As soon as I saw the Tetrashot I was interested in it, I've always enjoyed belt-fed blasters, and I was intrigued by the 4 dart belt links. As soon as it was available online I grabbed one, and I'll almost certainly pick up another one in the future!
Contents
This blaster comes in a pretty typical open face Adventure Force box. Inside you get the blaster, 12 belt links and 98 Buzz Bee long distance darts. There are no instructions included in the box, but the back of the box has operating instructions printed on it.
Overview
The Tetrashot is a rather unique blaster in that it is the only belt fed blaster I know of that holds multiple darts in each link of the belt. Being a Buzz Bee blaster sold under the Adventure Force line, you don't get any Nerf-compatible accessory attachment points. At the front of the blaster is the pump grip, which is a surprisingly large size and very comfortable. Behind that at the top of the blaster is a loading door that opens and closes with a little sliding latch on top of it, much like other belt fed blasters. Further back on top is a standard Buzz Bee tactical rail, but the blaster comes with no accessory to mount on it. The handle, much like the priming handle, is surprisingly good for a Buzz Bee blaster, I have no complaints about its size or ergonomics. I'm glad to see Buzz Bee finally making some decent grips. The back of the blaster has no stock or stock attachment point, but it does have a large flat surface that would make a great spot to attach a stock point.
The belt is 12 links long, and each holds four darts for a total of a 48-dart capacity. Like other Buzz Bee belt blasters, each link is identical to the others and attaches by snapping pegs on one link into indents on the next, allowing you to easily separate and reattach the belt, but also allowing you to accidentally detach the belt a bit easily.
The belt is just the right length that while connected in a circle it can still be easily slid over the front of the blaster and loaded in place.
Operating the blaster is a very unique experience. Instead of advancing the belt each time your prime the blaster, as in every other belt fed blaster, this blaster first rotates through all four shots in each link of the belt, and then advances to the next one. You get four shots, then on the return stroke of the fifth it advances on to the next link in the belt, you fire those four, advance, etc. It really is quite a brilliant system for putting more darts into a belt without making the belt ridiculously long, and in my testing it worked very well for the most part.
Overall, the main thing I noticed about the blaster is just how large it is. From the pictures its somewhat hard to get a sense of how big it is, but it really is quite a large blaster.
Build Quality
As with all Buzz Bee products, the plastic quality is definitely worse than Hasbro, but Buzz Bee has been improving a lot in recent years. The blaster has a bit of flex to it, but no more than any X-Shot or Dart Zone blaster, and the plastic doesn't feel creaky or nearly as cheap as older Buzz Bee products. The belt feels decent, I have no concerns about it breaking, but like the blaster it isn't anywhere near as solid as offerings from Hasbro. The name "Tetrashot" is painted onto both sides of the blaster, and there are no stickers anywhere or any other paint, all the colors are different colored pieces of plastic.
Build Quality Grade: B
Aesthetics
I'm overall really unsure of what I think of the aesthetics of this blaster. I love the overall shape, it definitely looks to me somewhat like a sci fi light machine gun or something, but I'm not sure about the other design choices. The blocks of bright colors spread around the blaster don't really add much to the overall look other than chaos and color for the sake of color, and the shapes molded into the plastic are mostly also just chaotic and overly busy. I think with a stock and a more unified color scheme the blaster could look awesome.
Aesthetics Grade: B+
Performance
Buzz Bee blasters tend to hit a bit harder than their Nerf competitors, but this one is an exception to that. In firing a good number of shots over my chronograph with the included darts, the highest I recorded was 68, with averages around the mid 60s. Now, I now MongooseJake in his review said that his was averaging 70, so maybe I just got a worse one, but I was definitely getting lower performance than the Elite average, with some shots from looser barrels getting very poor performance, around 40s-50s. Definitely not awful, but not as good as I was expecting or hoping for from Buzz Bee.
Performance Grade: B-
Usability
I personally feel like this blaster is fantastic for a lot of game types. Belts are a bit awkward compared to magazines, but they do combine the ability to reload on the fly of a revolver type blaster with the ability to quickly swap out the belt for a new one like a magazine fed blaster. 48 shots in one belt is a LOT, with the ability to reload on top of that I can see this being super good in games where you're going to be scavenging ammo off the ground to top up, and the ability to add links to the belt easily if you get a second blaster means you could extend the capacity for Humans vs. Zombies. I can't see this being great for competitive games, but other than that this is a great blaster. I should also note, the shells have very short dart posts, which allows you to ramrod half darts down the barrels stock and have them engage the air restrictors and fire properly. One slight issue I found with the blaster in my testing that makes it somewhat less reliable and usable is the occasional dart skip. Advancing the belt is a bit difficult, as it is much heavier than most belts, and if you don't move the priming handle forward with enough force on the strokes that advance the belt, it sometimes won't align the next link of the belt with the air restrictors, and as a result won't fire. With some practice, however, this shouldn't be a problem. I did also note that the blaster runs into problems if the belt is used as one long strand rather than connected into a circle, with the weight of the belt hanging loose instead of connected back to itself to maintain symmetry, it pulls the shells out of alignment in whatever direction there are more links hanging. Not a massive problem, but something to be aware of. I'm not sure how well it would do with longer belts, but some sort of ammo box to hold the weight of the belt should solve this problem.
Usability Grade: B+
Mod Potential
I'll be honest, I didn't actually open up this blaster. I do intend to mod it soon, and when I do, perhaps I'll update this with some internal photos, but in the mean time, I would highly recommend checking out MongooseJake's video about the mod potential, he has a great explanation of how the internal mechanisms work. It seems that there's quite a bit one could do to this blaster to make it better, or at least different. The most obvious mod, and one that he's already done, is to turn it into an actual shotgun by forcing it to advance every time you prime it, and fire all 4 shots every time you pull the trigger. As far as more simple mods go, there's plenty of room for a spring upgrade, and the flat back end of the blaster is practically begging for a stock point to be added. Each different colored piece of plastic on the blaster is a separate piece that can be removed, so painting would be quite simple as long as you want each section to be painted separately. With a very slight bit of shell cutting it would be possible to make each barrel of each shell hold two half length darts and fire them together in a shotgun burst, or with a lot of work you could potentially make each barrel an inline clip of two half darts to get 96 shot out of the single belt. I can't wait to see what people come up with for this blaster!
Mod Potential Grade: A
Value For Money
This category is always a win for Buzz Bee, and this blaster is no exception. I bought this blaster on Walmart's website, and it was only $25. For a pump action primary class blaster with a 48 dart capacity, AND slightly more than enough darts to fully load it twice, there's just simply nothing that Nerf can make to compete at this price point. Even Dart Zone and X-Shot are given a run for their money here, this price is ridiculous. Even if Buzz Bee doesn't sell the belts separately, I will almost certainly pick up a second one for a second belt and to do different mods to.
Value For Money Grade: A
Final Grades:
