Nerf Minecraft Diamond Pickaxe Blaster Reveiw

One thing that will always persist? Licensed toys! The blaster space is no exception, with dart blasters being branded for everything from Star Wars to Jurassic Park over the years.

Minecraft is still popular after a decade and a half, and Nerf has been making licensed blasters since 2021 (although the early ones were a bit…bland). The Diamond Pickaxe continues that branding partnership, with surprisingly good results.

More Than Hard Plastic

The Diamond Pickaxe may be a blaster, but kids are going to be swinging it or hitting things regardless. Because they’re kids. With that in mind, there is a large portion of the pickaxe arms composed of soft plastic foam. It’s certainly not enough to consider this a pretend play melee toy in any sense. It is, however, a nice buffer for when the inevitable happens.

The Diamond Pickaxe has three barrels, operated using a Smart AR that fires one barrel at a time, skipping any barrels that aren’t loaded. Pull back on the base of the handle to prime the blaster, let the priming handle return, then press the orange trigger button on the side of the shaft to fire. It’s that easy to operate. Aiming, of course, may be a different matter. It’s not exactly a blaster with iron sights or any other such features.

The blaster comes with eight Elite darts, enough to fire the blaster twice while keeping two hidden in the priming handle.

Performance

The Diamond Pickaxe shot hard in my tests, compared to many other Nerf-branded blasters. The initial shot averaged 80fps! Velocity dropped off to 75fps on the second shot and 69fps on the third shot, which is still quite acceptable for an ages 8+ blaster.

Internals

The Diamond Pickaxe has a LOT of screws for a blaster this small. Also note that upon full disassembly, the catch spring WILL go flying. It’s a matter on when, not if.

There’s not too much to do here, with the plunger and barrel assembly being glued together, besides perhaps a spring upgrade. I do, however, feel like this layout would have been perfect for an air blaster mechanism. Pump at the bottom, air tank instead of plunger tube, and a blaster button for the trigger? That would have been exciting!

A guy can dream, right?

Final Thoughts

As it stands, the Nerf Minecraft Diamond Pickaxe is a fun licensed toy, and a far cry better than the first Nerf Minecraft blasters. At $23, it’s still priced well for a toy that’s both blaster and pretend play. A performance-oriented hobbyist probably won’t care for it, but anyone else will have a lot of fun.