Several companies have tried to do Nerf experiments better than the original, with varied results. Nerf’s Rebelle line hit with instant success; Lanard Total Crush and Buzz Bee Wingz did not. Nerf’s Mega series is still going strong; Buzz Bee’s Air Max line, despite being better in many ways, fell to the wayside.
Now there’s a blaster from Prime Time Toys meant to compete with Rival. All things considered, it’s a wonderful entry for testing the waters. It’s flawed, but it’s fixable. And in the end, it works great.
On the Outside
The Powerball is a simple platform. For $18, you get a pump-action Rival-type blaster with an eight-ball hopper. A safety sits in front of the trigger. In cases of jams, an orange tab in the rear of the shell allows the user to retract the breech. In addition to using the included ammo and hopper, the Powerball can use Rival magazines and ammo.
The shell is sturdy and serious in styling. The spring inside is very strong, and rounds average in the high 90s in feet per second. Seeing that most Rival blasters aim for 100fps, the Powerball stands out as an inexpensive but competent competitor. Except for one thing…
Double Vision
Gravity feeding presents zero issues. As long as your blaster is upright, it will load. As long as you aren’t trying to jam more than eight balls into the hopper at a time, it will load. Out of the box, it performs great. It’s the cross-compatibility with Rival magazines that presents issues.
It turns out the loading mechanism within the breech is too short. The force of the magazine spring, even with only a few balls loaded, is enough to push a ball past the loading tab into the barrel area. Since the next ball will sit on the tab as expected, you load two balls instead of one. Since the breech wasn’t made for double loading in mind, pushing the handle forward to seal off the breech will become difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult. Obviously, ranges will be greatly reduced. Although I’m still editing video from the Youngstown State University HvZ Invitational, I can tell you that there’s plenty of footage showing double feeding. The solution is easy, however, so this review will take a short detour into modding to show what the Powerball Blaster SHOULD be capable of doing.
Disassembly
The Part You Need
And because it’s important to show that it works…here’s a video.
Verdict
The Dart Zone BallistixOps Powerball is a great blaster. It performs as well as any spring-based Rival blaster, and boasts cross-compatibility with the leading brand. An unfortunate design oversight makes for some initial difficulties, but once it is fixed, performance is absolutely flawless. Even without the fix, though, this blaster can give any Rival user a run for their money, and at a fraction of the cost.