Rapid Upgrades and Rambles.

This last few days saw a lot of Rapidstrike tweaking.

Following the testing of the OMW Swarmfire spring, it was clear my RapidSwarm (my current stock class and HvZ workhorse) had to have it. Also, a fellow member of the squad proposed a hybrid type of grip design for a proper Swarmfire trigger/foregrip on these and requested that he finally get the recommended Swarmfire upgrade. Finally, I finally got the Rapid² back. Finally. It had been loaned, along with a battery pack, to a player last game - so this was my first opportunity to install its new custom battery pack in the correct location.

Up first was the RapidSwarm.

Here is where design for service comes in handy. The entire front assembly, including the barrel shroud, inner barrel, flywheel cage, front sight and Swarmfire receiver are a lift-out module. No annoying workshop worthy procedure here.

  

Note that the mechanical modularity is inherent when you do the Swarmfire install properly. What isn't inherent is that this entire section of the wiring harness unplugs.

That is a wise decision for RS builders. It only takes a minimum of 3 pins (for front-wired or Swarmfire equipped guns) or 2 (rear-wired and non-underslung equipped) of power connectors of your choice to do the basic common builds. The magwell area has adequate room to place these connectors and secure the wire.

CT-0268 also had me install the VFG/trigger unit (mentioned below) on the original RapidSwarm's twin, but he elected to omit the connectors at build time to save pocket change worth of parts, resulting in a tedious Swarmfire upgrade and grip install.

And here's a nice visible example of flywheel buildup after a recent test of elite darts. A lot of nerfers know this rubbery stuff that accumulates on flywheels from high-speed, high-temperature contact with dart tips and foam.

But what continues to baffle me is that the default assumption is that this phenomenon is somehow a problem.

Flywheel buildup is a normal and functional part of high-end flywheel gun operation. Dart damage will drop off and velocities will increase significantly after a new clean flywheel set has developed its buildup layer.

Note that the buildup self-aligns to the assembly of the gun: cage to magwell alignment, flywheel axial position on the motor shafts... It's a lot more accurate than you are (without machine tools and overkill measurement methods). In fact, it almost forms a concave surface in this example, and at the very least, will correct for any taper of stock flywheels that is a usual suspect for accuracy problems.

So don't worry about it. Don't clean your flywheels. Don't apply stuff to them either. One, the gap is probably correct from the factory. Two, mark my words about Delrin objects rotating at high speed being a bad place for anything adhesive. It will shred. When? Who knows. Probably when you are about to get tagged.


The best way to get flywheels gripping better and running truer is to go to the range and burn ammo.

So, the spring was dumped into the Swarmfire, which was cleaned and lubed as always (anyone who tells you that putting "nerf" before "gun" somehow magically exempts you from maintenance requirements has never cleaned an HvZ gun and seen all the shit they collect!) and performed as expected. But we have had enough images of Swarmfire guts, you know what working on Swarmfires looks like.

I also modified a Swarmy cylinder retainer with a steel grip loop to allow quick cylinder dropping in the field (the idea is to tie the retainer to the gun with a piece of paracord or something so that the retainer can't get lost). That will not be implemented in combat. Not yet. Why? It's real dumb... I can't think of a sound way to carry the damn cylinders. They are an awkward device, and they have darts protruding that you don't want to dislodge or mangle. This calls for a specific piece of tac gear, a Swarmfire cylinder bandolier or a MOLLE Swarmfire cylinder pouch/clip or something.

So here's the VFG/trigger pack that CT-0268 devised, based on a Retaliator-type Nerf VFG (a common and often unwanted accessory) minus the junk railgrabber it comes with. The combination of a vertical grip with a trigger is odd. Reminiscent of an RPG launcher, perhaps. I would not have come up with that, and I recommended a real pistol grip, but it works.

His got a "stock" dual-contact switch salvaged from something Nerf, along with a Stampede magwell interlock button, which resembles a grip switch button when installed.

I was not to be one-upped, though. Sure, I did that work, but I wanted to go one step farther and upgrade to a microswitch and a proper ergonomic trigger.

I fabricated the trigger from PVC sheet, installed a steel pin for the trigger pivot and used the usual full size microswitch, with no lever actuator. The result is extremely crisp and has a very short pull. Just the ticket for my snappy new 90-100fps Swarmy and its higher amp draw...

 Here you can see the trigger/switch arrangement and how short the stroke is on that.

 And the trigger removed.

 And the trigger itself.

Ah yes. You should ALWAYS have a trigger guard.

Negligent discharges of these Swarmfires have been a major problem with the old side trigger system. Initially, CT-0268's gun did not have a guard on the new grip assembly, but a few days later it was clear I was not crazy to suggest a guard. I fabricated a guard on the spot with some PVC sheet heated over a stove burner and bent. Slammed it on with Devcon. Problem solved.

My install got the exact same guard from the start.

Now, in my case, there was a certain problem with the change to the foregrip trigger: I am a habitual mag gripper when I handle rifles, ever since the Stampede era, and find I can get the fastest sidewise engagement of a sudden target (such as a dodging zombie) by mag gripping my rifles. Keeps the mass (of the support hand and arm) pulled in tighter, less inertia to swing around. Thus I tend to shun VFGs and foregrips in general. My old side trigger rig could not go, it had to remain for snap reaction use, since I will not be using that VFG continuously.

So, it got a separate safety, solving the problem of Swarmy NDs and not being able to chuck the gun into a car trunk without it going off.

So here it is.

Up next: That stick battery install into the Rapid².

This stock had already been prepped for a stick battery as covered a while back and I had also made the pack for it, a slightly shorter while back. It is a 2S, using the Sanyo UR18650SAX cell as all of my budget packs have.

(A note on the state of the big Li-ion changeover: It is a huge success, the packs are all troopers. I cannot understate how awesome being able to check state-of-charge with a voltmeter is. I also cannot understate how awesome the low self-discharge is. In the time since last game and following Worldfire events and other nonsense, many nickel packs of mine self-discharged, built up voltage depression and went out of balance, and had to be slow charged and cycled to get back in the game. Meanwhile, the 2S Li-ion from the loaned Rapid² didn't even need a charge!)

All it took was a quick wrap with some sock material to provide some impact protection and stop rattling, and you would never know it's there. Light and unobtrusive.

"Where the hell is the battery for that thing?" 

Take that, Trustfire Brigade! Can't get a junk AA holder into here now, can we...

Unfortunately, with this choice of battery location and the particular way I implemented the stock, the RS has to split to access it, and that includes charging.

A spare female Deans and a balance tap extension tucked inside a tool-free access cover on the receiver would solve that VERY nicely. You don't want to charge lipos while they are installed in something, but these packs aren't lipos, and are about as safe as 3.7V chemistry Li-ion charging gets.

When I get around to it, I guess.

With the current motors in this unit and occasional use there is no big problem with battery life.

So on another note... Anyone remember this beast?

The Cyclone DMR.

That wss a time in my HvZ career where I had run several games with my trusty Swarmpede, and proven the rifle/Swarmfire deal was my stunning tool of choice... but I wanted to give a more civilized weapon a try. This was it: long-barreled, iron-sighted, semi-automatic, equipped with monstrous high-end motors and a flywheel configuration that works to defy the conventional logic of barrel length and flywheel accuracy, and it remains the sweetest handling nerf gun I am aware of.

Recently I brought it out to advertising and got some clean shots on zombies that my Rapidstrikes could never hope to match.

There is something to be said for that whole concept.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to full-scale-game this gun any time soon. But it still is just as good at what it does as I designed it to be, even today.

At least after I clean the sticky trigger.

Damn gremlins.

OMW Swarmfire 8 kg spring

I happened to pick up one of these springs on clearance while ordering some parts for HvZ business quite some time ago.

This is OMW's "2.5" (as in, 2.5 times the factory spring load, supposedly) offering for the Swarmfire. As usual with OMW spring products, it is a well finished spring, with perfectly square closed ends and shiny nickel plating.

This spring appears to be discontinued, though the reason for that is unknown. Perhaps low demand. Regardless, at the time of posting, stock remains.

The actual load of this spring does not seem in line with the 8 kg spec. Typically, OMW springs are rated with the force developed at the compression actually achieved in the intended application, and thus are underrated versus most commercial general-purpose springs and competitors' springs which are rated at full compression. This seems to be an exception. It certainly doesn't seem to have 2 kg more force fully compressed than, say, an OMW 6kg Stampede spring or a 5 kg DP spring.

 

Here are 3 common Swarmfire springs: a stock "orange trigger spec" Swarmfire spring (left), the OMW 8 kg (center) and a V2 Nitefinder spring (right). The OMW has the same free length as the stock spring.

OMW's performance claims for this spring are as follows:

With this 8kg spring, the Swarmfire can achieve 55 fps and shoot up to 45 feet flat.

All fps/range tests were conducted with the air restrictor removed and no other modifications.

I knew this made absolutely no sense for years - because I am getting substantially more velocity than that from the substantially weaker springs that I have been using. Lighter spring data for reference.

For this test I installed the spring in MASS-2 and hung it on my old Rayven. Like all my other Swarmfires, this one has an AR delete and seal plate flow improvement, cylinder peg removal, stock barrels, reliability fixes, etc. and is equipped with its original 360 motor.

In the name of science I should have conducted a peg test, and perhaps I should quantify the flow mod's effects, but the discrepancy here does not seem explainable from what I have seen of swarmfires in the real world that did not have either of these.

Let's see what the chrono has to say about it.

As usual, OMW highly underrates springs for velocity. The 8 kg spring punched out 90-100fps with elites and around 80 with 1.3g Sonics (Note that I am running very low on Sonic Micros, the test ammo is not new, and in the future tests are probably going to either switch to Buzzbee micros or phase out 1.3g darts entirely).

This is a better result than expected, for sure.

Now one concern that is likely to come up is the effect of springs of this load range on ROF. I video'd my Rapidstrike's Swarmfire (with my "old style" spring combo that I have used since 2011) and the MASS-1 with the OMW 8 kg being fired. The battery used in both cases was a 3S Sanyo pack that was resting at just under 12V prior to the test. I kept the ROF low to make any cyclic rate sag or response loss more apparent.

 

As you can see, it's no big deal in this case. The little 360 motor can pull this spring just fine and ROF holds up very well. Of course, this is contingent upon the use of a battery with sufficient current capability.

Elite Universal Suction Dart (12rds/Pack) initial tests

There has been quite a bit of buzz about this round already.

  
12 round card pack. Purchased from the Butler Plaza Target in Gainesville FL for $4.99. These are available in 12 round packs and 30 round standard cases like other New World Hasbro darts.

It is a Hasbro product that carries the N-Strike Elite brand, advertised to be compatible with any magazines that can handle Elite darts/Streamlines and positioned as an outright replacement for the old suction micro as well as for adding the whimsical suction tip capability to non-micro compatible guns.

The tip code is W.































Foam is as expected; standard Elite foam. The big Elite Standardization has made foam so boringly uniform between codes.

What a lot of nerfers are talking about is accuracy improvements and effective range. That will have to wait, though. External ballistics occur after the round has left the muzzle - so let's first deal with getting to that point. This first post will be similar to when I looked at the ZS Elite, with the tedious important stuff picked off tediously and the usual battery of bench tests. So here we go.

This is the new tip design.
Note that unlike older style Streamline and Elite domed tips which have the same diameter as the foam OD at the base, the USD tip is rebated quite a bit including the suction cup itself. This proves to be beneficial to magazine reliability. Far less rubber friction occurs than with conventional dome tips.

It also prevents squibs and erratic velocities from long barrels. Shown is a breech-loaded dart seen from the muzzle end of a Blue Line barrel, with the clearance between tip and bore quite apparent.

This is progress, Hasbro. I like this.

That said, long barrels and this dart are not a match made in heaven. The evidence and likely cause will be discussed after the chrono data link.

As shown here compared to a Standard Elite and a ZS Elite, the overall length of the USD is slightly greater, as is the foam length.

No magazine compatibility problems are expected, though. The length increase is approximately 1/16" and all N-Strike magazine systems have far more than enough allowance for round length.

However, the length increase vanishes with the suction cup compressed.

My theory is that the extra overall length is to compensate the suction cup flexibility and ensure reliable achievement of the full pushback distance on springers with barrel-in-bolt (BIB) breeches. On stock guns, this is a matter of opening the AR, so a serious performance concern.

As to pushback distance, I tested this with a Retaliator which is a decent representative of the newer style (swinging door) system in Hasbro guns.

 A ZombieStrike Elite was used as the control...

 ...the action was brought almost into battery past the point where the pushback door has released and fully swung open...

 ...and here is where the dart ends up. Remember, the goal here is to get the foam jammed into the bolt as far as possible, since the more pushback distance, the greater the effective barrel length and the less dead volume.

 So here is the USD...

...And here is where it ends up.

There were some predictions of problems, but none are to be found. The suction darts pushed back exactly like domes, perhaps even a bit farther. No reliability problem occurred here either despite the flexible rubber suction cup getting hit by feed system parts.

 Now here are 2 strange notes on the packaging.

One is a warning concerning the service life of darts when used with "motorized blasters" which I am left to assume refers to flywheel launchers.

The other is an instruction to fire "at distances greater than 10 feet" to achieve "best performance". This likely relates to firing these suction darts at smooth surfaces and expecting them to stick.

So what are the ramifications here?





Well, for one thing, the latter warning is a bit of an excuse. As suction darts these things are abysmal. I fired them at a variety of flat surfaces which have formerly retained suction micros well, and only a few stuck regardless of the velocity. Most of them bounced, and bounced quite energetically. The combination of the greatly reduced tip area versus the outgoing micro and the greater muzzle energies of the modern era guns really kill the fun of suction tips. So, that's out of the way I guess. Do not buy these if you want suction darts. If you want a replacement for the Nerf suction micro, buy Buzzbee micros instead - although there is no substitute for the real thing, and your best bet remains NOS Nerf suction micros. Bit of a shame really.

Now that other flywheel bit is somewhat perplexing. It is difficult to say what is meant by "life" in this case. Perhaps this only refers to the suction tip's functional life. However, it is logical that the rebated tip design would accelerate foam wear.

Remember this?

In a dome-tipped streamline, the rubber takes some of the hit from the flywheels. In the USD, it is the front edge of the foam alone. Perhaps that burndown zone wears faster with these. Perhaps it wears faster with "stocker" guns then with domes. There was a Rapidstrike equipped with Blades in the test lineup and it did inflict so-called "scorched earth" effects on each and every one of the tested USDs as it hammered out some nice velocities. Whether it really is faster will be addressed in the follow-up post - but it did seem worse with these.

And here is the chrono session data.

A parallel test was performed with new, A-code Elite Standards as a reference point.

The representative battery of launchers:

Basic 100-120fps Retal build covered medium-velocity stock-barreled springers, BIB breech reliability and a barrel extension test platform.

An AR-deleted stock spring EAT provided a low-velocity counterpart.

A Z100 and a ~150fps NF (not shown) covered cylindrical barrels.

Strongarm represented revolvers with "weak" cylinder sealing. Also, as seen before, it acted as a consistent and generic dart durability reference point at beginning and end of session.

RS (the swarm was not used in the test) covered high-velocity flywheels.

The Rayven was not usd in the chrono session but was used in some mag reliability tests.

Triad represented stock barrels with ARs.




The conclusions

The USD showed no significantly anomalous behavior.

Velocities in many cases increased slightly. The USD seems to be a lower mass than the Standard Elite though I can't verify that at the moment.

Durability in springer use appeared to be on par with other darts, perhaps only slightly worse (though due caution about limited sample size applies here). After all the abuse of repeated firing into the backstop, loading, flywheels and high-velocity springers, the Strongarm reported just under a 2 fps average loss for the USD and just under 1 fps for the A-code.

Performance with long barrels was found to be questionable. Whereas the A-code easily punched out 154fps with the NF, the USD hung around 150, even as velocities elsewhere increased. Once again, mention must be made of sample size but it does appear efficiency is reduced with long barrels. This is most likely due to the longer core length of the USD - while I did not dissect one, the tip has a longer core, and as with Streamlines and their allergy to barrel length > 2.5" this is expected to cause increased barrel friction by "blocking" part of the foam from exposure to chamber pressure so that it does not compress.

Flywheel velocities skyrocketed. This has not been seen before in similar-mass darts, and the rebated tip design should be working against it, but the RS numbers tell the real story. The core length may be to "blame" here as well.

As to reliability, well, nothing happened that caught my interest. One of the new stiff A-codes misfired from the Strongarm on its first shot. None of the USDs malfunctioned any of the guns at any time.

A worst-case mag test with the rounds shaken forward to let the tips scrub caused no trouble. In general these appear to be insensitive to loading versus domes.


What remains to be seen

The accuracy and range worries, of course. And taking things out of the lab into the ambient environment. Of course. No recommendations yet - but stay tuned for the follow-up post once these get some kind of field action.

Nitron Build, pusher motor swap!

The NIC has never really had a proper solution for the Nitron. The stock pusher motors just don't rev high enough to be useful with typical pack voltages as used with stock (and any reasonable sort of swap) flywheel motors, and the typical workaround is to use a very high voltage "B battery" for the pusher. This is clunky and inelegant to have 2 batteries on board a single gun, plus the B battery is usually a dirty hack such as alkaline 9-volts.

Furthermore, the OEM pusher motor doesn't handle this abuse too well and there are reliability and heat problems. The one pulled out of this base gun smelled like it was on fire with only free revving on a 12.0V NiCd pack. "Like burnt popcorn", the Nitron Boom'ers say, and they are correct, they have a distinct smell.

So let's look at alternatives.

This was discussed on the HvZ Forums and some measurements of this motor led me to believe it was a 280 - but it is in fact a 260. The black motor at left is a Sagami Cyclone 280, center is the stock 'tron pusher motor, and right is a 130.

Here, have a closer look at the diameters.

Notice that a 280 does not fit the mount, but the 260 is the same diameter as a 130 can, more or less!

A 130 fits quite nicely.

 

The bearing snout fits the stock pilot diameter perfectly.

The hold-down is easily modded to fit a FC/FA type endbell.

Well, that sure makes it easier! There are TONS of 130 motors available from mild to wild with every Kv under the sun... AND the larger 180 derivative, which of course has the same cross-section but is longer. We are familiar with these beasts from dart-firing flywheel guns and probably have a bunch of some type of 130 laying around gathering dust.

That ought to cover everything you could possibly want to do with a 'tron.

Even a Stryfe motor would be far superior on a 'tron pusher to overvolting the hell out of that 260 and burning it up.

For this build, I used a Rapidstrike motor. The Kv of these plays well with getting around 550RPM out of a 12V pack.

I didn't trust the stock brushes, though. This is a commission.

I dropped in a carbon brush pack, which I pull out of cheap FC130 motors from ebay. More on those later, they are a good durability and possibly performance mod for metal brush 130 motors.

 

A piece of PVC was glued into the mount to anti-rotate the motor. The stock 260 was held by the terminals! Unfortunately this is typical of Nerf's motor installs.

The rest of the 'tron came together as expected.

This was wired for Rapidstrike-style cycle control of the pusher. Unfortunately, this motor did not have near enough "traction" to brake the gearbox even at low ROF. Perhaps a high-end hot wound 180 and an active-braking MOSFET, and a timing adjustment (which would be easy) could solve that, but I just converted this one to AB only with no cycle control. Firing a single round is possible, but you have to download your mags by one since the pusher may be forward. Far less a problem in the 'tron than in a RS with its pusher design and darts.

Stock flywheel motor, which seems to have decent torque once it gets fed current. I would have experimented more if I could actually use Vortex around here... it's banned from the local HvZ.

Speaking of current...

This is the pack for this thing. I was given an unused 10 cell Sub-C NiCd cordless drill pack by someone who had LiPo'd their drill. This pack was chopped up and reassembled in a 5x2 staggered brick. Cost: Nearly nothing.

The flywheel revs promptly up to full speed (which is impressive given the EXTREMELY THICK RIMMED and HEAVY high-inertia design of the flywheel, designed to compensate for alkaline voltage sag) and the pusher churns angrily away at 550-600RPM. Except, I have exactly 3 rounds of XLR to my name, and zero mags! Testing and possible tweaks to come later.

Nitron Technical Observations

This is probably a Part 1 since this is an ongoing project, but I am working occasionally but steadily on a 'Tron overhaul for an HvZ player at a nearby campus. Along the way I came across 2 odd details about the stock Nitron electrical system.

One is that the pusher is cycle-controlled (with the switch mounted on top of the battery box that follows the stepped edge of the cam disk) but there is no active braking. Weird. Except it makes sense in combination with the next bit, which makes AB difficult to implement in the stock configuration.

This strange heatsinked 4-pin package hanging off the side of the PCB is the first thing many people notice about the stock motor setup on the 'Tron pusher.

Speculation has included that the device is a voltage regulator or a MOSFET (used for solid-state switching of the motor power with the small switches scattered all over the Nitron's guts for various interlock purposes). At least people are aware you have to remove this PCB to do anything useful. As it turns out, "voltage regulator" is a very close guess.

A close inspection of the IC in question reveals the markings "UTC" and "AN6651". A quick Google nails it down what the mystery component is: a linear motor speed control IC. More or less a fancy linear voltage regulator that allows taking into account the motor IR and Kv in the selection of 2 external resistor values to get a very stable constant-speed, governor-like behavior.

Here is the datasheet:

http://www.unisonic.com.tw/datasheet/AN6651.pdf

Interesting. Peak current handling is 1.75A. Sounds awful low. Applications listed in the datasheet include tape decks and CD players. So why was this component used to drive the Nitron pusher motor? That is the biggest mystery of them all. Could there possibly be a need for that tight of speed control of this motor? Surely if the stock setup demanded a lower ROF than the direct-driven motor would produce and no colder-wound motor was available, you could do well enough with a dumb, cheap, string of diodes - or even a generic voltage regulator.

Could it have something to do with dropout voltage? Haven't checked, not worth the time to investigate the numbers of this application.

Regardless... the Nitron pusher motor is governed. This is why throwing higher voltage batteries at a stock 'tron makes the flywheel rev higher, but doesn't change the terrible ROF.

Here's a demonstration in which I throw various packs at the stock gearbox without any change in speed. First 7.2V, then 10.8V, then 12.0V.

RapidPistol on video

Got a request for video'ing a Standard Rapidstrike on reddit. Unfortunately, the only one I had was the one in the writeup, which was a commission and just got handed off to another member of the HvZ squad. What I did have, though, was my RapidPistol, which I figured needed a little video demo.

Mag dump (which was an older mag fully loaded to its true capacity of 19 rounds) with streamlines, and then some chrono shots. Sorry I wasn't able to get an outdoor firing test or a target shoot or anything like that, I did this in minutes.

Standard Rapidstrike, an illustrated guide.

This? This is disappointing. Let's fix it.

Shelf Watch: Nerf suction micro darts, Bonus Rumors!

A short one...

Back in the mid 2012 era, there was a lot of speculation about Hasbro's big shift from N-Strike to N-Strike Elite, and part of that included darts. Some early leaked presentation slides hinted at older types of micro darts being dropped with the introduction of Elite darts.

Well, fast forward to now, and that's just what has happened. Sonics and Streamlines are no more, and New Dart Tag has gone exclusive-distribution in the US and taken the associated Taggers along with. That leaves nothing but them newfangled 1.0g streamlines on the shelves at the vast majority of retailers.

With one exception.

I guess Hasbro felt people would miss the classic Suction Micro. After all, that novelty of having darts stick to targets, walls, doors, glass, even people, is uniquely nerf. So they have soldiered on unchanged, still with orange foam, still in a 16-round bag, with a new Elite-scheme cardboard closure (note the non-elite N-Strike logo).

You knew this? You knew these darts were still in production? Yeah, I expected that. The real reason I posted was that these darts are W-code and have the same old high-density foam that you would expect from W-codes circa 2011. Cool. I haven't polled all of the stores within reach to determine if anything else is out there, but I think it's reasonable to assume all of these are W-code.

Speaking of those blasted tip codes, no one really knows what they come from or mean, only that all darts since about 2007 have them, and the darts are clearly not of the same origins by their minute details. And, sometimes, not so minute details (though Elite standardization efforts that were disclosed to Wired Magazine are definitely a thing, and have leveled the playing field a bit). The best speculation seems to be different plants that Hasbro employs to manufacture darts. I figure that Plant W had their process really down to a science for the old "Non-Elite" Nerf micro foam and thus was the chosen one to keep rolling on these older darts.


Now for those bonus rumors...

Super Soaker Freezefire on Target.com!

What have we here?

A quick search turned up nothing but Target site hits. Interesting. Has Hasbro sneaked this one all the way to retail without us noticing?

And what is it? Another triggerless syringe gun. With an ice tank. Meh.

JT Splatmaster Z100 Review, Chrono and Disassembly

Previously I covered the Z90 from a nerf perspective. This is the other pistol in the JT Splatmaster line of spring-powered nerf-like paintball guns, one which probably attracts more interest on first glance from nerfers than the Z90. Why? Well, this.

Review: ZombieStrike Elite Dart (30rds/Case)

This is Nerf's matching recolor of the Elite dart for the recently released zombie-themed ZombieStrike product line.

Purchased on October 5, 2013 from the Butler Plaza Target in Gainesville, FL, USA. List price was $9.99, I believe I got these for 9.49 or something.

As is evident from the decal, in the US and Canada these are exclusively distributed by Target along with the rest of the ZS line.

As is expected for Elites, the darts are packed in a rigid plastic blisterpack with 2 form-fitting insert trays. Much superior to bags when it comes to protecting the product on the shelf. Buying a case with crushed foam in it sucks.

The foam on these is printed with a single color design that includes a Nerf logo and the ZS "Z-crosshair" badge. Nerf seems to be all about pretty darts nowadays... at least here it's nothing disagreeable and at no extra cost versus standard Elites.

A 15 round sample was examined and subjected to a 160+ shot chrono session. This serves both as a verification of ballistic performance and consistency in a variety of launcher types, and as an aging and short-term durability test. This was overall passed with flying colors; no "duds" were discovered and no darts ceased to be reusable with optimum performance for any reason during the test (which included high-performance flywheels and a 150fps springer).

Quality control seems to be excellent, with the exception of 3 observed minor foam consistency problems in the 15 round sample; two darts had out of round foams, and one had an undersize foam. Unlike some older K and J code standard Elites, there is little glue spillage around the tip. The tips appear to be installed on-axis and straight and are themselves consistent in their dimensions. This is likely associated with the observed success in using these darts in longer barrels, a common problem area for rubber tipped darts. As a sidenote on use of longer barrels with elites, tight barrel fits must be avoided regardless of spring gun parameters and optimal fit; here the test NF was equipped with a Blue Line CPVC barrel.

The tip code is J-dot. The tip construction appears to be standard. Like other J-code Elites, these tips have a white core and a colored dome. The foam is standard J-code foam (which should be familiar on elites, and is more or less identical to other foams available on elite darts including K-code and W-code) except in green color.

There is one observed difference with these tips from earlier J-code standard (orange/on blue foam) Elite tips, though, and that is the surface finish and level of tack. Early elite tips were notorious for sticking to magazine bodies and feed system parts resulting in jams.

Oops. This malfunction is typical of early Elite Standards from the 2012 era, which all had very tacky tip compounds and overhanging dried contact cement around the tip. This still may be the case with K and J code...

The ZS dart tips, however, are much slicker. Loading an 18-round magazine without any care to setting the rounds back from the front surface did not result in any feed trouble.

Overall, I would rate these highly recommended. In terms of consistency and durability, they are as good as it gets with the Elite type darts, and performance is nominal. While not available in 75-round cases, in 30-round packs they have the same price point as standard elites, yet are a brighter, more visible color (which assists in recovery to keep costs low), better long barrel compatibility, and better reliability in all the popular stock class guns. And they are zombie-themed for the HvZ crowd. What's not to like?