Edit: While WalcomS7 no longer writes for Blasterhub, we encourage you to view the content on his Youtube channel!
Ever since the Nerf MEGA line was released, things have gotten more interesting in the foam-flinging ecosystem. Big darts with bigger springs and bigger plungers for the biggest performance. The initial launch was rocky with the dart-chewing MEGA Centurion, but now things have finally settled with the line delivering a few promising blasters. With the first fully-automatic flywheel powered behemoth blaster in the line clocking in at $80, could the MEGA Mastodon be worth it? Well, the entire blaster could be summarized in one way: an unforgettable experience.
This blaster packs some decent value: 24 MEGA darts in the box, a rather nice carrying strap, and some extra plastic bits such as shields and plastic railings to protect the dart drum and bulk-up the blaster, and a thin yet serviceable carrying handle. The plastic pieces all snap on with little effort, with only the grey drum shields seemingly permanent while the others can be removed. The massive rotating turret itself comes in three pieces that slide together and, in my experience, seem to only fit together in one-way to limit any potential screw-ups. While the plastic shielding looks to be non-removable after snapping in, the bottom rail piece is completely removable, if it’s not to your liking. To power this beast, you need to feed it six D-cell batteries. Six. That’s going to cost you another $8-14, depending on where you’re shopping for batteries, and adds a ton of weight to the already massive blaster. It’s a good thing it comes with the carrying strap (which is very similar to Nerf’s own bandoleer, minus the dart or magazine holders), because fully loaded, this blaster is not only bigger than a child, it weighs about as much as one. It’s nearly impossible to hold this by the grip one-handed without that strap, so it was a great addition in the box.
The performance of the MEGA Mastodon is impressive considering the batteries it taps into. The firing speed is great, surpassing that of the Nerf N-Strike Elite Rapidstrike of lore. The actual power and distance are in-line with the rest of the MEGA series, but it is using flywheels, which is something different compared to every other MEGA blaster. The time it takes for the flywheels to rev-up is pretty lengthy, but these are issues that could be fixed by rewiring with a more competent battery source. The blaster also features active-breaking, so the motors do wind down quickly. Operation is about as straightforward as it gets: just load up the open-faced drum, pull the flywheel rev trigger until the motors reach maximum spin, and pull the trigger to fire off darts in automatic fire. While the rate of fire is impressive, it isn’t entirely hard to rattle off single shots either.
Because of it’s massive size, there’s plenty of room for integrations of other blasters somewhere down the line. Flywheels can be overvolted to produce faster spin and deliver more power to the dart, and motors can even be replaced completely to add some more torque to the dart. While you may be tempted, perhaps increasing the firing speed isn’t the best option here as the drum takes some time to load and only holds 24 darts. But that’s not to say the gap the drum encompasses can’t be used to adapt a magazine well from something like the BuzzBee Boss or Tyrant to convert it into a quick-changing magazine reloading option. The Mastodon is a large blank canvas just waiting to be art’d upon, so who knows what the future holds?
Too many words for you? Not enough time-traveling Nerf backstory? Watch my silly unboxing and teardown here. Want to see more of those beautiful internals? I’ve got all those pictures here.