With Nerf directing it's attention mostly to flywheel power and spring powered blasters, the disappearance of air powered blasters, once the backbone of Nerf's lineup is becoming apparent. There's just a lot of factors that cause the transition from air to electric and spring and despite air having strong advantages over spring and electric in some areas. So why are air blasters just collecting dust on shelves now?
To get one thing straight, plunger systems have been around long before air power was in play, but they on only existed in simple push pull forms(NB-1 Missile Blaster), draw and release(Bow n' Arrow), or draw catch(Arrowstorm). The first trigger linked catch mechanism was on the Sharpshooter but trigger catches were not commonplace until the Max Force lineup. Air power didn't even appear until the Mad Hornet was released in 1997 but this was a primitive semi-auto system that used a single air tank and didn't have sufficient air capacity to fire off 6 darts at respectable ranges. Air didn't make it's big appearance until the release of the Airjet and SuperMAXX lineups and by this time, it was apparent that air systems had superior range and in some cases, drastically higher rates of fire than spring or electric. As a result, Nerf promoted air power like no other partly due to Larami's(Creators of the Super Soaker) involvement in the development of most of these blasters.
For one thing, as I said earlier, air does indeed have advantages over spring and electric, rate of fire and power. A perfect example of this would be the PowerClip DX-1000, it has arguably the fastest rate of fire of any blaster ever built and it boasts ranges of 50-60 feet. Semi-automatic fire was also improved over the Mad Hornet with the introduction of the Blastfire DX-500 which instead of a single tank, used individual tanks per barrel and also enabled a shotgun like secondary fire. But usually range was shown off with single barreled blasters or non semi-auto revolvers that forced the entire tank's pressure into one barrel yet the majority of these were butchered by poor design.
So why did air blasters begin to falter? For one they struggled badly where spring and electrics didn't. Reliability was an issue with manufacturing faulted leaks or the risk of over pressurizing with plugged pumps. Ammo capacity was also an issue with automatics since bigger capacities called for bigger pistons and bladders, which increases the bulk of the blaster and sometimes the amount of pumps it takes to fill it. Speaking of pumps, pumping was the most prominent issue with the reload time. With magazines dry in mere seconds, reloading them was enough of a pain when it came time to pump it up. Some pumps were designed well and took minimal pumps to fill the tank, but build quality has decreased over time and one notable blaster for being notorious as a victim of all these issues, the Hornet AS-6 was basically the turning point for most Nerfers along with the brand itself.
In conclusion, the air system paled in comparison to plungers and electric systems being much faster in terms of reloading and with further development, much better ranges. A brass breached SuperMAXX 5000 will always out shoot a modded Longshot at range, but the Longshot has the advantage or being locked and loaded at the flick of an arm and pop goes the weasel. In my own opinion, I think air power has had it's time in the spotlight but it still deserves a bit more recognition. I still use the hell out of my PowerClip because I found mine to be much more reliable than the Magstrike and with the basic removable clip mod and removed ARs, it's a fearsome competitor. It really honestly depends what type of blaster it and how you modded it if at all. Air power may be a long forgotten aspect of modern Nerfing but it still has a key place in every bit of Nerf''s history.
Toss a comment below of your verdict on air powered blasters and if you still use them, which one/s?
No comments:
Post a Comment