Nerf Expand-a-Blast Review (1/10)

Expand-a-Crap.

Call me insane but I've had a very strong desire to review something terrible lately. I've been on a long streak of reviewing things that only really dip as low as being decent, and I'm tired of it. Masochistic it may seem, but I find writing bad reviews to be a whole lot more fun than good reviews so I went on the hunt for something that would hopefully fit the bill of breaking this streak of good. So I took my search to eBay and picked up this; an Expand-a-Blast, released in 1998. Let's take a closer look, or should we?

Size compared to a Lock 'n Load. It's got some heft.

The Expand-a-Blast, or EaB for short was released as a part of the Hypersight series alongside the Big Bad Bow and the Lock 'n Load, two pretty venerable blasters right? The similarities are notable between other members of the lineup, the Expand-a-Blast has a big, very comfy grip as well as Hypersight's signature tradition of throwing a rather useless scope on the blaster. It's a little large and heavy as a pistol but I do quite like it's kind of bizarre turquoise aesthetics. It's properly 1990's, and I think that's rad. So in theory, you could imagine the Expand-a-Blast being as good as it's two superstar stablemates right? Well, hold your horses.

I won't lie, it's kind of fun.

Hypersight blasters have long been known for packing in a fair slew of gimmicks, the Big Bad Bow of course had it's bow arms and the Lock 'n Load had it's flip up sight. While these gimmicks didn't actually affect the blaster's performance in any way, Nerf decided to build the Expand-a-Blast entirely around it's core gimmick. This gimmick of course being that the blaster expands, sound familiar? You pull down on the black foregrip and an extended barrel and stock shoot out like magic. Whoa! Your awfully large and heavy pistol is now a properly sized rifle! Incredible! That's pretty much the point where anything remotely resembling anything good about the Expand-a-Blast just get's shit all over by the disaster that ensues when you pull that lever.

Enough said.

The first thing you'll most definitely notice is that the single dart you had probably just loaded into the Expand-a-Blast will come flying out of the barrel as soon as you pull the foregrip down. Not only does this mean you're immediately out of ammo before even getting to shoot, you get to look like a jackass trying and failing to reload the stupid spring loaded barrel as it bounces around. The stock that pops out the back serves basically fuck all since it too is spring loaded so it has zero structural support. Even if it did lock into place, it would still be far too flimsy to trust for long term comfort, not to mention short. Luckily you can fire the blaster without having to expand it, so it makes you wonder why the hell Nerf thought it was a good idea in the first place.

Ummm... yeah I wasn't expecting to see that.

So you decide "alright screw it, let's try and shoot the thing", pull back the surprisingly stiff priming handle and watch as it farts out a dart when you pull the trigger. If whatever you're hoping to to hit is within the Expand-a-Blast's laughably mediocre 15 foot average range, then I'm not really sure what to tell you. Expanding the blaster does no favors to the performance and only seems to make it more ridiculously inconsistent which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect as a kid in 98' who'd buy into this thing's gimmick. I mean, I've reviewed some pretty poor performing blasters but none just ooze in failure anywhere near as much as this thing has at this point, especially for a blaster it's size.

Next to a 20oz bottle of Crystal Pepsi for scale. Yes there is really that much dead space.

I had to figure out why the Expand-a-Blast was so terrible and upon splitting open the shell, I was greeted with an actually pleasant surprise. Look at the size of that goddamn plunger tube! It's about as wide as a soda can and the spring is quite strong. The seal is okay, but the real culprit to this thing's performance woes is those several inches of gaping wide dead space. I mean that void of nothingness is as wide a s a Big Bad Bow plunger tube and extending the barrel literally doubles it to nearly a foot of dead space on top of the possible leaks the seal between the plunger and barrel can present. All I feel is pity for that ginormous plunger, castrated by some arguably terrible design decisions. Maybe one day I'll unleash it's full potential.

The Expand-a-Blast exceeded my expectations. It isn't just a terrible blaster, it's bad on levels I didn't even know were possible from blasters that fired darts. I'm not just talking about it's performance although believe me, that's a big part of it. The countless wonky design choices and generally terrible usability of the thing make it by far one of the worst dart blasters I've ever laid my hands on. It's taking the most basic design for a direct plunger dart gun and just tacking on loads of poorly designed junk in order to make it stand out and it sure does, just in no good way whatsoever. When was the last time I gave the coveted all time low to a blaster? Four years ago? This blaster deserves the terrible 1 out of 10, because that's what the Expand-a-Blast is. This thing is fucking awful.

The Verdict

Class- Single Fire Rifle

Range-  Oh my god, it sucks so bad. Averages around 15 feet and no better when the barrel is extended.

Reliability- I don't really expect it to catastrophically fail, but it might as well be broken.

Ammo- 5 Mega Darts

Modding- Actually very high potential. The plunger is huge and with a proper barrel this thing could be very nasty.
Value- Most examples go for roughly $30 to $50 bucks on eBay. Yeah I'm not so sure...

Is It Better Than?

Lock 'n Load- No, hell no. The Lock 'n Load may be smaller, and it packs significantly smaller internals but it's packs hardly any dead space and is one of the best performing and most comfortable Mega Dart pistols ever made. A simple rebarrel can make the Lock 'n Load even more capable against modern blasters. It is hard to come by however and there are plenty of equally good options readily available on the market today.

Deploy- No, how low have I gone to finally include the godforsaken Deploy in a review? This thing is basically the bastard offspring of the Expand-a-Blast in that it practically revolves around some dumb "expanding" gimmick, and that it's also quite terrible. The Deploy however has the advantage of being magazine fed and featuring slam fire, on top of out ranging the Expand-a-Blast. Good luck modding this thing though as it's a bit of a pain to open.