an 06 or 07 Cyborg especially in particular a "Jersey ranjerz"

[Walker]

[Havoc]

I was lucky enough to get one a way back when

[$L!mBo]

cannot believe my buddy sold this last month
but he did.
inline roundbody
went for $3500

[Cunha]

When merlins were not yet a relic, they were one of the few autocockers with a decent feedneck. Most of them are aka threaded (the best feedneck threads) quite few are press fit.

WGP centerfeed bodies when you could get your hands on one before they became common with the 2k autococker in the year 2000, have a feedneck that kept your hopper almost 2 inches higher than needed. In the era of long ball stacks to help gravity loaders this was functionally OK but the feed tube was also originally pressed in place. Even when they were threaded (sto threads) they were tall and heinous. The ultimate abomination in paintball. A tragedy.

Today is the tail end of a massive cocker rennaissance and in the last few years people have been replacing the junky pressed in feedneck for a pressed in unit that accepts empire feednecks which are similar but not identical to ego feednecks. This fixes the age old problem.

Most merlins are MINIs and many are reverse P block both of which give them a more compact and (subjectively) cooler proportions. They just look right.

Also contributing to this is the fact that most merlins were wire detents, the best detent style.

Revenges are merlins made by splatt attack that use a proprietary frame with a unique timing rod through the front center.

Most normal merlins were sold as body kits so well assembled ones have always been hard to find. In contrast, essentially all revenges were built complete and finished from splatt attack so they have always had good rep.

The predecessor is the akalmp VLM body which uses a mini 99 small hole front block. Most of these are press fit.

The low operating pressure afforded by akalmps unique valve design came at the expense of higher main spring tension. This is the nature of the valve. For a long time there were no alternative 11/16 valves but with the trilogy and the empire cockers and snipers, there are now several valve options for people that want to run lighter springs which can be tuned to reduce or eliminate chops, or on a pump, a lighter pump stroke.

The first OTHER good featured affordable available cocker body was the ccm series 5 or SV. It has most of the merlin features but a full size standard 2k bottom tube but sadly only some Works (ccm adjacent) bodied had reverse P blocks.

All merlin and CCM bodies have always been viewed as superior by cocker shooters with no WGP brand loyalty. They have always been harder to find and easier to sell.

Side note when a complete semi auto CCM Series 5 was new it was 400 dollars, at the same time a WGP orracle was 1200 dollars. It was a big yikes for WGP. CCM was the peoples champ at this time and their main issue was the ccm valve sucked (farted etc) and ccm was stubborn to change it. Modern ccm valves are good. This was around 2003 and by then AKALMP had long been focusing on their excalibur and viking electros based on the same tornado valve design.