Toy Review: Nerf Dart Tag Quick 16 Blaster

In the never ending quest to provide children and children-at-heart the chance to safely run around shooting each other with foam dart firing toy blasters and make money doing so, Hasbro has released another series of Nerf blasters for the occasion. The Dart Tag line is new to me since I have been more familiar with Hasbro's N-Strike line.

The main difference between the two is that people are meant to actually use the Dart Tag line of toy blasters to shoot each other. The Dart Tag line primarily uses a special Velcro tipped dart that sticks to certain types of clothing'"like the polyester Dart Tag jerseys sold separately'"so hits against people are accurately recorded. For 2011, Hasbro unveiled the Speedload 6 workhorse blaster, the Sharp Shot sidearm, the fully automatic Swarmfire, and the slam-firing Quick 16.

Given my personal shooting style of controlled covering fire as noted in reviewing the Raider CS-35 and the Alpha Trooper CS-18, I opted for the Quick 16 since it too featured the battery-free rapid slam-firing feature like its N-Strike brethren. That and its similar lengths are about all they have in common. The Quick 16 feels more solid than the N-Strike line while still maintaining a light feel when held. It lacks tactical rails for ancillary N-Strike accessories that never really functioned well during a Nerf war. It truly is a functional shooter. The Quick 16 fires the aforementioned Nerf Dart Tag darts and includes sixteen of them. Alternatively, the Quick 16 can also fire the similarly sized and shaped Sonic Micro darts. It fires the Nerf suction cup darts with less accuracy or power and Nerf Streamline Clip darts simply jam the blaster.

The main feature is its 16-round clip that makes the blaster look like a nail gun, but the clip is a misnomer. The clip itself is permanently attached to the blaster so there is no way to swap in a fresh one when empty. Instead, the clip is a reservoir for darts that are fed from the top of the blaster. The Speedload 6 shares the same loading system. Players simply feed up to 16 darts into the blaster's opening, pump the forward handle, and pull the trigger to fire. Alternatively, players can hold down the trigger while rapidly pumping the forward handle to slam-fire dart after dart in a rapid fire. The darts fly fast but sacrifice some accuracy. In any case it sure provides cover fire.

This new loading system has potential. During a Nerf War, players armed with the Quick 16 can pick up previously shot darts off the ground and directly loading it into the blaster. Reloading on the fly saves time during war and requires less coordination than stuffing darts in the pocket to reload later or loading them into individual clips.

Decent firing rate, durability, no ancillary accessories to fiddle with, and a reasonable $19.99 price tag. All in all, the Quick 16 is a definite good buy for the summer Nerf War season.