This was a surprise for me. Buzz Bee has always offered tiny blasters, from the original and weak Tek 3 (move the cylinder yourself as an extra step) to the more recent, more robust single-shot Panther. The farthest shooting one was the Duel Shot 2-pack, itself an upgrade to the Air Warriors Gem…but those were at least nominally larger.
The Air Warriors Mayhem Ruin seems to want to do the best of both worlds. For $3, you’re getting a tiny blaster where nearly the entire body space is taken up by a clear plunger tube. In stock form, due to the short barrel design, the performance is okay at best. But given the fact that it’s $3, it’s hard to beat being able to throw off shots in such quick fashion. Even with the tiny handle, it’s far from the worst thing I’ve held in terms of comfort. And with a little love, you can get the performance it *should* be getting.
Extra Tiny
The Ruin is cute. There’s no other word for it! Between the matching industrial motif of the Mayhem line and the transparent plunger tube, it looks cool for such a tiny blaster. It’s pretty easy to operate, as well. The priming handle is quite large compared the blaster, which helps when you’re priming a short but stiff spring. The trigger is tiny, but serviceable. And the handle is tiny, but as an adult, I can still fit two fingers around it while leaving my pinkie underneath. I know, the classic joke is that Buzz Bee designs handles for toddlers…but when the blaster is this tiny, you have to be as compact as possible. Under those circumstances, it does the job.
Instead of a “smart AR” assembly for static barrels like Hasbro uses, Buzz Bee instead uses a rotating plunger tube. There are four slits for air passage at the front of the plunger tube, along with a foam seal/cushion for mating with the back of the three barrel assembly. On each trigger pull, the plunger tube rotates 1/12 of the way, lining up a plunger hole with a different barrel. It makes for a compact way to fire multiple shots, but it also means that, if you don’t load all the barrels, you could simply dry fire a shot. So keep the barrels loaded.
On that note, the stock barrels only really grip the very back of the darts. That, sadly, robs the shots of some power.
Performance
I had some issues getting measurements here, to be clear. I *think* I finally got some shots to go straight through my chronograph, but there’s a reason the package lacks range claims. Due to the short effective barrel, I was only averaging 48fps with the included darts. Rate of fire was decent for a pistol this size (I could do two shots per second), but if you’re using this pistol, I assume you’re out of other options and on your backup, so shoot carefully.
Internals and Modification
Here’s where things get fun. Six screws hold the entire blaster together, with no solvent welding anywhere. It’s easy for things to pop open and for return springs to fly out, though. Be careful opening this up.
If the stock barrels won’t cut it, why not use my own? I ended up designing new ones, along with barrels for firing Mega and Mega XL darts, and threw them up on Thingiverse. I’ll put numbers up when I can, but standard dart performance was far better (and you can use half darts, too). Mega at least flew from one side of my house to the other, and Mega XL…really just landed ten feet in front of me. Trying to fire those darts is at the limit of what the plunger and spring setup can do, but it can be done, if for some reason you really need an emergency shot for a special ammo rule…or just want to do it for fun.
Last Thoughts
I’m having way more fun with the Ruin than I should be. It’s tiny, but $3 gets you a lot compared to the single shot blasters we usually see at this price point. Perhaps just as importantly (though not reflected in the score), there’s lots of potential for these as backup or alternate ammo blasters, given some new parts and perhaps a properly lubed plunger. If anything, at least grab one and show Buzz Bee some love. At $3, it’s hard not to.