Ammo Test: X-Shot "Air Pocket" dart - Not good (Updated - Corrected foam info)

Edit: Some remarks about the foam on this dart turned out to be incorrect on further experimentation.

Zuru's modern era offering of a somewhat waffle-derived honeycomb absorber tip design, full-caliber tip for short barrels and flywheelers. There are a couple colorways of this same dart associated with different product lines. I have these.

These do not use standard commodity tubular dart foam. They use their own odd thinner wall, larger center hole spec. As expected this makes for a bit flimsy a foam by comparison.

As an unbonus, the tips can't be refoamed with standard foam, and foams salvaged from unwanted instances of these darts can't be used to refoam other tips.

Update (Nov 10 2024): On further testing, the last remark above turned out to be false for several common tips such as accu and waffle (but NOT Worker or Sureshot with smaller core diameter). While the foam ID is non-spec, and these tips fit without interference unlike standard foam, they center up Just Fine with no play and make durable darts. I have since used all my stock of these darts to refoam accutips and waffles. Accutip refoams using this foam are very accurate, actually - and these darts are of note for a cheap foam source because of how easily and cleanly the OEM tip and glue remove from the foam with a quick yank, leaving it undamaged. Also, similarly the "flimsy" foam is not an issue, for the same rationale as thinwall Mega foam, and giving it good tips it works as any other.

The tip is a VERY low durometer compound. It has a very short core.

Rubberized adhesive is used. However, bond strength is very low. You may also spot a major problem afoot already from the above. That being this:

If you follow any of my flywheel work you may know that this lack of bonding on the end face is a major flywheeler internal ballistic sin in most cases and can cause issues you may never expect. We'll see that in action in a bit.

Here's the debonded foam end showing the very incomplete glue coverage:

This is as a rule with these darts, not a fluke. It is evident Zuru or their OEM is limiting glue quantity to NOT have to wipe excess glue flowing out of the tip bond line during the process.

Anyway onto the numbers. Mass, grams:

• 1.08
• 1.07
• 1.03
• 1.07
  
• 1.08
• 1.07

Chrono, 9.0 Hy-Con:

• 152
• 131
• 147
• 127
• 151
• 161
• 157
• 157
• 149
• 142
• 162
• 167
• 141
• 149
• 161
• 158
• 113
• 129
• 155

Yikes!

From this we can pull a couple observations. One, all those erratic abysmally bad shots are due to the glue. Two, the critical velocity of a 9.0 'con with this thing is also crap to begin with at about 160fps. Low durometer compound and flimsy foam do that.

Dispersion:

Also yikes. An expected result from completely out of control velocity, and major mechanical issues as tips are dangling halfway off to start with (some darts were fully decapitated by the blaster and more blew up on impact as well).

0/10 Can not recommend. I wouldn't even bother with this stuff for a low performance application. Packing peanuts are about all they are good for.