Nerf Hyper Fuel 20 Review

The Hyper line continues! And with it comes an attempt to rectify previous issues.

As noted in other reviews, Hyper rounds tend to bind up in the hoppers, resulting in misfeeds. The Fuel 20 tries to limit this via moving plastic fins near the feed ramp. Unfortunately, misfeeds still happen, and the lack of hop-up makes the Fuel 20 inaccurate at any reasonable distance.

A Basic Pistol

If you’ve used the Hyper Rush 40, then the Fuel 20 isn’t different enough to warrant much extra explanation. This time around, the pistol is primed via a rear-mounted pull handle. Aside from that, however, the propulsion system is basically the same.

The major “innovation”, so to speak, is the inclusion of a small, moving tab towards the front of the hopper. When priming the blaster, this tab moves forward and back, with the intent to unbind any rounds that are jammed together. That in itself is a nice addition. However, given the shallow nature of the hopper, you still need to point the blaster down while priming to reliably load a new shot. And the faster you prime, the less likely you are to actually load a round (gravity needs a little time, after all).

The blaster itself is quite comfortable to hold, at least in my opinion. But comfortable aiming doesn’t help when there’s no way to reliably place rounds. Yep, there’s no hop-up tab, so Hyper rounds curve whichever way they want after a few feet. And with only twenty shots, it’s possible that you’ll unload the majority of your hopper before hitting the target. Accuracy through volume may be a thing, but you have to be able to supply the volume.

Performance

The Fuel 20, regardless of accuracy issues, did average 114fps, and could (when feeding correctly) fire two shots per second. For close range, that’s quite good. Beyond that, the lack of accuracy becomes more important.

Internals

I’m not planning on modifying anything for this blaster. But, because we’re curious, here are some pictures of the inside of the Fuel 20, both in the rest position and when in the middle of the prime.

Last Thoughts

The Nerf Hyper Fuel 20 isn’t horrible. But it isn’t quite great, either. Like much of the Hyper line, it exists as a “high performance” line that lacks in some critical areas. Velocity and accuracy are both important, and sadly the latter is lacking.