BoomCo. Farshot

The Farshot is a single fire pistol from the Mattels range of BoomCo blasters, the new kids on the block

.

Usability

Its been awhile since Nerf have had any real competition in the blasters market and Mattel, Hasbros biggest competitor has arrived on the scene with their BoomCo range of blasters.  The biggest calling card being the smart stick darts that will stick to the packaged targets.  The first point of interest with this blaster is the darts, which are quite unique.  The darts are made of a hollow plastic (kind of like a straw) with a sticky tip that allows it stick the BoomCo target.  And boy do these stick! But unfortunately only to the official targets and not anything else.  They perform fairly well and are easy to use.

The Farshot itself is a very easy blaster to use.  You load one dart into the barrel pull back the slide and fire.  The trigger is reponsive and dart flys with a good amount of velocity.  Reloading is as simple as pushing another dart into the barrel and repeating the above process.

The biggest issue with the Farshot is its size,  the makers have developed this for kids which is fine but it becomes hard to operate for AFON (adult fans of Nerf).

 The pistol grip only takes up about 2/3 of my palm and just feels small.  When I purchased this after reading reviews from other bloggers I was blown away by just how small it is.  This small size also means that priming the blaster can be difficult as often on the first grasp your hand grips the entire top rather than just the slide itself.

The Farshot also features a pop out blaster shield which is covered in the super sticky target material allowing the user to catch opponents darts in the heat of battle.  The shield needs to manually pulled out and isn't a quick process and to be honest doesn't really add much and is more of a hindrance than a help.

Usability Score 6/10

Styling

I am undecided about the styling of the Farshot, the makers have gone for a cool "I'm a skateboarder who enjoys blasters" look.  The packaging is covered in edgy, graffiti like graphics and the blasters features bright reds and blues.  The blaster looks best with the shields down as it provides and an extra cover over the blasters body and has a cool looking target graphic.

The grip is also able to be used for dart storage and features a cool spiderweb type of feature that when the darts are loaded into it adds to the overall look of the blaster.

The addition of a top tactical rail is a neat addition but as of yet there are no BoomCo attachments available in New Zealand to try out on the blaster.

Styling Score 3/5

Performance Distance

Now this is where the Farshot greatly surprised me.  The Smart stick darts which are propelled with good velocity due to their design and simple plunger design of the Farshot blaster lead to an average distance fired of 14.3m (46.9 ft).  This makes it the 9th furthest firing blaster well ahead of the Nitefinder and Strongarm.  It had a maximum distance of 20m (65 ft) which was staggering and a minimum distance of 11m (36 ft).

Performance Distance Score 8/10

Performance Accuracy

The Farshot is an accurate blaster with all 3 darts hitting the intended target.  All darts were within the target rings and the overall score is the highest so far.

Performance Accuracy Score 3.5/10

The Farshot is a good blaster that adds some innovation into the blaster market, the overall size of the blaster is a big negative but its performance statistics are worth looking further at this blaster.

Overall I give this blaster a score of 20.5/35