Shelf Watch: Vortex, Xploderz, Zing Bows

Store: Target, Butler Plaza, Gainesville, Florida USA


In addition to the expected stuff not worth mentioning (including what seemed to be a recently enhanced stock of Mega 20mm, due to the Centurion's ammo-mulching tendencies no doubt), there were a few standouts.


Nerf - Red/White Scheme Vortex XLR Discs - Card Pack, qty 10. New Style Packaging Art.

 

Sitting on top of New Scheme Proton boxes. The red/white scheme discs were much in demand a while back, as they are easier to recover when fired into vegetation than the first generation green discs. Their first appearance was as the bundled ammo with the Pyragon. It is probably reasonable to believe that the green discs are to be phased out and eliminated, although there were many cases of the old green ammo on the shelf and the box art on those was recently updated.


Zing - Air Storm Z-Tek Bow

Is this a Z-Curve Bow revamp/recolor/rebrand or a new product? Whatever it is, I don't recall seeing these Zing bow products here in the past.

Air Storm Z-Bow

See above! A compact bow from Zing. Fairly sure this is not well known. Does the NIC not pay attention to non-Nerf, non-Buzzbee, non-dart products anymore/at all? Whatever the case with these bows, it's a good thing to see them increasingly on shelves right now - they are definitely a functional and high-performance product and I think they may end up being a much better example of upstart success in the nerf industry than Tek Recon when all is said and done.

Speaking of Tek Recon, no sign of them at this store.


Xploderz Sneak Attack and Equalizer X3

Nothing to see here. Just more completely ridiculous range claims (125+ feet? You would be REALLY hard pressed to get that from a .50 cal PAINTBALL shot under 300fps) and more pullback triggerless lameness.

Except this gun on top is apparently a Cornershot-type device and can shoot around corners. How that works is not clear - it appears the whole front receiver/barrel/hopper portion swivels and the plunger system is in the butt of the thing. And the bottom gun has some sort of shotgunning feature.

Just a random rambling, but does anyone out there continue to test these things?