Siren Gnarl Review

Earlier this year, NSI International announced a new line of pro-level blasters, under the Siren name. They launched a website with preorders, and also sent samples out to influencers throughout the hobby. After somewhat of a delay in actually fulfilling preorders/delaying the Siren Blink, they began bombarding social media with advertisements featuring those influencers, fulfilling said preorders, and selling the blasters through Target and other storefronts. This presented a unique situation, with ads and social media influencers showing off the blasters…and hobbyists who bought said blasters posting about the many issues they encountered.

There’s plenty to criticize in NSI’s approach to market here – enough to warrant its own post. But for the moment, we’re doing the actual blaster reviews!

The Gnarl is a small, magazine-fed pistol with advertised 150′ ranges. It can objectively meet those claims…but choices in blaster design make it an uncomfortable exercise in doing so.

Compact But Clunky

The Gnarl, along with the rest of the line, has a rugged look to it. They’re clearly toys, with plenty of green and white (and the orange tips, of course), but with plenty of black accents, too. The Gnarl in particular has textures molded into the black accents/hand rest and the faux pads on the grip. There’s a long picatinny rail up top, and a rear sight molded into the blaster (an included front sight slides onto the rail wherever you want it to be).

The main grip is a weird mix of choices. The safety is only partly recessed into the grip. The trigger itself is comfortable, though the really long travel to engage it is annoying. The grip shape itself is awkward to hold, as if it was made for age 8+ hands, even though it’s a 14+ item. The wide base is especially annoying for the pinkie finger and palm. The mag release is at least easy to use, be it with your middle finger on the dominant hand or your thumb on the other hand when pulling out the magazine.

The really awkward part is the priming handle. The Gnarl has a large plunger tube and beefy spring, but there is a loop big enough for one finger that you have to pull (and then push back in) to prime and load the blaster before firing. Indeed, other options like T-pulls would have made this far more comfortable; there are already aftermarket ones designed and available, of course, but parts like that should be a customization option, NOT a necessity to let you use a blaster comfortably.

The included darts are a similar foam to Nerf Ultra darts, but in the half-dart format, and with relatively heavy rubber heads. They have higher velocities than other store-bought half darts, but they also seem more inaccurate. More testing is needed…but given how many of these have been destroyed in testing, shooting into softer targets, I’m not a fan.

The blaster comes with a small, five dart magazine. It’s cute, but you can also use your Talon magazines and other mags of the same format if you wish. In one nice design nod, the pusher is of the skinny variety, so you can pull out your mag even when the breech is closed.

Performance and Gameplay

The Gnarl worked well enough in combat, but it didn’t get the ranges I was expecting. Shortly after the match, on examination, we discovered that the blaster had already lost the o-ring seal on the pusher! That doesn’t inspire confidence. I ended up having to buy o-rings (this size from McMaster works perfectly without getting caught/stretched out/leading to issues again) afterwards to restore the seal to even get accurate fps readings. That’s not an issue for an experienced hobbyist, but for a regular consumer who’s not? Losing a seal that easily is a big negative.

It was also slow going, using the Gnarl, especially because of the slow, uncomfortable priming process.

With the replaced pusher seal, I’m averaging 151fps with the included darts, and upper 130s with Dart Zone Max darts. Rate of fire was one dart per second at best.

Internals

The blaster has a shockingly large plunger tube, so there’s tons of power not being fully utilized by the existing barrel. There’s also a Skewer-style mechanism within, with the plunger head being cored through by the priming rod/breech assembly.

At some point, I’ll have to replace the barrel with something longer. But that’s a project for another day.

Final Thoughts

Siren Blasters may have tried making a giant splash on social media, but the smallest entry from the line feels more like it’s flopping around in a puddle. The blaster gets pro performance, but it doesn’t feel great to handle or use, especially with that priming handle. Losing seals right out of the gate under actual “pro-level” use doesn’t help the cause, either. It might be worth a look if you find it on sale, but I’d rather just spend the $25 MSRP for an Aeon Pro X.