Nerf Rebel Ops Ammohawk Review

The Rebel Ops line is finally arriving! After showing up a bit early on Walmart’s website, I snuck once in an order along with other (and actual) essential items. After arriving and handling it, I can say it’s exactly what I handled at Toy Fair: a return to the Elite dart with the performance you’d expect from a basic pistol. The extra darts and storage just help to sweeten the deal.

YES FRILLS!

Jokes comparing the blaster to the Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus aside, the Ammohawk looks cool. It’s the same type of blaster as the Quadrot and other previous iterations; there’s a single plunger and a four-dart “smart AR”. This time around, however, there’s somewhat less…body. I admittedly didn’t notice this in my brief time at Toy Fair, but the Ammohawk is built pretty simply. It has just six tiny screws holding the halves together, with no fasteners or glue on the inside (the barrels are held in place by ridges on the shell halves). It’s also secured to the packaging with twist pieces, in similar fashion to Zuru’s blasters. For a smaller blaster, the simplicity isn’t a bad thing. But it’s an interesting trend, since I don’t remember any other Nerf blaster being packaged the same way.

The blaster features five tactical rails, and comes with two attachments – fins with posts that hold ten darts each. They’re not exactly a shield…but they make dart loading easy. And if an enemy dart hits the “fins” instead, yay!

The fins do pivot, depending on how you want to orient them and the twenty included darts.

Performance

I averaged 71fps with the first shot; surprisingly, shots 1 through 3 don’t vary too much in velocity. It’s not until the last shot that you see a substantial drop to the low 60s/high 50s.

Rate of fire is a solid two darts per second.

Internals

The Ammohawk isn’t winning any awards for innovation here. All the pieces snap together (including the plunger head to the priming rod). The orange barrels pop out with a pull (don’t lose the springs!).

Luckily, the Ammohawk doesn’t need to be complicated.

Final Thoughts

The Ammohawk works as the entry blaster for Nerf’s Rebel Ops line. If you’re pivoting back to the standard Elite dart, why not go with a base model that works?