The Water Warriors Drench Force is the largest of the new Water Warriors brand water blasters released in 2017. It is also the first water blaster in a long time that is advertising an ability for its stream to reach up to 50'. The Drench Force appears to be a syringe-type water blaster with an on-board reservoir, but it features a unique nozzle assembly which may explain why it may be able to achieve its advertised distance.

The Packaging .:

The Water Warriors Drench Force comes in a standard open-style packaging similar to packaging used for other Water Warriors-brand blasters. The Drench Force is held in place by three (3) wire ties that have plastic support anchors on the rear panel to minimize tearing. The majority of the Drench Force is visible and accessible apart from the back and base of the rear handle region. Quite prominently displayed across the bottom front panel are the words: "BLASTS UP TO 50 FEET!" Testing shall determine how accurate this statement is and how easily such range can be achieved.

The back side panel shows a picture of the full blaster along with some inset panels highlighting some of the Drench Force's features. The Drench Force is a pump-action water blaster and does not store any pressure; as the images on the back show, this water blaster operates by extending the rear handle out from the back of the blaster, then pushing/squeezing it forward to unleash the stream. There is a slight catch for operating the Drench Force that is alluded to by the diagrams on the back; we shall discuss this further below.

Design .:

The design of the Water Warriors Drench Force is like a much more technical and modern re-design of the old Power Soaker Mighty Cannon (1994). Featuring a fixed, top-mounted reservoir with a tethered, valved screw cap, clear indication where one's hands should be placed on the body and back of the blaster, and additional detailing and texturing, the Water Warriors Drench Force is a notable departure in design from previous Water Warriors-brand water blasters. The reservoir has a wave/tsunami-like printed stick on its side; something not previously seen on Water Warriors-brand blasters before. Its name, "Drench Force", is also tampo-printed on its right side.

Build and Ergonomics .:

The Water Warriors Drench Force is fairly easily to fill via its tethered cap, though its side and length may make it more difficult to fill from some sinks (hoses, bottles, or tall-faucets, preferred). The water blaster is a little top-heavy when loaded, but the positioning of the grips helps improve the balance in one's hands. The forward grip and rear grip regions of the Water Warriors Drench Force are comfortable to hold with the rear-grip region, despite still featuring a fake trigger, being very nicely sculpted and large enough to accomodate all but the largest of hands. The water blaster, overall, feels fairly sturdy and well-built; even when the pump is extended, the rounded-rectangular pump rod feels rigid and not readily prone to breaking. The pump slide very smoothly, activating and toggling the nozzle valve state at its extreme positions (more on that below). When the pump is extended, this results in most of the Drench Force's weight typically being placed on one's non-dominant hand, but thankfully the fairly centered positioning of the forward grip region helps.





Overall Performance .:

Through appearing and generally operating like a pump-action water blaster, the Water Warriors Drench Force is actually slightly different. Specifically, unlike the typical nozzle one-way nozzle found on the majority of pump-action water blasters, the Water Warriors Drench Force's nozzle valve actually opens and closes based on the position of the pump. When the pump is not extended and flush with the water blaster's body, the nozzle valve is closed. The valve remains closed until the pump reaches full extension, at which time a door-hinge-type mechanism swings and snaps to the open position. The nozzle valve then remains open until the pump is compressed back and the pump grip returns to its initial starting position, flush against the blaster; then the swing-valve snaps closed. This configuration results in a few things to note:

if one does NOT fully extend the pump to open the nozzle valve and attempt to blast, one will fight against a closed valve resulting in water spluttering out;

once the valve is open, if the water blaster is being held fairly level or only partially angled up, some water will begin dripping out of the pump since the pump shaft ends up completely open/unobstructed; if the nozzle is pointed downwards when the valve is open, a lot more water will drain out;

pushing water out once the valve is open has virtually no resistance and streams produced are extremely laminar (this may explain how this blaster is able to achieve and boast up to 50' ranges); and

if the pump grip is not pushed all the way back to toggle the nozzle valve back into the "closed" position, pulling on the pump will not draw any additional water into the pump (since the pump shaft is open to air)

All that said, streams produced by the Water Warriors Drench Force are extremely laminar and require significantly less effort than producing lower-output streams from a pump-action water blaster wherein one must push against a nozzle valve throughout the stream-generation-step. Check out the near perfect lamination from the shot test video I took (I use these videos to help me determine shot time and output for pump-action water blasters, but have no plans to post them online since their quality are rather poor). While shot time is less than a second, output is estimated beyond a 10x stream! Pushing 160mL per blast, the Water Warriors Drench Force will do some serious soaking when the stream connects to its target.

One unfortunately by-product of the blast cycle is that a non-trivial amount of water that seems to exit too slowly from the nozzle and ends up caught by the Drench Force's casing, subsequently dribbling out of one of the drain holes at the base of the blaster. As such, one must remain a little wary how one holds this water blaster when using it, otherwise expect to get unintentionally wet.

Update: Once weather was more cooperative, range tests were performed. The Drench Force tested did not quite seem to reach 50', but came close with streams reaching up to ~46' (~14m). What was noticed during range testing is that while the streams exiting the nozzle were quite laminar, since it is difficult to keep a syringe-type water blaster consistently pointed when blasting, the movement of the nozzle during pumping led to overall loss of stream coherence and lower functional range than theoretical. Perhaps others may be able to achieve better distances with their Drench Force water blaster if their aim is more stable. For me, the functional range of our Drench Force fall generally within 40'-45'.

For now, the only other shortcoming for the Water Warriors Drench Force has nothing to do with the actual blaster, but rather its availability. For 2017, the Drench Force only appears available at Shopko (a US Mid-West retailer). Whether this will change in the future remains to be seen.

In the end, the Water Warriors Drench Force takes on the standard pump-action water blaster and significantly improves on its performance, though also requiring a little more care to use it properly. Though outclassed by larger, pressurized water blasters, the Water Warriors Drench Force easily outclasses most pump-action and smaller pressurized water blasters. While actual performance depends somewhat on the user, most should find this water blaster easy to use well. Great for medium to full-size battles, the Water Warriors Drench Force should make for a solid addition to most people's armouries; just be aware of the minor dribbling that sometimes occurs post-blast.

Pros

Decent styling; sturdy build; great lamination and output; good range

Cons

Pump must be fully extended and contracted for the nozzle valve to work properly; incomplete pumping will result in very poor performance; blaster dribbles a bit after each shot (side-effect of the nozzle technology); stream performance somewhat user-dependent

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Related Content .:

Product Listing Page | Water Warriors Product Evolution Tree

Additional Resources

Water Blaster: Basics | Care, Cleaning, and Storage | Soaker Use: Basics |Repair Articles