What sets these apart is that they're glorified rubber band guns. The ammunition they use (NRG Rounds) are these little elastic ovals, which act as both a projectile and a self-contained power source. They're finicky. I lost a bunch in the grass, and they're not very visible in flight. They weigh about 0.4g, which is probably why they don't hurt at all when they hit you. At wars, you probably won't be able to feel hits very well.
The nerg rounds are loaded into fairly high-capacity magazines. The Hammer Head pistol holds 25 rounds, and the Havok uses a double-sided magazine which holds 36 rounds in each side (72 total). Loading the magazines is a bitch and a half.
These blasters don't prime and fire the way you're used to. Pulling the trigger is a dual-action - it stretches the rubber bands, and then releases them. It's sort of analogous to how the Arrowstorm works (if you've ever used one of those, you'll undertand). As a result, they have an absurdly hard trigger pull that will diddle the fuck out of your finger. Fortunately, both of the blasters have a pump on the front that basically serves as a second trigger/priming mechanism.
Internals Video
I don't give a shit about the video game crap, but I did play around with the phone mount. The mounts are obviously made with iPhones in mind, as they will barely fit my big damn Galaxy Note II. Friction is the only thing holding your phone, and it made me nervous as hell. The mounts are a standalone part, and could be easily repurposed as guncams for other blasters.
Some guncam bullshit
Claims of 75ft ranges are bogus. I measured 40 feet on the highest power setting, and about 30 on the lowest. To compare, I shot a few darts out of my strongarm, and they clustered about 15 feet beyond the NRG Roungs. Underwhelming.
I ran them through the chrono as well just to get an idea of what sort of muzzle velocity you can expect (these speeds cannot be directly compared to darts, but I thought it was interesting). From the Hammer Head pistol, I measured an average of 75fps, with the power selector seemingly having no effect on muzzle velocity. From the Havoc, I measured 60-90fps. The power selector seems to actually do something on this one, but it has only minimal effects on range. The Havoc does not seem to get meaningfully better ranges than the Hammer Head pistol.
Accuracy is not great, the nergs veer off in random directions during flight. They seem about on par with Elite blasters in this regard. The lack of a true trigger makes it difficult to keep the blaster steady while firing.
Modding potential seems nonexistent. Extending the draw of the mechanism would require a lot of work, and I don't think it would be possible to make homemade nergs.
My initial impression after an afternoon playing around with them is that they are fairly mediocre blasters overall. The very high ammo capacity is their saving grace, and might be enough to make them useful for indoor and stock wars. But you're going to spend a shitton of time sitting around reloading once you've blown your load. I will try these out at my next indoor war and see how they perform "for real".
Edited by Daniel Beaver, 14 November 2013 - 03:26 PM.
