Nerf Pro Torrent Review

After putting out the Nerf Pro Stryfe X as an online-only entry, Hasbro has shifted strategy. Gone are the expensive rechargeable batteries and straight short dart magazines. Now we’re doing less expensive blasters with angled mag-in-grip designs that can be found on store shelves, alongside ammo and magazine refills. On the plus side, this makes the line far more widely available. On the negatives side, it also leads to some issues in User Friendliness.

The Nerf Pro Torrent is the spring-powered entry in this year’s line, and it aims to be a compact way to hit 150fps. And while some shots can get there, overall the the blaster doesn’t fly quite as high as it was aiming.

Short, Stiff, and Awkward

Pro lines in the blaster world are typically aimed at users 14+. So it makes sense for the blasters to be built for body frames of that size, or at least to be adapted to that. In the case of the Torrent, we have a relatively short body and stock that, if you attempted to shoulder it, requires you to chicken wing your dominant arm.

Luckily, Nerf has a secret hiding under the “stock” – an NStrike stock attachment point so that you can use longer stocks with the blaster. Visually, they might not look great with the blaster, but having the option to extend the blaster for comfort is at least a nice inclusion.

The priming action on the Nerf Pro Torrent is relatively short and stiff, with what can be described as a “crunchy” feel to it. The blaster itself feels like it has tight tolerances to meet, like surfaces are roughly sliding past each other, which isn’t pleasant. The pump grip itself feels nice to me, at least, but with how subjective the community can be on foregrip comfort, that may or may not affect anyone’s opinion.

The blaster feeds darts from an angled short dart magazine, which follows the format of Worker angled Talons. The magazines get inserted into the base of the main grip. It minimizes the overall design, but again results in the needs for tight tolerances. The magazines don’t slide in or out very easily when trying to load the blaster, making for a slow time reloading in the field. In addition, the magazine release button, while ambidextrous, is in an awkward spot above your thumb. More than likely, unless you have big hands, you’ll have to finagle your grip on the blaster in order to load or reload.

On Another Note…

I still don’t understand why Rival/Hyper/etc. rails are included on these blasters, when there are essentially no attachments made for them.

Performance and Gameplay

The Nerf Pro Torrent hits decent numbers with the included darts, averaging 146fps. While some shots did hit the 150 mark, quite a few also shot lower, closer to 120. Accuracy, meanwhile, was simply okay. Not simply due to the varying dart velocity, but some darts visibly flew off to the side or had issues with stable flight.

Playing with a club that has their own giant ammo bins of darts, it also seemed like if darts weren’t completely fresh, the Torrent didn’t like shooting them nearly as much.

There is no slamfire on this blaster, so you’re limited by how fast you can complete all the motions for firing the blaster. Two darts per second is doable, but given the short and stiff prime, your arms will be sore after using the Torrent for any appreciable length of time.

I also ended up having other issues not shown on video, between dart jams (at least there’s a door for clearing jams) and darts physically getting rips in them. Let’s open the blaster up…

Internals

…and find plastic bits leftover from manufacturing stuck on the breech. Yep, that will tear up the sides of your darts and cause issues. Hopefully, Hasbro fixed this manufacturing process mistake (the Torrent has been out for several months not), but whether current stock on store shelves has these, who knows. Granted, those of us that mod blasters can take the time to tear things apart and fix problems. But Hasbro is trying to do pro blasters for the masses, which means lots of regular people without the same knowledge base will encounter this issue. That’s not good.

On that note, if you’ve already opened the blaster up this much, file down some of the surfaces inside the magazine well so that you don’t have to tug on the magazines so hard when reloading.

On That Note…

The Torrent is an okay blaster, but it feels like Hasbro made a lot of compromises in order to both make their desired profit and get the MSRP down to $30. Someone might enjoy this blaster, but frankly if you’re looking for a small springer with pro performance, just get an Aeon Pro X.