The title says it all, for this project I will be taking an Xploderz blaster, and converting it to shoot foam darts. I am going to do this in two parts, the first part will consist of a review of the stock blaster, and the second part will be all the modifications I did to it. I would like to say that nothing in this modification will be anything new, many people have converted Xploderz blasters to shoot foam darts, but I personally have not seen this blaster converted (many people convert the Ranger ). I am going to review this blaster in three parts, first look (before firing), performance, and internals.
*Note: the only reason I bought this blaster was because it was on sale. And yes I am a 6'2 little kid (with power tools).
First Look:
I found this blaster at Target in the clearance isle, which is probably the only reason I bought it. I had been looking at the Xploderz line for quite a while, wondering what was really different between them and Nerf blasters. Other then the fact they shoot these water BB's ( I will describe them a little later), they seem to use the same setup. The first thing that really caught my eye were the ranges advertised on the box. Most stock Nerf guns will only shoot about 30-35 feet, the lowest range that I saw on the Xploderz boxes was like 60 feet. From modding Nerf guns for quite awhile now, I know that Nerf uses air restrictors to lower the ranges that the blasters can achieve, does this mean the Xploderz line
does not?
After opening the gun up, the first thing I checked out is the plunger system. The plunger has a ridiculous draw of almost 6 1/2 inches, that is over double what most Nerf guns have (2.5-3 inches) and on par with some of the homemade blasters people are making. Also the spring appears to be very powerful, I am not sure an eight year old kid could fully prime this blaster over and over (eight and over is the age on the box).
The blaster it self came with a "Mega Clip" which holds 250 of these water BB's. The water BB's remind me of fish eggs, they have about a 1/4 inch diameter and explode on impact. The blaster also came with a Ammo Depot, this is what you use to carry your extra rounds, and make your ammo. The ammo comes in these small packages of 500, and are about 1/16 of an inch big. You then put them in the Ammo Depot, and fill it up with water, and give them about 4 hours to full absorb all the water. The clip of the blaster then attaches to the Ammo Depot for reloading. This is the first kind of annoying thing about this line, is that you really cannot just pick up and go. It takes 4 hours for the ammo to grow, so you have to have the ammo already made to use it. These blasters really feel more like a safer version of paintball gun, a more advanced water gun you could say.
Performance:
The first thing I wanted to see is how accurate the ranges are on the gun, and I must say I am very impressed. The box undersold how far the gun can actually shoot, fully primed flat shots were hitting 100-115 feet, angled shots were adding another 20 or so feet to that. One major downfall that I noticed (and I kinda assumed this when looking the blaster over), is that at the end of the barrel there is like a spring loaded door of sorts. This is to keep the water BB's from rolling out of the blaster, but this also causes them to occasionally explode as they exit. About half of my initial shots ended up busting as they hit the end of the barrel.
Other then the high failure rate of the ammo itself I have a few more gripes with the product. Most of which could be easily improved. The first major problem I have is there is no trigger, you have to pull the plunger rod back and hold it to keep it primed. As I mentioned before it has a pretty strong spring, and holding it fully primed for long periods of time is quite annoying. Also the stock slips quite a lot, under the high amount of pressure you are using to prime the blaster. Adding a trigger is going to be a must for modding this gun. As far as aiming, if you ignore the fact it is hard to shoulder the blaster, the massive clip is right in the way of trying to do any kind of sighting up using the sights on the blaster. Upon loading the blaster and removing the clip, I found that the blaster is pretty accurate with the sights.
For safety concerns, my dad shot me (he had too much fun). At like 50 or so feet away, the water BB hit me and bounced, it stung a little. At point blank range, it stung a little more, but even at point blank range it only stung for a sec or too. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it maybe a two, you know you have gotten hit, but its not hard enough to leave a mark. I notice the water BB's do not really explode unless they hit a very hard surface, even shooting like the windshield of the expedition, I was getting some bounces.
Internals:
As I pretty much figured out before opening the blaster, there is a ton of dead space (about 20 inches or so). You should be able to see from the pictures whats going on here. I compared the spring, plunger tube, and plunger head to that of a Nerf Nite Finder.
As you can see there is huge difference. Comparing the two:
Nerf Nite Finder
- Draw of about 2 inches
- Plunger tube length 4 inches
- Plunger head diameter about 1 inches
- Spring length 3.5 inches
Xploderz Xground Pounder
- Draw of about 6.5 inches
- Plunger tube length 8 inches
- Plunger head 1.5 inches
- Spring length 8 inches
Summary:
Overall this is a pretty impressive blaster, ranges off 100+ feet are very impressive. I am still not sure if I would considered this a water gun or what. I do know I would rather use a Super Soaker then one of these in a water gun war. The lack of trigger is really the down fall of these blasters. I am not completely sure a eight year old could even fully prime this blaster, and at a length of over 30 inches (with the stock), it would be pretty bulky for them to carry around. At a $50.00 price tag (after tax), I would probably never have bought this blaster, and seeing that Target had 4-5 of them on the clearance isle, I am not the only one who feels this way. Hopefully I can get this blaster fully modded, and performing where I want it in the next few days.
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