Review- Nerf N-Strike Barricade RV-10

The Nerf Barricade RV-10 is the new foam dart blaster in the N-Strike range; however it is currently only available in Taiwan and readily available worldwide. In the past it's hype has been mainly through rumours and product leaks with much speculation and debate over what it can actually do- and how good it does it. No official press releases or launch parties meant the Barricade has been one of the most talked about blasters of the year, but does it really deserve such press?

(Picture wise, there's not a whole lot I can add to the pic spam I did the other day, so I'll just post a few of my own but you've already seen how priddy it is from the other pics and this video)

It has been suggested the Barricade is a juiced up version of the Maverick REV-6, or the little brother of the upcoming 9-9-10 blaster in the Stampede ECS. I'd suggest it's both; like the specs for the Stampede, it's a battery powered blaster with no manual firing mechanism- no batteries and you're a sitting duck. It's similar sizing to the Maverick and has a rotating barrel that supports 10 foam darts (suckers and whistlers are fine) but you don't need to prime it each time you fire a round. The Barricade is completely electric and uses a flywheel mechanism-as said before there's no manual priming or ability to shoot without batteries. The battery compartment is on the left hand side of the blaster; a phillips head screw driver pops it open and you can fit your 3 AA's in nicely.

Loading your darts is simple with no sliding mechanisms to pull the barrel out, just slide them in (much like the Dart Tag Fury fire) in the side of the barrel and manually rotate. Of course, the Barricade has the all important tactical rails on top of the blaster and can also support N-Strike stocks like those of the Recon, Raider and Spectre which is sweet, but probably unnecessary.

"are you looking at my butt?"

The blaster is surprisingly light and feels pretty solid and well balanced. On the side, the blaster is clearly labelled the "Barricade RV-10" RV being similar to an REV in the Maverick and Firefly I assume.

To power the blaster up, there's a small switch under the battery door to pull back. It's only on one side, so this is clearly a right handed blaster if you're expecting to be dual wielding:) When the blaster is not switched on, the trigger cannot be squeezed back. The Barricade is semi automatic- one squeeze of the trigger shoots one round.

So why have people been waiting for this blaster for so long?

PROBABLY because it's new:) And.. one of the real issues with Nerf blasters is the difficulty to support dual wielding, or one blaster in each hand, John Woo style. Nerf blasters traditionally require two hands; the other hand to prime the blaster unless you want to attach your trackie daks drawstrings to the back of your Mavericks and pull (that sounds worse than it really is!). With the Barricade RV-10 being fully automatic, you can Inspector-Tequila to your hearts content:)

With Raider stock and Shotblast scope

Performance-wise, it's better than I thought it would be. Darts soar with power and more accuracy than any flywheel blaster i've used before. Rate of fire is as fast as you can pull the trigger, I was expecting some sort of delay between when you pulled and when the round is discharged, but it's pretty quick; so long as you don't have any jams, you can very quickly pop out 10 rounds in no time.

It's almost art! Close up down the Barricade barrel. Vertical flywheels.

My two main beefs with the Barricade RV-10:

1) It's noisy. Being a flywheel mechanism, switching it on has the motors literally roar to life like an angry mosquito. The entire time you're using it, that noise just grates on you and there's no chance of sneaking up on anyone unless it's your 80yo deaf grandma. You're basically just saying "I'm coming, get ready"

2) The trigger has a weird habit of jamming. I'm not sure if it's deliberate or not, but if you don't pull the trigger firm and hard, it sticks half way and then you have to squeeze it again to release it. I browsed the manual (OMG!) and there's nothing in there about it.

More colour blind joy:) Red Recon stock + Pinpoint sight

To be honest, while I do genuinely believe the RV-10 is great, making it automatic sort of takes the fun out of Nerf blasters a little. It's sort of like old school arcade machine shoot-em-ups- while it's easier on the hand to just hold the fire button down, the fun part is still constant mashing; just like with Nerf blasters I find the fun is in the priming and readying your blaster to offload a round. It's a great blaster, but makes the whole Nerf experience a lil.. almost boring if that makes sense.

In Australia they're going for anywhere between 29-39 dollars AUS which I guess isn't too bad for what it is. The Barricade RV-10 is popping up all over the world, and is perhaps the first blaster I've heard of that has been released first in other countries OTHER than the US. I'd probably recommend it; but you'll probably need to pick up two to really gain the dual wielding-akimbo experience.. which we of course did:)

26-8-10: UPDATE: Another video of the Barricade RV-10 using dart tag ammo

Usability: 8/10
Out of the box performance: 8/10
Cool factor: 7/10
Price point: 7/10 (was updated from 4/10 when we purchased our first blaster on the grey market, but it's much more reasonable now)