Mini-Review Raytheon Waffle Dart

I received one sample clip of this dart from dkdavid721.

Tip diameter: 0.460" front, 0.490" rear
Foam OD: dart 1 0.488 - 0.502", dart 2 0.485 - 0.503"
Length: dart 1 2.892" (73.64mm), dart 2 2.875" (73.02mm)

For reference:

• Mengun Red, tip diameter 0.405 front/0.462 rear, foam OD 0.487 - 0.513", length 2.884
• Gen3 koosh (yellow foam), tip diameter 0.483, foam diameter 0.510 - 0.519", length 2.877

Chrono shots: T3.1, full length RS inner barrel (straight flute), Hooligan flywheels: 120.0, 129.8, 123.6, 125.1, 127.4, 120.1, 114.4, 123.1, 117.9, 123.5

Notes: A very, very accurate dart, easily killing the koosh hands down. These things are lasers with groups under 18" at 45 feet range and 120fps. The newer version of tip that Raytheon sells has a shorter core than the original waffle tip and is made of a slightly stiffer compound. Also, the tip gluing is improved over the "Ekind" era waffle dart.

Tip failures should not be an issue with these and flywheel performance and consistency is improved over the Gen 1 waffle dart. These shoot as clean as Mengun red. However, the foam is still small bore, coarse celled and not that great of quality and velocity retention is still a bit poor.

Verdict: Good stuff. I'm buying several cases of this dart right now. However, I do recommend using it with at least a modern SSS flywheel gun equipped with a high crush flywheel system and a short barrel.

Also, even Hooligans/other Artifactoids and similar class of flywheels (like Worker and CC Cyclone) in 43.5mm cages, which work well for fatter-foamed darts, may not give the correct crush ratio to be optimal on these, due to the small bore foam. They are worth a shot with a combination of same flywheels and a crush-boosting cage.