“It’s Nerf or nothing.” Remember that phrase? It’s no longer true. Now, it’s either Nerf or this giant honking Sylvester Stallone-in-Rambo machine gun that rains down 72 rounds of flying rubber. Behold: the BOOMco Colossal Blitz.


What Is It?

It’s a full-auto, battery-powered, motorized flywheel blaster that fires 72 shots without reloading—the most of any nerf gun ever made. Only it’s not a Nerf gun. This monster toy comes from BOOMco—the Mattel blaster brand that’s Nerf’s chief rival.


Last year, BOOMco made a splash with a series of blaster that fire super accurate straw-like projectiles with awesome tips that magically stick to targets, but not a single one of the new blasters had the capacity, range, and rate-of-fire to compete with Nerf on the field.

But now, the $80 Colossal Blitz fires 72 rounds... up to 70 feet. Is BOOMco ready for battle?

The Best Part

The look on their faces. No, seriously. I’ve now been on the giving and receiving ends of a 72-dart rampage in a real nerf war... and it is a thing of beauty to watch a stream of colorful ammo shoot up into the sky, and rain down like so many tiny arrows. The sheer amount of firepower here is astounding. Foes react when you come barreling around a corner.


But unlike BOOMco’s Rapid Madness—also a full-auto blaster—the Colossal Blitz has the range and accuracy to back it up. I’ve pegged foes through two-inch gaps in a cement wall. Intentionally. I’ve traded shots with modded Nerf blasters at range, and—occasionally—won.


It doesn’t shoot as far as a well-modded Nerf blaster, mind you, or even the best flywheel ones Nerf has to offer, but gosh does it feel so much more accurate with BOOMco’s Smart Stick darts. Though the full-auto mode is a big draw, I didn’t always feel the need to use it that way for success: you can just flip the mode switch to semi-auto, and have an incredible 72 semi-auto shots before you need to reload. Where Nerf’s similar Rhino-Fire was best suited to being a stationary turret, the Blitz can be a badass rifle.

The Tragic Flaw

It costs $80.

Not including the 6 C-cell batteries you’ll need to make it run.

While you absolutely can reload it in the field—the open ammo drums means you can just slot darts into the sides—it’s still a major pain. This is a fire-until-empty blaster, that you then drop and switch to your dart pistol.


Test Notes

The whole blaster feels incredibly well-built, like you’d expect for $80. Even the click of the acceleration trigger for the flywheel motors feels high-quality.


Unlike the Spinsanity 3X—BOOMco’s other new flywheel blaster, we’ll have a review later this week—I haven’t had a single dart jam. There are mechanisms in both the blaster and the drums themselves to keep the darts perfectly aligned even if you don’t insert them quite right, and they work admirably.

If memory serves, it shoots just a little bit faster than Nerf’s Rhino-Fire.

It takes about 15 seconds to unload all 72 darts on full-auto.


The blaster needs both drums seated before it’ll let you fire, so it’s better to reload while they’re attached.

Still, I wish you could just buy a few additional ammo drums and swap them out. Hell, for $80, it should probably come with a couple extras.


Should You Buy It?

For $80? Sure, if you’ve got a lot to spend on toy blasters, or really, really want to make some kid’s Christmas morning. It’s not the most practical at that price, even though it does work really, really well. I would gladly carry one into battle, but I don’t know if I’d buy it. I’m kind of a cheapskate, though.


If it didn’t cost so dang much, I feel like this could be the turning point for BOOMco. Now that Nerf’s new 70MPH ball-shooting Rival blasters are challenging the Nerf Elite dart hegemony (read: you can carry ammo that isn’t standard nerf darts and not feel terrible about it) there may be a place for BOOMco blasters too.

Mattel says the Colossal Blitz should be on Target shelves next month.


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