The springer primary of Siren’s new line is an interesting set of choices. It’s, understandably, made specifically for Siren’s darts at the expense of others, but that leads to inconsistencies with most darts (as well as most club dart collections). The three power settings are cool, but the lowest setting is arguably not that useful. The priming motion is physically hard to do, making slam-fire less than ideal. These issues, plus ergonomics, keep the Maulr from truly shining, even when it can send darts faster than 250fps.
Big and Beefy
The Maulr isn’t a small blaster – it’s definitely made for 14+. In terms of platform, the pieces seem to all be in the right places (at least for me). Good grip placement, nice stock length, a magazine catch release that’s easy to access and manipulate. Unfortunately, it feels like the grip and priming handle were designed by a different department; the main grip is overly large and blocky, while the priming handle is undersized. Having your pinky hanging off, and possibly some or all of your ring finger if your hands are larger, isn’t a great feeling.
The blaster comes with a rear sight that clips in, and a front picatinny rail that a front sight slides onto. It’s a little cheesy, but ultimately it does work for plinking with the included darts. The Maulr comes with the same darts as the Gnarl, which results in great FPS numbers…but lots of broken darts after only a few uses. The included ten dart magazine works well, but you can also use Talon and otherwise similar magazines instead.
Gameplay Issues
The Maulr in actual use turned out to be less than ideal. Granted, part of the problem ended up being that the o-ring seal for the breech disappeared. Yes, just like the Gnarl, I lost seal and had issues as a result. On the plus side, that meant setting 2 shot low enough to use the blaster at a 200fps cap event.
Unfortunately, it also meant that for one round, I found myself continually with firing issues. Often, I’d fire the blaster, have nothing come out, then have two darts leave after the next prime and fire. Using completely fresh darts in a different round had better results, though not as good as having an actual pusher seal. So it wasn’t the best way to observe the Maulr’s capabilities.
As is turns out, the barrel is smaller than 13mm, so the extra tight grip on regular foam darts hurts performance. That…kinda hurts being able to use club darts anywhere.
It can be said, however, that I got enough experience priming the blaster – and this one is a far rougher prime than other blasters. I’d much rather have a smooth prime, and people like Dart Zone and Worker have shown it can be done.
Performance
With Dart Zone Max darts, I was averaging 120s, 190s, and 230s, but again with large variances. On the low end, plenty of shots didn’t leave the barrel; the middle setting had too many shots above 200fps to use at CANE (you finally get a blaster working…). The Highest setting did get some Dart Zone Max darts up to 250fps, and conversely a couple below 200. I do wonder what the results could have been if a normal barrel and normal-diameter darts were used from the beginning. Seems I’ll have to try some mod kits that are becoming available.
Internals
The Maulr is decently robust inside, but all the pieces come apart easily, from the plunger tube and turnaround (held together by the blaster shell itself) to the barrel that is held in place with a set screw.
Note that if you’re taking the blaster apart, there are screw ports hidden under the black plastic decorative plate that sits over the magazine well. you’ll have to pop that off first (four small clips hold it down).
Given the strength of the spring and the stiffness of priming the blaster, I’m not worried about replacing the guts. I’m more concerned about the barrel replacement. It’ll happen eventually…but other things need reviewed first.
Last Thoughts
The Maulr has a ton of potential, but it also has a ton of issues. It seems like different parts got handled by different people and amalgamated at the end, with the result being a blaster that could be pro, but is too inconsistent and unwieldy in its current state. Perhaps if you’re willing to make this a personal project, it could be amazing. But in its current state, it wasn’t worth the $40 I paid.