Review: Nerf Elite Alpha Trooper

As promised, the review for one of my new guns, the Elite Alpha Trooper. Fans have awaited this blaster due to the great predeccessor, and finally it was there. First, the outer appearance. The gun does look pretty great. There are some similarities between it and the normal AT, the orange parts and the grey handle. The EAT's stock adapter on the back is actually orange instead of the standard black. Other than that, the shape is exactly the same, no shell differences between them. The equipment is new, the EAT now has a nice 12-dart clip instead of the old 18-dart one. It's a downgrade by 6-darts, but I think this is still good since the 12 clip is one of the best mags, it doesn't jam up as much as some 18 mags and still has a decent capacity. To the performance, a big improvement which I instantly noticed is that the Elite version doesn't jam as much as the original one. It nearly never jams, actually. Ranges are basically... Elite. Nothing significant, it just shoots like any Elite blaster. But it's nice to see an Alpha Trooper shoot that far. The cool part about the Alpha Trooper is the insane rate of fire, that could possibly even beat some semi-auto guns. So all in all great primary gun, great looks and recommended for anyone looking for a new primary with fast ROF.

Updates - New guns, Recent mods & Current projects

Some rather "personal" nerf updates than some news. First off, I recently got some new guns added to my arsenal, which I'm going to review pretty soon, the Rapidstrike and the Elite Alpha Trooper. Regarding my projects & mods, I completely reworked my Longshot and did several cool mods to it. It's currently getting a nice paintjob, and I'll provide you with pics and a showcase soon. Next, I picked up my good ol' Stampede again to make some minor modifications. It is in the queue to receive a nice paintjob finish (pics soon!).

Chaotic Project floor 

Also, I finished my suitable Elite Stock, much better than the short one of the Retaliator. For this, I took the Stock from the Super Soaker Lightningstorm (of which the stock is the best and most comfortable one I've ever seen) and gave it a nice Elite paintjob:

The Stryfe looks like a SMG with it

Awesome, right? It looks great on all elite blasters. See you soon with reviews of the new guns and finished Projects!

Review: Nerf Elite Triad EX-3

Sorry due to my recent inactivity, I've been pretty busy and let this project down a little. But let's take a look at the Triad. The Elite Triad is basically a Nerf Jolt x3. It has the same mechanisms and is just a little bigger.The Triad's grip may be too small and uncomfortable for some people. The great thing about this blaster, it is a real Elite (not like the blue N-Strike Jolt), which means this little thing actually fires up to 75ft/20m and I've had impressive results in my range tests. For even more powerful shots, I've modified mine (There isn't much you can do, so I just added a spring) so that it now fires and impressive 80ft/24m. The only downside (at least for me) is that you can't mod too much of a heck out of this, but the power even as stock balances this. Overall the Triad is a great secondary and very powerful pistol that I'd recommend for beginners as well for advanced Nerf users.

The plunger with my added spring

Even more Rapidstrike pictures, Firing video

Thanks to the Blog Urban Taggers for all these pictures. Apparently another user on Baidu, 'Captain', has posted a lot of new detailed pictures of the Rapidstrike CS-18. Here we go:

Some very nice photos of everything included, compared to other blasters and with attachments. You can see from the pictures that it has a collapsible stock, a transparent jam door, lots of tactical rails, and it indeed is small, approximately compares to a compact Stampede without muzzle, according to the pictures. Now another interesting find on youku is this video, where the Rapidstrike is being fired.You can see it is flywheel powered, but fully-automatic. This system compares to that of the Nitron. Now that's a lot of information we got about the Rapidstrike. We'll look forward to the release of it in other countries!

Rapidstrike Pictures released!

Rabysong posted these Rapidstrike pictures on Baidu. The Rapidstrike first leaked on soundmedia.ch is real!

Pretty interesting pictures, huh? You can see it has a rail like the Stampede on top, but in my opinion a much better sight. There's also an acceleration trigger and a clip-release like the Stryfe and the barrel extension muzzle. What I think is interesting is that the battery tray goes into the front. All in all it looks a little more compact than the Stampede. Here the box:

The Rapidstrike box states a 75ft range and shows the clear 18-dart mag. However it says nothing about if it's semi or full-auto, only motorized rapidfire, but that might mean fully-automatic.

Leak Updates: soundmedia.ch Releases More Pictures; Double Jolt; Mega Javelin?

Remember the website soundmedia.ch, with the Rapidstrike and everything? They have released some more pictures now, like this one from the Mega Centurion:

This is more detailed than the box image. You can see it has a bipod, an unusually formed clip and a cocking mechansim like the Longstrike/Longshot. After browsing on their website a bit, I also stumbled upon this. It's from the Rebelle line, and says "Doppel Jolt", which means double Jolt. This is interesting, since Nerf has a Jolt and a Triad, so are they planning to release something like a "Duoad"? Another interesting leak was found by Klaus Hausner (mentioned in MyLastDart's post), which reveals a Mega Javelin on ExLibris.ch. There is a real weapon called Javelin, too, and it's a rocket launcher. From these facts, the Mega Javelin might be an improved Elite Titan. The website will release it around august this year. 

Mod Guide: Nerf Elite Rayven

Since the Elite Rayven isn't really outstanding in stock condition, I modded mine. Here's the guide to tweaking your blaster. We'll be covering lock removals, overriding unnecessary switches and voltage mods.

1. Prepearation

Necessary tools and materials:

-Your Rayven

-Screwdriver

-Sandpaper

-Soldering Iron

-Trustfire Li-Ion Batteries

Remove all screws in the shell, open the blaster and get familiar with all the internals.

2. Lock removals

This first lock right below the trigger to remove keeps you from pulling it when the acceleration trigger isn't activated.

Remove the screw and take the upper plate out, then remove the main trigger.

Now remove the lock itself. Notice the little notch up there? 

There's another one on the main trigger, too. 

Sand both of them down a bit and you should be fine.

Put it back together and check if it's working fluidly.

The second and last lock is in the back, right above the clip-release button. It prevents you from pulling the trigger when there is no clip inserted, so remove the screw, take it and the plate that's sitting below out.

3. Overriding switches and Thermistor removal

You'll want your soldering iron for this part. There are much more cables than in the Stryfe, and I've spent some time trying to figure out which cables are relevant and how the circuit is working. To start, take all switches and cables out of their place to get a better overview.

The jam door is first. Remove all cables (red, pink and blue) on the switch and also take the blue cable off its pole. You should end up like this:

Now the clip detector switch, take off all cables (red, red and white). Also remove the white cable on the pole. Your setup is now:

The thermistor stops your current at higher voltages (in this case at about 11V-12V), so it needs to be removed, too. To do this, take it out of place first.

Note the soldering spots and melt both cables off.

Finally, just solder both yellow ends together.

We need the red cable just a little longer to reach all the way until the main switch slot. You'll need your red cable which you took off earlier now. Solder both red ends together.

Finally, solder the red end to the lower pole of the switch. The yellow cable should still be in place.

Your finished internals should look like this picture (I forgot to put some parts in here). Make sure to route the cables neatly and nothing is in the way of any moving parts.

When you have finished reassembling everything, take the other shell part and screw everything together again.

4. Voltage mod

This mod is quite easy, take your Trustfire Li-Ions and drop in how many you want. You can use any voltage now since the thermistor is removed. Be sure to check out my Basic Voltage Modding Guide for this. I decided to use 2 of them for a total of 8.4V and overrode the 2 other slots with cables.

Done! Congratulations to you for your newly tweaked Rayven. Go out there and dominate your friends now!

You probably noticed that the Elite Rayven also decelerates faster if you either remove the clip or open the jam door. However, I haven't found a method of a Fast Deceleration mod yet. I've tried everything, even accidentally shortened the circuit and almost fried the whole thing. If you have any idea/solution for it, please inform me. Also drop a comment on your thoughts on your "new" Rayven.