Dart Zone Max Solo Review

This was a fun thing to see appear this week!

Out of the blue, in time for Black Friday and the holiday rush, Dart Zone puts out a high performance, single-shot blaster that can be easily stowed away in a pocket or other place. The Solo may not be the best Pro blaster on the market, but that’s not due to any inherent flaws. After all, single shot blasters can only do so much.

The difference? The Solo makes that shot count.

Folding @ Home

As soon as the news hit the internet, I ordered three Solo blasters – Instead of buying one or two and adding shipping, I’ll just get three and treat the last one as a discount! After ordering on Thursday, the package arrived Saturday morning, while I was away at a casually old-school Humans v Zombies game. Getting home, though, I grabbed the package off the front porch and ripped it apart to begin the review process.

The Solo comes in very nice packaging for shipping. There’s the plain cardboard outside, with all the basic blaster info printed on it. Open it up, and you find the actual product package, with a fancy sleeve that sits over the container.

Inside the package, you have the Solo blaster, in its folded up configuration, along with ten of the Bamboo 2X darts, and instructions. Pull the baster out, press the right side button to flip up the barrel, and you have the blaster in its unfolded form. There seems to be a bit of wiggle room here in terms of tolerances; two of my Solos can just unfold with a slight tug, while the third has that catch fully engage, making it easier to press the button before unfolding.

The blaster, in terms of size and performance, sits in a middle ground between Jolts and the scaled-up Rival, single shot blasters (which can easily approach 200fps when singled for half darts). Teenage and adult hands will be able to wrap most of their fingers around the grip – it’s not molded specially for the hands, but given the size and features of the blaster, it’s perfectly adequate.

The safety switch sits by your thumb, if you’re a righty. A break-action lever sits on top of the blaster, letting you open the breech to insert a dart from the back. Incidentally, the barrel is long enough to insert two short darts or a standard dart – expect lower performance, of course, but it works perfectly fine with long darts as well, depending on dart head diameter.

Prime the blaster by pulling down the priming bar. Load the dart, flip up the barrel, aim, and fire. It’s that simple. And as an added bonus, to make the blaster fold up nicely, that priming bar can also fold against the bottom of the blaster! There was a lot of thought put into this.

If for some reason you really want to mount something…yes, that is, in fact, a Picatinny-compatible rail on the barrel!

Performance

The included Bamboo 2X darts are lighter than other half darts, and the ribbed foam means less friction overall with barrels (as well as working in slightly tighter barrels, as well). So the speeds are respectable, and while long distance accuracy can sometimes drift, it’s far better than the initial Bamboo 2.0 darts Dart Zone released with the DZP Mk1.2 and Mk 2.1. I averaged 124fps with the included darts, and 102fps with the Max darts I also had on hand. Ranges are reduced when loading two darts (minor spread at range), one long dart, or front-loading your darts. But in a pinch, if you really needed to speed up reloading to get a close shot off, front loading is viable.

Rate of fire is predictably low, but that’s to be expected with a single shot blaster with a breech. One dart per three seconds doesn’t sound like much, but for the platform at hand, it’s respectable.

Internals

The Solo clearly shows off the Jolt/Knockout style lineage when you open it up. It has that lovely oval-shaped plunger tube, with a bend at the top going to the barrel. You have a lever under the trigger, with the catch interfacing with the back of the plunger head.

Unlike some other blasters, the plunger head is attached with a screw. Should you happen to find a compatible spring, installing it would be a breeze. Do you need to? Probably not. But someone will try anyway!

Final Opinion

The Dart Zone Max Solo came out of left field, but it’s a breath of fresh air after some of Dart Zone’s more recent troubles like the Omnia Pro’s initial release. It shows that Dart Zone is willing to go past the traditional “pro” platforms and put performance in all shapes, styles, and formats. Plus, the folding gimmick is simply neat, and it works well!

Could the blaster have been a bit cheaper? I think so. Given the size and materials, even a small drop to $12-$13 dollars would make it that much more appealing, especially to the high-performance fans (Look! A fast-shooting pocket pistol I don’t need to mod!). Even so, $15 is a decent price point for what’s in the package. Once they’re back in stock online (it keeps running out), grab one!