From quietly stalking a foe, waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger and deliver
the winning shot that will take out the enemy, to expertly dodging and weaving through the
battlefield while avoiding enemy fire, to launching a devious sneak attack on an unsuspecting
victim - who doesn’t love a good Nerf battle?
The Nerf gun is a ubiquitous toy beloved by children and adults alike, but how does a
Nerf Gun work?
Nerf guns - or Nerf Blasters as their creator, the toy company Hasbro, prefers to call them
- are an incredibly popular toy that have been around since the early 1990s.
The first Nerf guns, introduced in 1991, were the Nerf Blast-a-Ball and the Arrowstorm,
a toy revolver that shot Nerf’s now famous foam darts.
Today, there are more than 21 different lines of Nerf guns and dozens and dozens of different
models of guns - and that’s not even counting the many discontinued lines from years past!
Add in a plethora of accessories, like scopes and sights, dart holders and even cameras,
plus crossovers with other popular brands like Marvel, Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers,
Fortnite and Halo, and it’s easy to see why Nerf guns remain one of the most popular
toys on the market.
Most modern Nerf guns shoot the same standard foam darts as the 90s models, and can reach
speeds of around 30 miles per hour.
But many of the more advanced models have come a long, long way from the days of the
Arrowstorm.
The Hail Fire comes with 8 magazines that hold 18 darts each, and it can shoot all 144
of its darts in just 30 seconds at amazing speeds of 50 miles per hour.
The RIVAL series, designed for older kids and grown-up kids at heart, can shoot darts
at a staggering 75 miles per hour.
Some of the most advanced Nerf guns don’t come cheap - the N-Strike series’ Vulcan
and Longstrike models retail for more than $500 each, and they have a range of more than
35 feet.
It’s not just the guns themselves that have evolved over time.
Nerf darts have come a long way since the 90’s, too.
While the traditional 3-inch long foam darts are still in use, there are now also the larger
Mega darts, and darts with specialized tips, like suction cups or velcro tips.
You can get glow-in-the-dark darts, whistler darts that make a noise when fired, or even
message darts that come with a special pen and a decoder.
And, with the rise of more high-powered models, there are also Elite darts, which are shorter
and shoot faster, and High Impact rounds, which are small foam balls.
Hasbro produces more than 450,000 darts each year - since the Nerf gun was first released,
that’s more than 4 billion darts in total!
In the last 5 years alone, enough darts have been produced to circle the earth a full 4
times.
Saying Nerf guns are popular might just be a bit of an understatement.
Nerf Guns have survived the test of time and proven to be one of the most enduring and
popular toys for the last 3 decades.
But these fun, simple toys actually have some powerful engineering behind them, and while
the guns themselves have evolved and changed over the years, how they work really hasn’t
changed all that much.
One of the secrets to Nerf’s success is the fact that all of the guns work in remarkably
similar ways.
Almost every one of the dozens of different models of Nerf Guns available on the market
today and throughout the toy’s history fall into one of 2 categories - a Nerf Gun is generally
either a spring-powered gun, or a pump action gun.
The now discontinued Nitefinder is a great example of a spring powered Nerf gun.
The small hand-held gun used a simple direct plunger mechanism on the back of the barrel
to fire a single dart.
In a spring-powered Nerf gun, the plunger is pulled back to suck air into the plunger
tub.
A rubber o-ring on the end of the plunger creates an airtight seal and pressurizes the
air in the tube.
This converts the potential energy into kinetic energy, which is stored in the gun’s spring.
When the trigger is pulled, the energy in the spring is released and the plunger shoots
forward, giving force to the pressurized air and causing the dart to fire out of the barrel.
The higher the pressure in the tube, the farther and faster the dart will travel.
In contrast, the RIVAL Twin Shock is a pump action blaster that holds 10 Mega sized darts
and fires 2 darts at the same time, with an impressive range of up to 85 feet.
The gun is primed by repeatedly pumping the action.
When the action is pulled back it fills the pump tube with air, and when pushed forward,
the air in the tube is compressed.
A valve in the pressure chamber lets the compressed air into the chamber itself, where it’s
stored until the gun is ready to fire.
The trigger is attached to a rod which, when pulled back, releases the air in the pressure
chamber, which travels into the barrel and fires the darts.
Some guns, like the Nerf Zombie Strike Hammershot, feature a rotating cylinder that automatically
loads the next dart into place after a round is fired.
After the trigger is pulled and a round is fired, a piston comes out and latches on to
the cam bar, which moves forward and rotates the cam, which in turn rotates the cylinder
and loads the next dart.
For the Nerf enthusiast who understands the basics of the engineering behind how Nerf
guns work, there is a whole other world of options available to them.
The Nerf gun’s simplicity makes it perfect for tinkering, and many die-hard Nerf fans
will apply modifications - or mods - to their guns to achieve maximum performance from these
seemingly basic toys.
Some Nerf gun mods are incredibly simple, and they don’t require any special engineering
knowledge or skills.
Many of the simplest models of Nerf guns have the ability to fire multiple darts one after
the other.
The N-Strike Elite Triad has 3 barrels, and fires the standard 3 inch darts up to 30 feet.
Even when all 3 barrels are loaded with a dart, only a single barrel will fire each
time the trigger is pulled, with a half-second delay between shots.
The barrels of these multi-shot guns are a maze of different air pathways, and the pressurized
air is directed into one barrel at a time through a process that Nerf engineers describe
as a “cascading blast of compressed air”.
After a dart is fired, a valve locks out that airway, directing the pressurized air to travel
into another chamber, where it fires off a successive round.
With a little knowledge about how these compressed air mechanics work in the gun, a smart Nerf
enthusiast can perform a simple hack to get their gun to fire multiple shots at once.
By loading the darts only part way into the barrel, the valves will remain half open,
allowing the compressed air to seep into all 3 chambers at once.
When the trigger is pulled, all 3 darts will fire simultaneously, but because the compressed
air is split between 3 payloads, the darts will not fire as far or as fast as they normally
would.
For those who like to tinker and experiment, they can take these simple hacks even further.
Entire online communities exist that are dedicated to modifying Nerf guns, and some of the most
popular mods involve increasing the range and power of a gun, modifying the gun to shoot
multiple darts for a buckshot effect, or even combining multiple guns into a single monster
gun.
With some simple household materials, like sandpaper, a glue gun, some plumber’s goop,
a dremel drill, a hacksaw and some pipe cutters, these savvy Nerf enthusiasts can modify or
replace barrels, remove the gun’s internal air limiters, replace springs or improve seals
to give their gun an extra edge.
Making homemade darts, called Sefans, is also popular among the mod crowd - these darts
typically don’t have the rubber tip found on official Nerf darts, which allows them
to be back-loaded into the barrel as opposed to front-loaded as the guns are originally
designed.
This allows the bullet to travel the entire length of the barrel, where it receives optimum
pressure, giving Stefans a much better range than store bought darts.
With such a huge range of guns and accessories, not to mention all of the modifications that
can be made to them, it comes as no surprise that there is an equally huge range of games
that can be played with Nerf guns.
While sneaking up on unsuspecting friends or annoying siblings may be plenty of fun,
many Nerf lovers have gotten even more creative with their Nerf games.
There are the classics, like Nerf Hide and Seek, Freeze Tag or Capture the Flag.
There are countless ways to test a gun’s - and a shooter’s - precision with target-based
games, like tin can or paper plate target shooting, or, for an extra challenge, a game
of attempting to shoot a ping pong ball off of the top of a pop bottle without knocking
the bottle over.
Some smart parents have even found ways to incorporate Nerf guns into fun and education
games, like spelling games and math challenges.
Of course, one of the most popular Nerf games out there is the Nerf Battle Royale, where
teams of players attempt to win total dominance by taking out an entire enemy team.
Creative Nerf battlers have been known to construct impressive battlefields complete
with cardboard barricades and camouflage gear.
In recent years, as the generation of kids who grew up with the original Nerf guns have
gotten older, Hasbro has smartly realized that it’s not just kids who love Nerf guns.
With the release of the RIVAL series made for teens and adults, Nerf battles have become
nearly as popular as paintball among older Nerf enthusiasts, and the RIVAL series has
become one of the most popular series for custom modifications.
Knowing all about how Nerf guns work - and the ways in which Nerf enthusiasts can hack
these simple toys to give themselves an edge in their Nerf battles - it all begs the question:
are Nerf guns actually safe?
Hasbro says that they are - although they prefer to call them Nerf Blasters instead
of Nerf Guns, a term that is less scary for kids, and more acceptable to their parents.
Hasbro insists that each model of Nerf gun is rigorously tested for safety before it’s
released - in fact, Hasbro has a state of the art testing facility at their headquarters
where employees can test out the latest Nerf guns in a range of real-life scenarios, from
the outdoors to basements to even dorm rooms.
And, since the darts are made of foam and the guns are not especially powerful, the
risk of serious injury is pretty low.
Though not without their risks - for example, ahead of the 2017 Christmas season, UK eye
doctors issued a warning to the public about the danger of irreversal eye damage from Nerf
darts and balls - but even still, Nerf guns are certainly a much safer option than other
popular gun-based games, like paintball or airsoft.
It just might not be a bad idea to wear eye protection, especially when playing with some
of the more high-powered models or using DIY modified blasters.
Nerf guns have been around for 3 decades, and they probably aren’t going away any
time soon.
It may seem like there are cool new Nerf guns and exciting new options every time you look,
but the engineering principles behind how a Nerf gun works have stood the test of time,
and have changed very little since the Nerf gun was first introduced.
The next time you’re facing a heated Nerf battle, you’ll not only know how a Nerf
gun works, but you’ll also know how to give yourself an edge with Nerf hacks and custom
gun mods, and you’ll dominate the Nerf battlefield.
Your enemies won’t stand a chance against you, now that you know exactly how a Nerf
gun works!
If you thought this video was fun, you’ll want to be sure and check out our other videos,
like this other classic toy-related one called “How Lego Reinvented Itself”, or, maybe
this other video is for you.
As always, thanks for watching, and don’t forget to like, share and subscribe!
See you next time!