Ball blasters, they're the last thing most modern Nerfers would purchase. Inacurrate, cumbersome, absolutely trash range, they're what we don't want dart blasters to even resemble, and as a result slowly tricked off the shelves as far as 2006. But I found this monster on eBay, two for 50 bucks and what the hell, they were vintage. Sold. This is the Ballzooka MP150, ball jokes are not intended... maybe.
Loading system is like an old Pyagon drum. Its a great system.
The MP150 more commonly known as the Motorized Ballzooka is the 2000 successor to the good ol' Ballzooka. You know, the one everybody owned as kids and spoke very highly of. To differ from the plunger operated beast, this utilized an early flywheel system. Nerf's flywheels at the time were single, large wheels(Or two in case of the Gyrostrike) driven by wrenching a handle back and forth to spin it up. These were loud, and a pain in the ass to operate, being a Buzzsaw was my first ball blaster and first flywheel. My experience with flywheels eased after I took a run with the horrid Tommy 20 and later the Punisher and the Rayven. Now, this is a blast to the past.
Balls are advanced with the toothed gear to the right.
I don't know if this was Nerf's first electric flywheel system, but good God I wouldn't be surprised if it was! Upon revving this thing up I felt like someone turned on a vacuum cleaner from the 1940's right in my face. It was loud as shit! Honestly I couldn't blame Nerf, this was 2000, the new millennium. Everybody was still cleaning their mess up after "Y2K" and we still relied on some tech from the 90's and even 80's. Electric motor tech was not at its finest when this thing came out. The Rayven was whisper quiet, this was the equivalent of grinding rusted fan blades together at 1000 RPM(Exaggerated). The wheels themselves were also primitive, instead of a rubberized coat like modern wheels, these were texturized solid plastic, but here I can actually blame them. Anybody with common sense knows rubber can grip things better than plastic, c'mon Nerf.
Oh yes they did.
One thing I absolutely loved was they included an accelerator trigger! Well, not really a trigger but a button on the front grip that both unlocks the trigger and spins up the flywheels. Even though this prevents dual wielding who would dual a ball gun that weighs like 7 pounds? I was still happy to see they did the right thing here though. Even though this thing is loud and will give your position away definitely at least you can time your revs accurately! Also comes with a built in strap, and for that, we thank you.
Its performance actually isn't bad at all. I'm hitting 30 to 40 feet on some occasions with great accuracy. Yes accuracy, flywheels combined with the spin of the ball make a great combo when shooting targets. Reloading is also a simple task. The blaster consists of three rotating chambers, each hold 5 balls with the grand total of 15 balls(Thats a lot of balls!) when you fill one chamber up, pull back on the orange slide and it rotates, you do the same while firing. Its actually a pretty decent ball blaster, with the combo of accuracy, some range, and sheer ammo capacity means you can shell out a barrage of balls pretty quick. But not as quick as the original Ballzooka.
I'd assume standard voltage mods work with this, the best thing you could do is swap the motors out but what you get is what you get with this. This thing is hardly suited for combat and will get you killed. I know there's better, and quieter ball blasters out there but if you enjoy a bit of fun, this is a good vintage to get. Its great for unloading a barrage of 15 balls(albeit chamber cycles) with good accuracy, but its very cumbersome and very, very, loud. I give the MP150 a 3.5 for improving on some aspects of the old Ballzooka but falling short in some ways, its good ol' fun nevertheless.
By the way, I will be selling my other MP150 on eBay if you are interested. It performs fine but is missing the green slide but it does not impede function.
The Verdict
Range- Good for a ball blaster, 30 to 40 feet.
Size- Massive, like trying to cram a Stampede into a shell half its size.
Reliability- Jams are rare, only risk of running out of juice.
RoF- 1 ball per 1.4 seconds(It honestly depends).
Ammo- 15 Ballistic Balls
Modding- Voltage upgrades galore! Or upgrade motors.
Is it Better Than?
Ballzooka- Depends. While the MP150 boasts more range, the same ammo capacity, and accuracy than its older brother. The Ballzooka has a devastatingly high fire rate and much quieter other than the cranking of moving parts. The fun factor is the same though.
Cyclotron- Yes. The Cyclotron was intended to be a replacement of the MP150(Under the name of Rapid Fire Ballzooka) but was seemingly mediocre compare to its two predecessors. Its ammo capacity is nearly half of the MP150 and its range was about 25 Feet. But like the original Ballzooka, it had a devilishly quick rate of fire.
Pulsator- Yes. The Pulsator is similar to the Cyclotron but has better range than the crank fired contraption. While the Pulsator has a higher fire rate than the MP150, its ammo capacity is much less.
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