Review: Nerf Stampede ECS

The Nerf Stampede ECS, was easily last year's most anticipated new release from Hasbro, and in my opinion lived up to the hype, and quickly became one of the most popular foam dart blasters of all time. It is now about 6 months on from the initial release, and it has been one of those Nerf blasters that totally change the way Nerf wars and dart tag is played.

Gotta love macro lenses and Nerf blasters...

In all honesty, I was one of the ones really amped about a fully automatic, clip fed, easily portable blaster. While "full auto" Nerf and Buzz Bee blasters have already been done in the form of the Vulcan and the Auto Tommy 20 respectively, The Stampede promised to be much more portable than the Vulcan, and a lot meaner looking than the tommy 20. So what came in the box? You actually get a fair bit, you receive the blaster, a clip on front shield thing, a really awesome fore grip that turns into a bipod at the press of a button, THREE 18 dart clips, and for some reason, a six dart clip. But not batteries. It requires 6 D-cell 1.5v batteries.

The blaster on it's own is killer, it features a sight built in to the top rail/handle, so if you want to you can add your own scope, 2 side rails to fit lights or ammo holders, another rail on top for the shield (though nothing else fits there, other than a flip up sight which is a bit counter productive...) and 2 rails below the barrel for different positions of the grip/bipod. To turn it on, it has a number of safety features, first it has a switch which looks like a fire select switch on a real gun. then, it will not fire unless both the jam door is closed, and a clip is inserted properly. Once the trigger is pulled, it has a rate of fire of about 3 darts per second max at a range of 30 to 35 feet, which isn't bad. The strange thing is the way it operates. the bolt is open when not firing, when the trigger is pulled it moves forward, loading a dart, then releases the piston and fires the dart once bolt reaches the closed position, then retracts back open and repeats.

The standard setup.

In terms of setups and applications, This is a blaster you would either defend something with, or push forward with quickly. Many people like to say it's the automatic assault rifle of Nerf, but I disagree, I think it's more like a lightweight MG. You can use a 35 dart drum and the bipod for sending out a lot of darts for a long time, like in a base defense situation, however for some reason it tends to jam occasionally with the large drum mag. Moving quickly can sometimes be difficult in a situation where you need to push through and take out the other team quickly, the best way to do this is to strip it down and take a few spare 6 dart clips and just reload every time, which unfortunately leaves you in some sticky spots anyway so the fast moving and tagging job is still better suited to lighter slamfire blasters. Another ideal role for someone using this blaster, is in a team support situation, where the Stampede become invaluable. It could also be great for night time games with the ability to attach 2 lights on the sides, and one on the handle rail, if you wanted to go extra overboard.

Beefed up to dig in and defend.

Slimmed down to move fast

The potential to modify these blasters is great. I already had a Nerf Vulcan, which if you've seen what the Mana Energy folks did with it, you'll know is an absolutely awesome fun time once modded senseless. The Stampede can be modded in the same way for unbelievable rate of fire, and air restrictor removal is a little easier than the Vulcan. Sgnerf has a fantastic mod guide for this blaster, and also a nice mod for a quick release battery sled here. At the moment I have removed the AR from mine, and have it running on 16.5v. I also would like to try a mof that hsn't yet been done as far as i know, but that requires me having a bit more expendable money to be able to do it, so it may be a few weeks before I do it yet.

The only drawbacks I found was the problem of needing batteries, and also the top front rail and bottom rail i found to be pointless for anything other than the attachments provided with the blaster, since not a lot else fits. The grip/bipod scored points for me however, since it's useful on many blasters. I also am very stoked on the ingenuity of the designers of this blaster, making a fully auto clip fed blaster is not an easy task. Overall, I give this blaster a 9 out of 10.