Thanks to friends on Facebook and Reddit, I found out about the newest blaster lineup from Lanard Toys. As of this posting, the Lanard Huntsman Alpha series consists of a new bolt-action blaster, a new air pressure pistol, and a recolored Sonic Bazooka (which is nice to see on shelves again). Today we will examine the Lanard Huntsman Ambush.
The Trivial Stuff
Blaster Operation
The barrel is poorly designed, with only the back inch or so actually holding the dart. If there wasn’t much power to the blaster, this wouldn’t be an issue. But when we open the blaster up, we can fortunately see a rather impressive power plant!
The plunger tube is roughly an inch in diameter where the plunger head rides, and the entire plunger sits in front of a beefy spring. This means we have a blaster body that wasn’t built to harness the power inside it. It’s easy enough to remedy with a new barrel, but as a stock blaster, it’s disappointing. You simply have a lot of air going to waste.
Performance
The packaging claims ranges of up to 50′. Even with the barrel issues, I was hitting angled ranges averaging 55′ with the included darts. Keep in mind that Lanard’s micro darts are rather poor quality in comparison to other brands. Elite streamlines hit a respectable 65′ average. However, more than a few darts came out of the blaster in a death spiral, traveling maybe 15′ forward. There’s a reason we need longer barrels–unused air behind the dart can knock it off course and ruin your shots.
These stock ranges still don’t match those of Nerf N-Strike Elite or Buzz Bee Ultra-Tek blasters, though.
Conclusion
The Ambush offers decent ranges and plenty of modding potential. However, the price is currently the sticking point. As of now, I’ve only seen these blasters in Go! Toys and Games stores in malls and the like, and they are somewhat infamous for their price inflation. So this $22 blaster can be left alone on the shelf while you grab an Ultra-Tek Predator at Walmart for $10 and get better performance out of the box. Hopefully these will appear at other stores like Dollar General for much lower prices. Until then, unless you really want it, skip the Lanard Huntsman Ambush for now.