Nerf Rival Finisher XX-700

Its finally here! I remember when I first saw this blaster in videos from Toy Fair, I thought it would probably become the new most popular Rival blaster, almost making the Kronos obsolete. The combination of a small size, low price and being magazine fed, plus the added feature of being able to reload the magazine while it's still in the blaster seems almost perfect. But is it? Well... kinda?

Contents

In the open front box you get the blaster itself, the magazine, seven rounds, and some instructions. Nothing special here, its pretty much just exactly what you'd expect to get. 

Overview

Upon first glance, the Finisher looks a lot like a Kronos, but with a magazine sticking out the bottom instead of an internal magazine. And thats essentially pretty much what it is. Like the Kronos, there's a top slide for priming, a safety, and an unjamming button, but unlike the Kronos, there's no hole on the top to load rounds, and instead there's a magazine well on the bottom with an almost Buzz Bee style button mag release. Pushing the magazine release slightly pops the magazine out, which is convenient. The prime feels about as heavy as a Kronos, but the priming handle is a bit mediocre, it has nice grippy grooves on the top, but the sides are just smooth glossy plastic, so I found that my hand wanted to slide off. It would be quite easy to add some grip tape or something similar to improve this, however. When the slide is in the rear position, the front of the barrel sticks out slightly, allowing it to chamber a round.

The other major problem I noticed right away is that the trigger is just simply awful in my opinion. For one thing, it has no contour to it at all and is simply a vertical slab of plastic. But the main issue is how it feels to pull. As you'll see in the internals pic below, there isn't a trigger spring, and it instead uses a plastic spring to return the trigger, and you can feel it. I don't really know how to describe the feeling of pulling the trigger, but it feels too heavy and just... not right? Honestly it feels exactly like it has a plastic spring and not a proper spring. The safety feels similarly awful, almost as if you're going to break something internally every time to flip it to safe. Luckily at least, I won't be needing to touch that as much as the trigger. There is also no jam door on this blaster, but I found that since the magazine well is quite shallow, it was easy enough to reach my fingers up into the breech from the bottom. 

The magazine that this blaster comes with is a 7 round opaque magazine, and it has a little gimmick. On the side is a small nub that can be pulled down to the bottom, where it latches, revealing a 3 round long hole on the side of the magazine through which it can be reloaded. 

This means that its possible to top up the mag while it is still in the blaster, kinda like how the X-Shot Meteor works. As a feature, this works fairly well, except for the glaring issue that you need to have at least two rounds in the magazine, or the little nub to open the loading gate is up inside the shell of the blaster and you can't actually get to it. I came up with a simple fix for this, but as designed it simply makes the magazine's main feature just not work as well as it should. This magazine is also not compatible with any other Rival blasters, but luckily all the other Rival magazines are compatible with the Finisher itself. 

Build Quality

As expected for a Nerf product, the finisher feels solidly build overall, and the plastic feels great. There are, however, a few exceptions. As I mentioned above, the blaster uses very few springs internally, relying instead on plastic springs for most internal springs. This is quite evident upon using any of the controls, they just don't feel as smooth as springs would, and everything just feels very slightly off. Once you know they're plastic springs thats exactly how I would describe the feeling, but if I didn't know, I would just think they felt a bit like they were designed poorly or didn't fit together right internally. Its not a deal breaker, but after recent blasters that just feel super good to use, like the Takedown, the Finisher feels notably, if slightly worse. 

Build Quality Grade: B+

Aesthetics

I'm still not 100% certain what I think of the aesthetics. Overall I like the look of it, but there are a few minor things that kinda frustrate me about the look. One thing that I honestly do like is that there's no paint on the blaster at all. Everything that is a color is colored plastic. While that does make it maybe look a bit cheaper, it also means that we don't have to deal with the usual one painted side and one unpainted side that we've come to expect from Hasbro blasters. I think overall this makes it look quite a bit better than it would with just paint on one side. 

My other biggest aesthetic disappointment is that the back half of the blaster, from right in front of the priming handle all the way to the back, is just smooth glossy plastic, while the grip is nicely textured and matte and the front half is lightly textured and also matte. It isn't a huge deal, but its just kinda weird to have different surface finishes on half the blaster. It also kinda annoys me that at the front right above the barrel there are three molded indents in the shell, except that the front one is fully cut out and is a hole and the back two are the same size and shape but aren't real holes. Overall though I'm just nitpicking, it matches the overall design language of the other Rival blasters and I think it looks quite cool. 

Aesthetics Grade: B

Performance

Another category without too much to say, this blaster hits pretty standard Rival velocities. I got an average of slightly above 90 fps on my chronograph, which is pretty much exactly what I expected. Not anything super special, but definitely good. 

Performance Grade: A-

Usability

I have to admit, this thing is quite usable. Being a decent performance magazine fed compact Rival blaster means it would work great as a primary, but could also potentially be used as a secondary, although the magazine sticking out would make it difficult to holster. As a primary, I'm sure we'll soon see mods to turn it into pump action, and mods to add a stock attachment point, which would turn it into a proper primary. I know I will definitely be using it in games quite a bit, it will be a great option for when I don't want to carry around something large, but I still want magazine fed and Rival performance. The included magazine will be very useful for scavenging ammo, and I love that I can top it off easily but also carry extra magazines in case I need to just swap mags instead. Now if we could just get that 30 round Rival drum actually released I can only imagine how much fun that would be in this blaster. 

As far as just reloading the magazine though, I will say, reloading an empty mag from the side port instead of the top was slower in my tests, although maybe if I got used to it I could load more at a time. Reloading while the mag is in the blaster is also not as fast as it is with some other blasters, as the loading port isn't at the top or the bottom, meaning you have to load rounds between other rounds. Just kinda shoving them in does work though, since the Rival rounds don't get destroyed like darts do. 

Usability Grade: A

Mod Potential

This is a category that I'm not really sure about. This blaster can obviously take upgrade springs, and I'm sure you could get some better performance out of it, but the plastic springs might be a limiting factor. Sure, they don't matter as much for the mag release and safety, but the catch spring is also a plastic spring, and I am unsure how that will hold up to heavier spring loads. The part that the slide attaches to that actually pulls back the plunger is also plastic in plastic, without any metal pins, so a crazy heavy spring might also eventually cause that to break. 

Now, I have already modded mine, about an hour after I got it out of the package. There was one feature that drove me crazy, the fact that it was advertised that you could reload the magazine while it was still in the blaster, yet if you had less than two rounds in the magazine, the nub you pull to open the magazine's loading port was fully up inside the shell. The instructions don't actually even say anything about reloading the magazine while its in the blaster, and it is only possible to load one round at a time with the mag inserted. That being said, I knew we could easily solve the problem of not being able to load it in the blaster when it has less than two rounds in it. I simply used my dremel to remove the plastic over the top of the nub,

 

and then used a tiny bit of epoxy putty to extend the nub so you can get to it even when it is inside the blaster. I also re-added groves to the top of my epoxy putty to match those on the original part, to make it easier to grab. 

All in all this mod took about five minutes and should bring the blaster up to what it should have been originally. 

Mod Potential Grade: B+

Value for Money

Surprisingly, this blaster only costs $15. I would have honestly expected this to cost at least $20, given how Hasbro usually prices, so I was very happy to get it for $14.99. I guess having no paint and replacing metal springs with plastic saved enough money to achieve the lower price, and I have to say, for $15 its totally worth it. This might become the blaster I start recommending to people as a first blaster for HvZ or just in general. At that price point getting a blaster AND a magazine that has a unique feature is about as much as you could possibly hope for. Now, would I pay $20 if I could also get metal springs and paint on both sides? 100%. But for what it is, $15 is a surprisingly low price from Hasbro. Of course, you can still get other brands of blasters with proper springs and paint for the same price if not less. 

Value for Money Grade: A-

Final Grades

I'm still not certain how I feel about this blaster. Is it a great price for what you get? Definitely. Is it a fun and fairly good looking blaster? Definitely. Will it replace the Kronos or be the best Rival magazine fed blaster? Almost certainly not. It has a lot of great features at a great price, but the noticeable drop in quality for a Hasbro blaster isn't ideal, and the gimmick only kinda works.