NER Rival Challenger MXXIV-1200

This is an amazing blaster, no if and or buts. The feeding is more reliable than the hopper fed rival blasters, it has solid FPS, is sturdy and just fun, Snag them while you can.

Aesthetics: A bit of an odd/chunky look, but I love the ongoing Accu-Rival color scheme and general aesthetic. I don’t know why they went with a curved magazine, I think that would’ve looked nicer with the Pathfinder or some other rifle-style blaster with a stock and an extended barrel. But that’s just personal preference and does not affect my rating. Performance: I’m super impressed with how the Challenger doesn’t lose power with fast trigger pulls. I’ve used other flywheel blasters that need to “rev back up” after firing an individual dart or round, but the Challenger maintains velocity even when you fire pretty rapidly. I haven’t tested the blaster out in a larger space yet (just in my office), so if I get different results later I’ll update this review. Power Source: The Challenger requires 8 AA batteries, which is a huge bonus over its predecessors in the RIVAL line that require C or D batteries (which are much more expensive). I can’t speak to the battery life on this blaster yet, but in spite of the smaller battery size I’ve been impressed with the power and velocity it has. The included banana magazine did not fit/seat in these NERF RIVAL blasters: Hera, Pathfinder, Mirage, Apollo, Helios These magazines fit & fed in the Challenger: standard 7-round Hasbro magazine, standard 12-round Hasbro magazine, Pathfinder 12-round magazine, Mirage 8-round magazine I’m really happy with this blaster! 5 stars.

By far this is my favorite Nerf blaster I've ever owned. I've had a lot of Nerf blasters growing up over the past 25 years and have had quite a few N-Strike blasters with mags that I really enjoyed but none of them compare to what the Nerf Rival series is now. Some of the great features of this blaster: +It takes AA batteries instead of D or C batteries which a lot of electric blaster take and I really do not like either of those battery forms. I also bought high capacity rechargeable AA (2800mah) batteries specifically for this blaster and have shot over 200 shots with no noticable slow down of the flywheel rev and shot speed. +I got this blaster for $17.99 (on sale 50% off) and for this price point you literally cannot find even a half decent electric blaster. +Rapic fire is easily achieved as I can mag dump (12 or 13 shots) within a matter of seconds with how quickly the flywheels re-rev after a shot. +Decent accuracy at 30ft able to hit a circle diameter of 12inches easily, but I see this blaster as more of a close to medium "assault" weapon, being able to put a lot of shots on target to keep heads down or simply take on multiple opponents quickly. +Reloading is very easy and quick, both in terms of reloading the mags and swapping mags quickly to keep up the stream of foam shots coming. +Has sling mount points for the more serious nerf war players who will take multiple blasters depending on their load out preferences (I got a 4 pack of cheap gun slings and each cost ~$4.25) Some of the negatives: -So good I ended up buying 4 of them... Especially if they on sale for anything lower than $25 -You are going to want to end up getting some extra stuff in addition to this Blaster: 1. Rechargeable AA batteries and charge station Extra ammo (lots of aftermarket dupes that are affordable) 2. Extra magazines as your going to be burning through them with this blaster (again there are aftermarket magazines for the Rival series of Nerf blasters)

It is very good but the fact that it needs 8 cell's makes it bad

If this were backwards compatible to prior Nerf Rival magazines I would happily 5-Star this blaster because it operates very well. It fires the Rival balls at decent velocities with some consistency in muzzle velocity and pretty good consistency (for Rival) in groupings at distances under about 60-65 feet (about 20 meters). That's good for Rival, and while the motors are noisy, they at least stay pretty cool, and I think the thin plastic and the venting help with the cooling, but do increase the noise. I wish the flywheels were better balanced, and better aligned to each other, but at this price point it's a bit much to expect. It fires pretty well - good enough to enjoy competitively or casually. And for either type of use, it's certainly "tactical" in that it's covered in Nerf gauge rails which look a bit like picatinny but it's the Nerf/Hasbro standard toy rail size that's just a bit smaller, so it's more useful for "fake" optics and things designed for Nerf, and besides, you wouldn't put a red-dot sight on this because it would slow you down. Instead you just use rate-of-fire as your friend and correct the next shot based on the last one. 12 rounds is plenty enough per magazine to do it that way, and with Rival that's just how it's done. Sights aren't much help unless they're huge and easy to acquire such as on other of these modern Rival generation blasters that include sights (Fate, Pathfinder, and Vision). PROBLEM with these is the MAGAZINES have changed in a tiny but crucial way so that all these new Rival blasters (light blue and yellow series, various) that are magazine-fed are just not compatible with anything EXCEPT the newer (orange) magazines that come with them. These new Rival blasters simply cannot use the older magazines because the older (mostly clear) magazines lock on the rim, and these new orange magazines lock on a newly-added molded stepped-shape flange of odd shape that isn't present on older magazines. Thus NO BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY to use older Rival magazines without manually holding them up very firmly into the blaster - and that is really absurd since it doesn't even profit Nerf to make them incompatible - because Nerf DOES NOT SELL these new orange magazines separately. If the blaster goes out the magazines are worthless and if the magazine goes out the blaster is worthless. It's just beyond crazy for this design choice to have been made. So the blaster is fine and if you buy 3 or 4 of them that use these new orange magazines then you'll have enough magazines to use maybe 1 or 2 of these blasters, while being careful not to drop your magazine too hard because there is NO WAY to fix them (they have slightly different retention slide also) and NO WAY to replace them. Disappointing problem. But as far as how the blaster works, it's GREAT. 4-Stars. Would be 5-Stars if they either sold replacement magazines or, better yet, designed them to work with ALL PRIOR Rival magazines, which would have been just as easy to do.