Buzz Bee Air Warriors EZ Fire Rifle Review

Buzz Bee Toys has a long history of making blasters aimed at kids. Some things have changed in that time, like the industry push for higher ranges. Buzz Bee responded in kind, but the designs still aimed to be used by kids. This left Buzz Bee in a weird spot – good blasters would have handles too small for anyone but small children to use comfortably.

That growing pain seems to be mostly past us, as shown by the EZ Fire Rifle. Not only is it easy to fire, but it’s comfortable for fans of any age to use. Is it a bit unusual? Yes. Is it still lots of fun? Definitely!

Lever Action On Top

The EZ Fire Rifle, is naturally, easy to fire. A large priming lever sits on top of the blaster, with a handle at the front. That handle only fits one or two fingers, but that’s all you need; the lever grants that much mechanical advantage for priming the blaster. The sight is integrated into the lever, and is largely useless (aren’t most blaster sights?), but it’s there for the pretend play.

The blaster comes with both a 14-dart banana magazine and an extendable (and NStrike compatible!) stock. The magazine isn’t a true banana-style magazine, since all the darts are held in a straight line, but it makes for a neat look. The stock, meanwhile, is basic enough for normal operation. It’ll collapse under a small amount of pressure (don’t use with heavy springers), but for the item in hand, it’s adequate. Considering you’re priming with a giant lever, you shouldn’t be pressing the blaster into your shoulder anyway!

As with the more recent Pixelator and Tornado, Buzz Bee has shifted to a small paddle for operating the magazine release. It could stand to be a bit bigger, but it’s perfectly adequate for toggling with your thumb while the rest of your fingers pull down on the magazine. Do note that this blaster must have the priming level thrown back before you can remove the magazine.

Of course, the big news is the presence of a main grip that fits adult hands! It’s quite comfortable to hold and use. As long as Buzz Bee keeps making blasters like this, enthusiasts will be happy.

The blaster features 28 Accublast darts, a new Buzz Bee design for better accuracy. To be fair, ANYTHING is more accurate than the Long Distance darts you usually see with Buzz Bee blasters. In any case, these hold up reasonably well in casual testing – not quite as good as Adventure Force Waffles, but still decent enough that a casual player isn’t going to get upset over darts curving in every direction EXCEPT toward the intended target.

 

Performance

The EZ Fire Rifle averaged 79fps in my testing, with the included darts. It’s not the highest result out there, but for full length darts, it’s nothing to dismiss, either. Rate of fire is limited not by spring strength, but by the length of travel needed to operate the lever. However, the EZ Fire Rifle DOES feature slam-fire, so you can hold the trigger down to fire as soon as the priming lever drops. I can get around 2.5 darts per second in slam-fire. Accuracy during that time is a bit lacking, but when you need to spam darts, you can do it.

 

Internals

The EZ Fire Rifle looks like most modern Buzz Bee blasters on the inside, with a moving plunger tube fused to the breech, and a decently strong catch in the rear. A small box with various spring-loaded mechanisms regulates the slam-fire operation, preventing the catch from disengaging until the breech is closed.

Do note that you’ll need to remove screws on both sides of the blaster, due to having a lever that spans the entire outside of the blaster. Otherwise, the blaster is fairly easy to take apart and put back together.

Last Thoughts

The Air Warriors EZ Fire Rifle is a fun, easy, and powerful blaster for the price, and it makes dart blasting accessible for the youngest of us. Even if it’s not your favorite blaster in terms of operation or construction, there’s a chance you know someone that could use it and have a blast doing so. All it takes is a swift pull of the lever!