Thursday, June 23, 2011

X-Shot: Turbofire

We got ourselves the much anticipated X-Shot Turbofire; this is a blaster from the second release of blasters from relatively unknown toy manufacturer Zuru. They seem to have ditched the dual ammo of foam and water and just concentrated on releasing a blaster that shoots just foam darts. 20 of them, to be exact, with a pump action cocking mechanism under the muzzle, and an inbuilt  ammo drum. X-Shot blasters have been touch and go- we had the surprisingly awesome Stealth, followed by the absolute rubbish that was the Thundershot. So how does this one go? More pics and info after the jump.

The Turbofire is quite a decent sized piece of kit, comparable to the Nerf Raider CS-35. It sports the standard X-Shot green and black paint scheme, with a translucent orange shell around the barrel and the standard yellow trigger. In box it comes with the blaster and 20 of the black and yellow sucker darts- or if you buy the dual pack, two blasters and 40 darts. It feels a little rattley, but on the whole it's pretty solid and decently built.


The cocking mechanism looks fantastic, but is incredibly uncomfortable to hold and even with my tiny kid like hands, I had issues with gripping it and pulling it back and forth. This was a fail for us which frustrated me somewhat.

the stock is a solid green plastic.

the original images show an opening in the stock
It has an inbuilt stock (or what they call a "dynamic shoulder rest" ???) , which is probably too short to be of any benefit, but it looks cool. Interestingly enough, the original images of the Turbofire we showed a few months ago allowed for the stock to open up and store extra darts- they seem to have dumped that idea as you can see the stock is a solid green plastic with no opening. Not sure if this is just my test model or not.

 The Turbofire features an inbuilt 20 round drum, which you can easily rotate manually to insert your darts. It comes with 20 of its own foam suckers (black and yellow) but it easily fits other branded foam darts too.
 From the back, it has an interesting round thingy that sticks out of the blaster-I'm guessing this is just for show because gawd knows what else it's for. Aesthetics- if you like.. round thingies.

 It's simply a matter of loading your darts, using the pump action cocking mechanism to prime your blaster, and fire away.

How does it perform is the big question, and I'll be honest- surprisingly pretty darn good. From our experiences, it's got similar ranges to a Recon or a Deploy- it easily made it up the distance of my staircase and to the second floor as well as hitting the ceiling with no problem. No jams thus far, other than the annoying grip on the cocking mechanism which keeps slipping out of my hand. But it's surprisingly quite accurate and decent to fire. Much of this depends on the darts though- the quality of the X-Shot darts leave something to be desired which tend to result in them flying all over the shop. Inspecting your dart before you load can really assist in your accuracy.
Sizewise compared to the Alpha Trooper
 Would we recommend it? At the moment K-Mart have a sale on where you can pick up TWO of them for 25 dollars AUS. That's a $12.50 blaster that fires 20 rounds and performs pretty decently for what it is. For that kind of money, I'd be definitely thinking it's worth checking out and having some fun with it. Personally, I like it- i'd like it more if the grip on the cocking mechanism wasn't so awkward to hold but hey, it does the job. It's no Nerf but.. if you want a Nerf blaster.. go buy a Nerf blaster:)

16 comments:

  1. WHOOOAAAHH
    25 BUCKS???
    DOES THAT COUNT IN MELBOURNE TOO??? :O

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  2. Time to get some velcro or something for the grip. Maybe felt?
    The stock is easy to mod into the original proposed idea - a hinge, some bits of green plastic, some glue...

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  3. I'm glad to hear Zuru have finally done something right... mostly.
    Say, compared the the AT, is the priming strength more or less?
    As in, is it harder to pull back?
    (Exclusing the crappy grip)

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  4. OK first things first - darts are the same length as Air Zone darts, though the foam is of a poorer quality. Will it take Streamlines? Only if you remove the dart posts or cut them down.

    Range test:
    X-Shot darts - 32 feet.
    Air Zone darts - 36 feet.
    Nerf darts (cut down suctions) - 39 feet.

    Getting some of the Nerf darts in the drum mag was a bit of a struggle - they seem to be a bit fatter than the X Shot darts and they fit snugly as it is.

    As Pocket says in his review, the cocking mechanism is a bit arsey - you really need to fiddle about with how you hold it to get a smooth action. Its not really a design fault - its a toy made for young 'uns with widdle arms.

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  5. "It's a toy made for young 'uns with widdle arms."
    LIKE ME! :P
    But yeah, is the spring stronger than (for example) a Deploy's? That would explain why it's so much harder to cock.

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  6. arg, toowoomba fails. went on down to kmart the other day trying to find these and no luck. oh well gonna have to wait.

    ill be looking forward to getting this little bugger open and seeing what can be done with it.

    other than that it doesn't look half bad kinda looks like something from a 90's era fps game lol

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  7. any one know if this is sold in the US?

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  8. One of the people from oznerf has done a review on it and there's a few reasons why this blaster may 'perform' better than others.

    1. Those 'pegs' aren't actually air restrictors. It may restrict some flow of air, but it's not too dramatic. Pegs are just there so kids don't put rocks or whatever they think
    2. The plunger itself is a 'direct' plunger so it can produce more air without losing too much deadspace. They say the spring itself is a little more solid.
    3. I will have to buy this at some point... it looks like a very good blaster for 'speed foam warfare'... and maybe Nerf should take up this design for another DT gun.

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  9. Nice review. I hope Amazon gets this one since they seem to be the only source for these blasters in the US.

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  10. Little round thing looks like a District 9 reference. Hmmm, an orange,white, and black paint job may be in store.

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  11. I really like the aesthetics of this blaster for some reason. Would love to see some of the paint jobs for this blaster.

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  12. found the double pack today, kmart had them hidden from me.

    first step: removed the cups from the darts solid rubber ftw ^_^
    second step: grabbed the dremel and went to town on the pegs.

    results: said goodbye to stock rounds though they now fly well in favour of jamming camo streamlines in there instead and they fit well once the pegs are removed, not only that but they're nice and snug so you get reasonable ranges indoors from them.

    all up a pretty decent blaster for only $12.50 AUD better ranges than a maverick and well 20 rounds > 6 rounds lol

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  13. dunno if u get this comic down under but it has been my favorite of the sunday funnies since watterson quit the biz and today's is not only funny but has nerf AND zombie references, u might wanna check it out:

    http://www.foxtrot.com/

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  14. Pocket,
    it's nerf or something :P

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  15. Can you post internals please? :D

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  16. yeah, i saw that foxtrot comic to. you should check it out, it has nerf and zombies, two of your favorite things.

    cam

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