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I know that shock pumps are meant for high pressure applications so that they can withstand high pressures needed by suspension shocks.
However, can I use a shock pump to inflate my tire in a pinch if I run out of CO2? How would it compare to a standard mini-pump in terms of volume?
Note: this calculation makes many assumptions, so it's only useful in an 'average use case', not some sort of exact measurement. If you find better information, please post it and I'll update the answer.
How many pumps you would need to fill up a tire depends on many variables. First, the volume of your inner tube, which can be approximated as a torus (doughnut-shape) atop the rim size of a given diameter. You can find yours approximated on this graph.
I'm finding pump specifications quite difficult to find (I need piston diameter and stroke length), but here's a comparison of some shock pumps on an empty shock cylinder of a 2007 Fox 36 RLC 160mm Fork.
Vcylinder = pi*r^2*h = 81 mLSo then, IF pumping air into different volumes is linearly proportional (it's not, but somewhere in the ball park), and you wanted to inflate the tires listed above to ~77.2psi, it'd take about this number of pumps with the 'average' shock pump:
Tire Volume Ratio of Tire to Air Shock Number of Pumps to ~77.2 psi
26" Mountain Bike, 2.1" tire width 4.8L 59:1 5,900
29" Mountain Bike, 2.1" tire width 5.2L 64:1 6,400
700C Road Bike, 35mm tire width 2L 25:1 2,500
20" BMX Bike, 1.85" tire width 3L 37:1 3,700
So, perhaps if it was a life or death situation, you have a lot of time on your hands, or you just can't afford that gym membership, you might want to pump a few thousand times to fill your tire. You probably don't.
By contrast, if you're just looking for this functionality in one device, you could just use a dual purpose model, such as this Specialized Pump, that can inflate both high pressure, low volume containers (like your shock) and low pressure, high volume containers (like your tire).
(source: bikeradar.com)
You twist the handle to select between uses, and save yourself a few thousand pumps.
A shock pump is designed to fill a very small volume of space with very high air pressures.
A tire pump is designed to fill a large volume of air, to relatively low pressures, pretty quickly.
You can technically fill a schrader valve tube using a shock pump, but because the volume of air for each repetition of the pump will be so low, it might take a week to fill the tire.
A shock pump will not mate with a presta valve at all.
On a practical level, you should use a shock pump to fill your shocks, and a tire pump to fill your tires.
Absolutely, in fact I only owned a shock pump for two years I was in the UK and was using it on my rides and at home. The reason was that I also used it for skike tires which are high-pressure and low-volume and use the Schrader valve. And alas, I did use it many times, my rims were horrible and would cut the valve regularly even after taping the sharpest edges.
Some models of shock pumps feature a knob allowing you to switch between a high-volume (nothing comparable to a floor pump!) and high-pressure. Mine current shock pump BETO MP-036 has this useful feature where I can start pumping at the high-volume mode and switch to the slower high-pressure mode around 50 PSI where it becomes too hard to pump otherwise.
Using the Presta-Schrader adaptor can be anoying. Special care must be taken with valves that can have their inner part unscrewed. It is easy to loosen it when unscrewing the adaptor and you will lose all the pressure immediately and the inner part with the adaptor may be shot away with the burst.
