This was one of those blaster's that I commonly overlooked as I heard they weren't very good to begin with. Nowadays considering I own nearly every good vintage there is to get I'm ending up getting the ones that aren't so good. And to start this trend off is the Defender T3. Ok this mashup of a arrow launcher and a pistol isn't exactly terrible but it has some faults that really quite hinder it from being any better. See why after the jump.
Size compared to a Magnus, pretty massive,
The Defender T3 was released in 1996 and was the largest blaster of the Cyber Stryke series. Yeah it's even more unwieldy than the Magnus when fully assembled. However it's not that heavy despite it's sheer size and the grip is very comfortable, I actually found it nicer than that of the Lock 'n Load. Loading the lower half when it's assembled is a bit of a stretch because of the nearly inch and a half of added muzzle to the lower barrel. Both blasted are linked to two stage trigger so a half pull fires the arrow launcher first and a full pull fires the dart launcher.
Blaster split into it's two configurations.
When the blaster is split, you wind up with a large single shot pistol and a somewhat half assed looking pull release bow. Nothing is really wrong with the pistol but using the upper half in it's separate form is quite uncomfortable as the handle is a bit loose and does not feel good when paired with a strong spring like it has. It's probably just best to use them combined.
Note the amount of dead space and the Nite Finder sized plunger.
The pistol hits about 30 to 35 feet which is fairly solid considering the size of it's plunger tube. Yeah there's enough dead space in this thing to fit a Crossbow plunger tube perfectly inside with some shell work. The spring in it is decent but the catch spring feels quite weak and would need to be upgraded with any mods involving the spring are to be done. The teal piece sticking out of the top of the pistol is where the catch of the arrow launcher links on. I'll touch more on that soon.
Internals of the arrow launcher are strikingly similar to a Big Bad Bow.
The arrow launcher portion has a significantly greater range at around 50 feet and the internals speak for themselves. They look oddly familiar, like a Big Bad Bow. Yep that's basically it, everything down to the diameter, length, and gasket seal are almost identical to the Big Bad Bow. The main difference is the spring is beefy, even more so than a Crossbow. Here's where the good news takes a swan dive off a cliff. The catch system is highly flawed as it solely operates off the pistols trigger mechanism when the blasters are linked. Note how it's somewhat hook shaped; the notch in the plunger rod is really shallow and straight cut so not only does the catch slip out of place constantly when the launcher is primed, it also eventually ground down the notch to the point where the blaster would not catch at all anymore. I cut a new deeper and more angular notch in front of the old one and filled in the old notch with epoxy putty to fix the problem. And I also added a catch spring on the catch so it could catch on it's own. Now it works flawlessly but it was a nightmare to get right.
Ok so the Defender T3 isn't a bad blaster, it hits decent range on both barrels and it's quite comfortable for the most part. However it's separation gimmick really hinder's the ability to use the top blaster effectively and I had to actually rebuild the damn catch system in order to just get a firing video. I still like the goofiness of it and when I get around to modding it, I still want to maintain the separating ability. Based on it's stock performance however, I give the Defender T3 a 3.5 because it's a decent blast but it's gimmick just really screws it up in ways it shouldn't. Unless you plan on modding it, there are much better blaster's out there.
The Verdict
Class- Arrow Launcher/Heavy Pistol Hybrid
Range- Decent, about 50 feet with the top launcher and 30 to 35 with the pistol.
Size- Comparable in size to a Magnus or a Speedload 6 but much bulkier.
Reliability- Nothing wrong with the pistol but the issues the launcher possesses are awful.
Ammo- 3 Mega Darts, 2 Defender T3 9" Arrows
Modding- Great potential, the launcher can be modded to fire over 100 feet easily and the pistol can hit about 70 to 80 feet unless you put a bigger plunger tube in it, like a Crossbow or a Big Bid Bow.
Is It Better Than?
Big Bad Bow- No, the Big Bad Bow hit's roughly the same ranges as the top launcher of the Defender T3 and it's far less temperamental and no, the pistol does not make up for it. In general it's just a much better blaster.
Magnus- No, the Magnus is far more powerful and it longer range basically eliminates the need for the dual blaster setup of the Defender in general. not to mention the Magnus is fairly inexpensive and readily available.
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