BOOMco. Rapid Madness Blaster

The first Rapid Madness I ordered from Amazon was actually a dud. I didn't realize it at first and thought the problems (not firing every round in the magazine, some rounds not getting enough force to leave the barrel) was just bad overall product design. I've updated my review to reflect the use of a working blaster.A couple months later I found out that mine was just a bad one out of the batch. Amazon and Mattel (The seller and the manufacturer) were each more than willing to help me out. Mattel offered a prepaid label to ship it back without any hassle, though Amazon beat them to the chase and gave me a flat out refund, without having to send the dud back. This turned out to save me an additional aggravation when the blue rapid madness I ordered to replace it came with a defective magazine/clip, as the clip from the dud is working perfectly with the replacement.This brings me to the blaster itself. The new one one is absolutely magnificent. The gun is air powered, and takes about 15 full pumps from the handle under the barrel to fully "charge". On the fifteenth pump, the air tank vents, which may alarm some people since the instructions call for a full 18 pumps. It does however fully empty its included 20 dart clip on a full 15 pump charge. If you ordered a 40 dart clip to go with yours like I did, the full charge gets me about 23-25 darts fired before requiring more air.The grip on the air pump feels comfortable, and rotates to fit your hand. Most adults actually get tired from pumping it all the way up though, and this can be the first major detraction to the blaster. It gets its name for its ability to shoot 20 darts in less than 3 seconds. This is a beautiful thing, but pumping it for 30 seconds and spending 5 minutes collecting the darts, and then reloading it can be a hassle. This work pays off however when you surprise all your nerf wielding friends, one at a time, with a hail of darts that sends them running. Once they know what this blaster can do, the mere sight of this massive gun can send them running for a defensive position.That said, once you've shown them the true glory of the Rapid Madness, you can switch to my favorite strategy, pumping the gun two or three times before firing one or two rounds, using it more as a burst fire blaster instead of a fully automatic and wasting all your ammo at once. This also keeps your arm from tiring out as quickly, and with pumps here and there while waiting for targets, may allow you to build pressure up over time with less arm fatigue. When your done playing, the blaster has an air release valve on the left side, kind of a small oval on the larger circle. Pressing this button while the trigger is held down should allow you to remove the stored air. You don't need to pull the trigger to release air, but it seems like it vents faster and more completely when you do, so try to keep your hands away from it when your still shooting darts. Leaving it pumped up when out of use may decrease the air bladder's efficiency over time.When you do run out of ammo, reloading is a pain, and you'l probably lose a few darts, which is why it includes a spare ten darts (30 in total) out of the box. One of Boomco's greatest advantages with its clip system, is that they've prepared a number of solutions to have spare ammunition ready, assuming you have some extra cash for it. You can order more clips, preferably the 40 dart clip for about 10 bucks here on Amazon(and ten bucks cheaper than Walmart XP). They also have the rapid reload system, essentially a small gun and accessory rack for 15 bucks or less. That device has removable trays designed to fit rounds directly into your clip (though not always perfectly smooth) and pull it out sideways to quickly refill it. Lastly, there's a rail accessory for about 5 bucks on their website that attaches to the gun. That works similarly to the tray from the rapid reload system, except it folds in half and slides onto your gun's accessory rail. When you run out of ammo, just remove the empty clip from the gun and push it over one side of the accessory, and pull it out sideways, and then do that for the other side of the clip. If you go the clip route, they sell a bandoleer for as little as 2.50 each in a four pack somewhere on amazon right now, which has a holster for a clip and a small backup boomco gun.The blaster has a total of three accessory rails, one at the front intended for it's flip open shield. One larger one at the top/middle of the gun because they probably expect you to have the shield occupying the first, and a third running between the handle and the butt of the gun. You can also find two clip points for a carrying strap on the top of the gun. If you opt for the rail reload accessory or the "grenades" called rounds, not to be confused with my use of the word rounds for the darts, this gives you plenty of options to attach them to the blaster. Getting to the ammunition, the blaster uses plastic rounds, kind of like soda straws but sturdier. They are NOT compatible with nerf darts, or vice versa. The dart tips are covered with a material called "smart stick", which is almost gelatinous but manages only to stick to dirt, hair, and Boomco's specially treated targets. I've heard they will stick to photo paper, so be careful about leaving unframed pictures near the play zone. Assuming the dart is free of dirt (and even then it sticks pretty good), letting it drop from your hand directly onto the treated target or shield without any force other than gravity is enough force for it to stick. This is very impressive to see, and the blaster comes with a large peel and stick target so you have some way to make use of the smart stick. With the force of a blaster behind it, they stick so well you have to hold the paper down with your hands and tug the dart out with some force to remove it. When they get dirty, you can just rinse them off in water and pluck any stuck hairs out. I like to rinse them off in a clip and set them down to dry, rather than wash dart by dart or soak them all in water and try to dry them out that way.The flip out shield is a nice idea, but I don't like to use it. I hate that its essentially a holder for a treated piece of smart stick paper, rather than being directly coated with the material. I suppose this is because the chemical can get ripped off over time, and they probably wanted you to be able to replace it, though the prospect of trying to glue new paper is not amusing. Neither is my fear of accidentally tearing the paper off the shield, so I generally detach it from the blaster. For the curious, the shield will not work on the middle rail, I did manage to attach it to the handle/butt rail, but it didn't seem comfortable there.I think I've covered everything I can think of, I hope this information will be of use to other enthusiasts. I cant explain how fun it is to hear this gun popping as it fires a steady blurred stream of darts, and for me the drawbacks are outweighed by the fun, which is why I go with five stars despite them. If you know the faults ahead of time, it really is a great blaster, and I hope to see another air powered blaster from Mattel to succeed it.

At first this blaster was ton of fun. The rapid fire rate and the sticky darts were very impressive features; however, within two months the gun stopped firing. It seemed as though the pressure system has begun to malfunction and now the toy no longer works. I only used it to occasionally scare my dog and I never participated in any of these "wars" that I read about, so if your looking for something that can endure abuse or multiple outings--this is not the toy.

Works sporadically. Would not recommend for the money. Great fun When it works.

Nice item, would suggest mode change option from automatic to single. Air storage needs enhancement to stor more ammount.

I can feel it leaking air but i'm not sure from where. I'd caulk that baby right up but it still fires. I think the customs overseas smashed the box up like apes. Came in crushed. All I wanted was to have a nerf war but it was a genecide.

This gun is quite remarkable. So different from other toy guns out there today. My son loves Nerf guns. He has almost every single Nerf gun type available. None of them can do what this gun can do. AND it doesn't need batteries. One of my son's battery-operated Nerf Guns has had 3 battery changes already within 2 weeks. This BOOMCO Rapid Madness Blaster utilizes air pressure (so yes, you must pump it). It may be tough to pump for any child less than 8 years of age, so beware. I would recommend buying a bigger clip that stores more bullets. The 20-bullet clip it comes with just runs out so quickly. A neat trick we've learned = use the shield that the bullets stick to (the target) to pick up spare bullets if they're all over the floor, so you don't have to bend over and pick up one by one. All in all, AWESOME GUN! I ended up getting 2 of these bad boys.

Impressive performance and speed. All the talk at the office.As I noted in the Q&A, I found this ukulele case works for transportation acceptably but it's not perfect. I haven't tried stowing the extra magazines in it yet. Bonus points for the desperado reference.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GNI6QBU/ref=cfb_at_prodpg

I would love to be able to review this product, but I cannot, considering that it never worked. Thank goodness I assembled it and tried it out before gifting it to my niece, because it was broken from the start. Everything is assembled correctly, but nothing happens when the trigger is pulled. Absolute junk. So here I am, 6 days before Christmas, scrambling to find another gift while waiting to get my money back on this. I expected much, MUCH more out of a $50 toy.