Nerf Cyclotron Review (3.5)

Crank it up.

The Cyclotron is probably one of the most unreviewed blasters I've ever come across. When I first saw it few years back I fell in love with it's totally outlandish and impractical looks but never decided to get one because hey, it's a ball gun for crying out loud. Luckily one turned up with the lot I purchased and despite some of the negativity I've heard about this blaster, I was a little impressed. See why in this review.

Size compared to a Ballzooka MP150.

The Cyclotron is the alleged successor to the Ballzooka MP150 and originally ran under the title Rapid Fire Ballzooka during conception. This blaster is the only crank operated ball blaster Nerf has ever put out and due to it's awkward design and inferior power and ammo capacity compared to the MP150, it never really caught on and it began to trickle off shelves not too long after it was released. Despite this, the Cyclotron feels study and if your right handed, cranking the blaster feels fine and it allows for high rates of fire that only the original Ballzooka and Pulsator can match.

Magazine holds 6 balls but has no means of keeping the balls in place.

The Cyclotron's performance is average, it's not as powerful as it's predecessors but it's no where near as bad as what I'd would have expected. The balls get sent out with a nice spin and fly around 25+ feet when level. This blaster's natural holding position is naturally angled however so most most shots will fall around the 30 foot mark most of the time. This blaster makes quite a lot of mechanical noise so it's no stealth weapon by any means either. The rate of fire makes up for this greatly but ammo counters it. The Cyclotron's magazine only holds 6 balls which is very piss poor for a blaster of this size, not to mention when reloading you have to fumble around with the balls(Oops, that was unintended)so they don't eject out of the mag because there is no stopper like on modern CS clips.

Close up of the mechanism, presumably a torsion spring catapult.

I decided not to open mine since I was afraid that there would be a million spring loaded goodies ready to explode in my face as soon as I took the shell off. My best guess for this mechanism is a torsion spring catapult similar to the Vortex blasters. You crank the handle that at the same time releases a ball into the barrel and pulls the torsion spring back, when it reaches a certain point, it releases, shooting the ball.

Overall the Cyclotron is a fun blaster and it performs decently for what it is. Compared to the MP150 and the Ballzooka, it falls short and either way, there's no chance this will ever see actual war use. I reccomend you pick it up if want some good fun but for the most part, it's just a collectors relic. I give the Cyclotron a 3.5 for having decent performance but it's quirkiness and lack of power and ammo capacity does not make it a worthy successor to the MP150.

The Verdict

Class- Heavy Crank Operated Ball Launcher

Range- Decent for a ball blaster, 25+ feet.

Size- Hard to judge effectively, it's pretty damn long though.

Reliability- Poorly maintained balls will basically just get spit out of this blaster.

Ammo- 6 Ballistic Balls

Modding- No potential.

Is It Better Than?

Ballzooka MP150- No, the MP150 holds vastly more ammo at 15 shots and is much more powerful. Pick this one up if you want a ball gun to really piss your friends off with. If you can cope with the noise, that is.

Ballzooka- No, this old relic holds more ammo, gets better range, and fires just as fast as the Cyclotron. If not the MP150, get the original Ballzooka, and proceed to rain hell with your 20 year old ball blaster.

Pulsator- Depends, the Pulsator shares many of the same flaws as the Cyclotron, while this blaster is much smoother to use and is more powerful, it still lacks in ammo capacity and it itself is also a very strange blaster.