Is it really worth making a blaster that can only be used with one hand and then having it become a muzzle-loader that needs a second hand? Thats the first thing we wondered about the BOOMco Whipblast, which is otherwiseone of the more interestingpiecesto come from Mattels new blaster brand. We are not judging you if this glaring flaw is enough to keep you from admiring this blaster.
The BOOMco Whipblast, a medium-sized blaster, is priced at about the same price as the BOOMco Whipblast. Its not too big, not too complicated, and not too expensive for consumers to consider purchasing it even if they dont own any other BOOMco products. Inside the highly stylized BOOMco packaging is asingleWhipblast Blaster with built in shields, 4 Smart Stick darts, and a circular Smart Stick Target with a sticky backing. The Whipblast is a smaller blaster with one less dart and no unique functionality for a fraction of the price of the BOOMco Farshot.
Design and Ergonomics
The Whipblast features the same color palette as the BOOMco family, with a slightly more circular (and admittedly somewhat odd-looking) sling fire handle. This theoretically allows for faster loading by flicking the wrist. This D-shaped handle is a closed-off design, which means those with larger hands might feel as though the Whipblast is on the cramped side. A trigger guard that is also a little too small does not help. To help stabilize things, a second hand cannot be placed above the firing hand because of the sling-fire handle design. A second hand can be placed only awkwardly above the handle arc or below the muzzle. This blasters party trick is one-handed. Perhaps a second hand could be used to hold ammo or do other tasks, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Another aspect of the BOOMco Whipblast design that we think is important is that the under-muzzlelocation for spare daggers in the quad barrel is somewhat impractical for a blaster intended to be used at high speed. On more than one occasion, we had darts fly right out of the blaster and land several feet away. We had this happen directlyfrom the muzzle itself, too, not just the storage slots. Although we tried to ensure that the darts were properly seated, sometimes it didn’t seem to matter. Sometimes darts would just fly out of the muzzle and leave no dart in the chamber. It didnt happen consistently enough for us to determine a cause, but it did happen.
Performance and Use
It takes some practice to master the Whipblast. In order to fire, you must first hold down the blue button underneath the trigger, thengive it aforceful flick of the wrist, such that the blaster body pivots downward around the sling-fire handle.
Once it reaches about 3/4 of the way around the handle, the Whipblast is fullyprimed. Flicking the blaster back up locks it into place, upon which a shot can be fired. But if you whip the blaster
tooIt locks at the other end forcefully, putting the Whipblast in defense mode. Thus locked, you can then defend yourself by holding up the blaster in a sort of backwards orientation with the shields facing your opponent. The shields are too small for any defense, so firing is prohibited. But it looks kind of cool and makes for a good bullet-point on the box. Although it is not easy to master the Whipblast, it can be done.
Now we are back to the big problem. Even after youve figured out the priming and firing mechanic, and youre all ready for some one-handed Whipblast action, you quickly realize that you still need a second hand to load darts into the blasters muzzle. This is a frustrating moment. moment that had us frustrated on more than one occasion, as we flicked the blaster into firing position, only to realize we didnt have a dart loaded. We have to reach out with our other hand and pull the dart from the holder under the muzzle. Once it is in place, we can aim again. It would have been soooo much cooler if the Whipblast automatically advanced the next shot during the flicking action, such that you could prime, chamber a round, and fire, all with a single hand. Can you imagine someone coming at you while dual-wielding a Whipblast, flicking and firing at you left and right in a non-stop wave of darts? We can, and it would have been totally incredible. But you cant do that here, and were bummed.
The good news is that this is where the bad news ends. Once you have figured out how to fire a slide, or any other mechanism, you will no longer need to hold darts in one hand. This leaves you free to prime, aim, and fire in the one hand, while holding and loading darts fromthe other. Once you have mastered this process, your rate-of fire is quite solid. With some practice, we were able to pull off 4 shots in 6.5 seconds, which isnt terrible for a muzzle-loader (granted, our accuracy between shots was pretty horrible, but thats not what we were testing here).
This will allow you to reload and fire faster than with other Nerf muzzle loaders, which require your opposite hand involvement in order to prime the blaster.
Despite the glaring usability oversight in making this one-handed wonder a muzzle-loader, we generally came away satisfiedwith the other key performance aspects of the Whipblast. In our height-limited office setting, we reached a max shooting distance of 20.0 m, which is right on-par with other BOOMco blasters, and easily a good 2.1 m farther than our max distance with the (ironically-named) Farshot. Our average velocity readings were 17.1 m-per-second, with a low of 48 and a high of 61. And once again, our rate-of-fire was a respectable 0.6 darts per second using the technique described above. Lastly, accuracy with the Whipblast was just like every other BOOMco blaster, which is to say, very good overall and much better than typical Nerf products.
Value and fun
With high expectations, we have been to many BOOMco reviews. Ironically, these expectations were created by Mattel by inventing blasters with mechanics that are different from what we would see on a Nerf blaster. The problem, to-date, is that in almost every instance, there has been some kind of oversight that prevented them from living up to expectations. The Farshotwas simple to use, but it didnt actually shoot that far. Rapid Madness was a great performer but it didn’t have enough clips to make our fun last more than 2 seconds. The Twisted Spinner needed a trigger and internal mechanisms that were stronger. Rounds and Magazine contained Rounds that didn’t stick to anything, except for a target doesn’t stick to. Now we have the Whipblast, which allows you to whip but requires a pause to reload between blasts. It may sound like we are being harsh, but that is because we are huge fans of BOOMco. Mattel’s Smart Stick line is smart, dart accuracy and the blasters bring something new to the party. So when we appear to be overly harsh, know that its because we want BOOMco to be a success.
And we know that can only happen if they continue to refine their products, especiallyin regard tocore elements of what makes a good blaster: range, ergonomics, capacity, reload times, and reliability.
The BOOMco Whipblast is a great product that we think is just as fun to use as any Nerf product. We would even say it is more fun. You really need to experience the flicking motion to understand how it works. Once you master it, you’ll be able to do it again and again. The muzzle-loading feature limits the one-handed action, which could have made the blaster more competitive to other products such as the Nerf Zombie Strike Hammershot. But in every other way, wed say its at least as fun as that product, and its a lot of fun in its own rightperiod. We cannot wait to see what Mattel does next.
