Setups: Gear Up Recon

Before I get back in to the action here on this blog, I'll need to do an announcement. The reason why I've been away from this blog lately is a very special reason; on the 7th of November 2012, my long time partner and I became first time parents to a beautiful baby girl. I know that most of my readership probably aren't parents, but those who are will definitely understand that Nerfing becomes a back seat project when you become a parent, but you do learn to balance all aspects of your life eventually. Perhaps one day we'll share the same interests (my dad and I are both motor racing fans and well in to bicycles) but for now, her priorities are firmly set on eating, sleeping and burping (tough life much?).

But don't fear! For I am still here. Today I bring a setup to the floor, my personal Gear Up Recon. Over time, this has seen a few different changes but with Slydev 3D products starting to gather steam, the options are ever expanding and it's now possible to have enough accessories on a Recon to sink a ship.

For this set up I have here, I've used a Slydev triple Nerf rail adapter on the lower rail of the Longstrike barrel to be able to mount both a light and a foregrip, as well as anything else I want on the other side (Jolt connector perhaps?). Top side I've got a Slydev phone mount on the slide rail. This piece can be bought with an Iphone 4 case already glued on, or bought separately to glue your own phone case on. You can then record footage from your phone as a gun mounted camera, or if you're really keen, use it for communication between team mates (send a photo of the opponent's base back to your team?). Moving back, You'll notice the duct tape mag pouch, an adaptation of HDingo's YouTube tutorial. Top all that off with an N-Strike bandolier and a 12 dart elite mag in the blaster, and that is how you load the Nerf Recon like a pack-horse. hope you enjoy! -Rolley

Nerf "gear up" Recon review

The brightly coloured "Gear Up" series of Nerf N-Strike blasters are *Finally* hitting Australian stores, so the other day I went and picked up a Recon and a Maverick, which were the only two available locally that I've heard of so far. I've been meaning to get this review done for a few days, but the main camera lens I use to take decent quality photos for this blog was stolen on friday afternoon, and I can't replace it for some time. In the meantime, I've cleaned up an old Pentax lens and used an adapter ring to fit it to my camera body, so I apologize if the quality isn't up to standard, but it's all I've got.

The first thing I can say about this gear up Recon, is that it is orange. And by orange, I mean the kind of orange that's so bright it'll burn the retinas of your enemies. I have seen photos of these before and just thought they were over-saturated, but no, it's REALLY orange. But, I think it looks pretty good. These photos just don't do it justice.

Of course, the Nerf Recon has been around since the very early times of the N-strike series and has stayed available the whole time, which it's worthy of. It's the blaster that can be customized in so many different combinations it's hard to decide what you want it to look like! Thanks to having both a barrel adapter AND a stock adapter, you can put and Nerf barrel or stock on, so it can be a sniper rifle, a sub machine gun, an assault rifle, even a pistol. And on top of all that, there's 2 rails on the barrel, one on the cocking slide to attach scopes, lights, sights and foregrips, even a Nerf strikefire blaster under the barrel, AND an extra clip can be stored in the stock. That's a serious amount of stuff you can do with it straight out of the box! Unfortunately, not much will suit the bright orange colours, so if you don't like painting then you're probably better off with a standard Recon. If you do, most Nerf gear has some orange or black on it already, so it's just a case of painting everything else black (longstrike barrels work well).

Alright, so what about performance? Well, out of the box you can expect 30 foot ranges, nothing spectacular, and until recently modding was mostly cosmetic as there isn't much you could do with a reverse plunger style mechanism inside. But, Orange Mod Works has come to the rescue and started developing mod kits to get great performance out of the Recon, once again giving it more appeal. Cosmetic mods are also something that this blaster is a great platform for, I've seen the Recon turned in to an M4A1, a pulse rifle, small pistol and integrated in to other blasters, so you might say the word "versatile" is an understatement.

Honestly, I love the Nerf Recon. It's clip fed, can be anything you want it to be, can now be modded easily with a simple drop in mod kit by Orang Mod Works, and usually pops up at the price of $23AU quite often. There is so little I can fault about the Nerf Recon, about the only thing that stops it from being a perfect 10, is the fact that it's a little awkward cocking this blaster, but that can be solved with a mod to add a bolt handle. So, this blaster gets a 9.5/10 flying potatoes.