Hi, I’m Luke with Out of Darts.
I may have missed EndWar 2021 --
It's 2022.
No one went to 20…
Okay(!)
Hi, I’m Luke.
Today on Out of Darts:
I may have missed EndWar 2022, but I do have the Dart Zone pro Mark 1.2
Let's get going!
Dart Zone was kind enough to send over a few new blasters; they sent over the Mark 1.2 and the 2.1
So do keep this in mind that this blaster was sent to me for free as far as this review is concerned.
My opinions are my own, but I always want to make sure we're upfront about that.
We were one of the sponsors for EndWar this year,
and Dart Zone was the primary sponsor of the Foam Pro Tour.
The Foam Pro Tour was a competitive game where there were four qualifiers all across the country,
and they all met for the final match in Rochester, New York.
In the end, the top three teams were as follows:
Rochester Radioactive took first, Flower City Fallout took second place,
and Nebula (who my buddy Eli is on) took third.
So, it was really good to see some of our customers who are on those teams –
Hey, Andy, congrats on the win!
Really excited for you all, and I hope to be there for next year's event.
But that's not what this video is about.
I love EndWar; I was really sad not to be there, happy to sponsor, but let's move on.
This is the Mark 1.2
This is the spiritual successor to the 1.0 and the 1.1
The 1.0 was Dart Zone's initial $180 offering that was very much a proof of concept,
testing out the hobby with just a thousand units.
The 1.1 was a Target exclusive that improved upon a lot of the weak points of the original blaster,
such as a collapsing stock issue.
(collapsing in the way that you don't want it to collapse, not in the way that this one collapses).
And ultimately, now they've come out with the 1.2
Now I really like seeing them continue this “pro line,” if you will;
it's nice to see different offerings at different price points.
We are all familiar with the Nexus Pro, which is the previous Walmart offering,
and many of us have seen the Max Stryker, which I believe is still available on Target’s website.
Both of these are fantastic blasters at a $50 price point, just fabulous.
However, if you want some of those nicer upgrades and touches, this is where you are at.
This blaster comes in at $130 for the kit.
You get two magazines.
You get a lighter-weight spring in case you want to reduce your FPS.
Yes, I said that correctly!
It also comes with some eye protection.
Personally, this eye protection is not the type I would want to wear,
but I do think it's nice that they include something.
To me, it just feels…
Well, my head's too big, first of all, but it just doesn't quite fit my head.
It is rubberized and I think it'd be fine for kids and teens, but
it really isn't that comfortable personally for my large head.
The blaster comes with two magazines; they are 15-round magazines.
They are very similar to the previous ones (that came with the Mk-3); however,
they have reduced the knurling on the sides, which I actually think is a really good choice.
They feel a lot sleeker, they get in and out of pouches and carriers a lot easier than prior,
and the build quality, like the rest of Dart Zone’s products, is very good.
It should be noted that this blaster is also compatible with
all of the popular magazines, including Katana…
If you're saying, “what's a Katana?” Don't worry about it; let's move on.
Also, the classic Talon magazines, of which we sell a variety,
and it's also compatible with our Tachi magazines.
Now I actually really like the Dart Zone magazines themselves.
We like them so much that our feed lip on our Tachis is very similar.
The reason I like this is because I can top load magazines like this.
And if anybody ever wants to race me and doesn't think this is faster and more convenient,
I have been doing this for years without problems on the magazines that allow it.
Unfortunately, on a Talon, you just cannot do that because the lips are too sharp and too narrow.
Up top, we've got two iron sights.
With how easily these move around, I really can't see actually using these.
They are at a very nice height, and they do light up nicely.
But, if you were going to use this,
you would really need to glue this so that this doesn't move quite so easily.
(Which would be very easy if you just figured out how you wanted this dialed in,
got them to the right positions, and then held them in place.
But, as it stands now, it's too likely to fall off on equipment, on gear bags;
if you've got this on a sling, you're going to run into a few issues there.
Up top, we've got a full Picatinny rail front to back,
and we've got left and right Picatinny rails.
It's like they're paying attention(!)
For those that don't know, Tarik and several other designers, including
Tarik's design on our shop, designed side rails for the Nexus Pro, and they've been quite popular.
People like to add other accessories, and it has a cool look.
My one complaint with these side rails is that these seem to be pretty loose.
I don't know how they're mounted, but there's a considerable amount of play here (and hopefully,
we can show this in the B cam), but with just two fingers, I can move this around.
I don't think it's going to come off or anything like that, but there's a lot of flex and a lot of
give here, and it even adds a little bit more of that clanky sound as you shake the blaster around.
So, I do think these could be probably tightened up, and you might even be able
to do this yourself by adding a spacer, a bit of tape, some glue, or other way.
I don't think there's anything wrong with them, but they are looser than I would like.
Ergonomically the blaster is very good with one major flaw, at least for me personally.
When I prime this blaster, I have the problem with my palm.
Almost every time I prime this, my palm hits this side right here.
Now I don't know if that has to do with my body proportions or the size of my hand,
but I just cannot seem to fire this without ramming the back of my finger here.
Now I don't think I’m the only one that's had the same problem,
but it's really going to depend on your play style and how you hold the blaster.
I like to hold pretty inline so that I’m putting…
It just ergonomically feels right, and I just can't put my hand where it needs to be.
So, I think for me personally, I’m going to look at redesigning this
and just moving it forward 10 to 15 centimeters – millimeters,
excuse me -- to just give myself enough clearance to hold this where I want without…
No!
Okay.
Sorry.
I’m not trying to do it, and I do it almost every time I prime it.
Now others have told me this doesn't bother them at all, so I believe…
Perry even said here it doesn't really bother him, and he's got
normal adult hands, so it's really going to…
Your mileage may vary; let’s just say that.
The rubber sleeves on these grips are great.
However, I think I might want to actually use some adhesive
because they do seem to move around a little bit more than some of the others.
But they're a really nice welcome touch, and they feel really good, especially when your hands
get a little sweaty or you're out actually playing in the field.
One nice change from the 1.0 is that these breakdown pins to
take the blaster apart are now connected, and it's one single piece.
I think this is a much better design from the original, where there were two jangly pins that
pretty much everybody immediately took the keychains off to make them a little quieter.
I think this is much better.
I would have liked to see this a little slimmer,
but I can understand that this is probably a strength issue, and they want you to be able to
grab that really easily, but it's much, much improved overall.
One other feature I did want to mention is that this fake muzzle up front that
doesn't really do anything can be replaced with a number of our normal scar barrels.
The sizing here is pretty much identical to the Stryker and the Nexus Pro,
which means that we've got a variety of different scars from Thanh and other
designers that can be added up front -- and also our little rocket adapter.
The little rocket adapter will fire just about any ammo type
on this blaster with the larger plunger tube, and the scar barrels just improve accuracy.
It's worth noting that when you do put these on, you may need to add a little loop of tape
because the tolerance varies slightly between this blaster and some of the others.
Moving on to this stock, it is very much a mixed bag for me.
I had a couple of issues with it, the first being that if you pull too hard when you're
extending, it will come right off, and I just can't seem to get it to behave the same each time.
It's like one time getting it to the right position and not having it pop
off the end has been a little bit of a challenge.
Now it seems to be fine, but then other times it won't be…
I'm not pulling with a whole lot of force there, so if you're messing around with
this in the field, you might run into a situation where you bumped it off.
Now that being said, you could take this part of the tube off and just use a regular
buffer tube stock.
However, I find that this has a lot more play than I would have liked to have seen,
and in my opinion, it's not an improvement over the Nexus Pro or the Max Stryker
at target because those just have standard integrated stocks that don't have this much play.
For me, this just moves too much to be to be a comfortable, really solid stock and…
When I say my opinions are my own, I’m gonna keep telling you what I think of these blasters
regardless of who sends them to me, but there's just more play here than there needs to be,
and I’m not using a lot of force here, but there is a decent spring load on here…
I'm at full length here, so I’m at the backstop, which is good, and it's currently staying on but –
I pushed that a little harder than I might in a game, but it's
gonna have to take some abuse, and I don't think this is designed all that well.
I would have much preferred just a regular stock in this in this place,
and I think this could be redesigned.
Maybe we just get a buffer tube that screws in here directly or something?
I'm not sure what the design decision here was.
If it was just to make it compatible with nerf stocks (which you can certainly replace this and
just put on a nice worker stock, which will probably have a little more holding power.
To me, it seems like this mechanism is the problem, just like all nerf stocks.
There's just a lot of play, and then you add in the fact that it is a folding stock,
and you've got another other issue.
So, the folding stock portion of this
does have a little locking tab here, so in theory, you can flick it forward, and it'll lock on there.
The problem I’m finding is
a to do that, you have to be at the fully extended position like we're at currently.
So, if you are anywhere in between,
it's not going to line up, and you're not going to be able to have it hold.
So as far as the folding stock goes, I could see starting around with it
folded and then popping it out.
Like that.
A little sloppy, but you're really not going to be able to reliably do this in-game.
That wasn't too bad there, but…
It just doesn't seem super consistent.
So, I would probably replace the stock with something else.
And I’d be really curious to hear from Dart Zone on why they chose to go this route
instead of keeping with the buffer tubes like they had prior because I liked those.
Now let's talk about performance.
The Mark 1.2 does deliver the hits;
we’re gonna put the performance numbers on screen with the high-power spring.
Something I did want to mention (and this is Later Luke coming in here to say this):
The low power spring, while a really great idea,
seems to be so low power for this system that it is really inconsistent.
We were getting fps ranges all over the place from around elite performance to way below, and I think
this is just too weak of a spring for the given air volume and barrel length to be consistent.
That's partially just the design, but at the end of the day,
it's a nice inclusion but not really that useful.
Moving on to some issues that I’ve heard about and minor ones, I was able to replicate.
The blaster does seem to have some issues jamming when you prime and fire really fast.
Immediately, when I put the first mag in, I did have a jam, and I’ll see if anything changes here,
but I had quite a few friends that went to EndWar,
and we had quite a number of issues with the blasters.
Now they are brand new blasters, but my buddy Sillybutts actually
showed me a video clip he's got up on his YouTube channel --
We'll link that below and we'll actually put a couple stills up on screen here.
But he essentially sounded found a fix for [one of the issues].
Why are we not priming?
Uh-oh(!)
This is called “Luke breaks blasters.”
Wait, really?
So…
There are two little pieces on the shell (that are hard to show on camera, so I’m
going to use Sillybutts’ cutaway), but they seem to cause some issues occasionally with loading.
I honestly can't figure out exactly what's going on, so we'll definitely put that up on screen,
but let's try again here now.
The other thing I’ve noticed is there are sort
of some sticky-grindy nature to the actual prime itself.
While it feels smooth without a mag or the adapter, once the mag,
adapter, and darts are in there, I feel little hang-ups as I’m re-priming.
And a number of times, I’ve tried to finish priming, but it doesn't completely
seat all the way forward; I go to pull the trigger, and there's no shot coming out.
I'm Later, Luke!
It's been a couple weeks since we filmed the initial video,
and we've got a chance to play with this more, hear from other community members,
and run through some of the mods to actually fix the jamming issue.
I do have a couple major complaints here after playing with the blaster more.
The first is this stock is unbearably bad.
It is really poorly designed; there is a ton of flex…
I think I may have broken it; it's hard to tell.
I definitely stressed it more, and initially, when this was happening, we weren't trying to do this.
It just has a lot of slop.
Unfortunately, simply replacing the stock isn't a real great option;
we’ve got a couple stocks from Worker that are very solid designs, and while they do
mount on here, they're not firm enough to really feel a whole lot better than this.
It seems a shame to have to put a $20
stock on this blaster and have it not even fix the tolerance issue.
I really wish they'd gone buffer tube on there,
and I really think this was a mistake on Dart Zone's part.
Next, we've got the jamming issue.
Now there is a fix out for the jamming, which does help,
but it does not solve the problem altogether.
And believe me, I know how to use a dart blaster, so please don't tell me I’m using it wrong!
I'm definitely seeing more jams here than I’ve ever seen with my nexus
or with the Max Stryker, and that's not a step in the right direction.
That coupled with the (for me) foregrip that jams my wrist every time I use it,
I can't give this a wholehearted positive review.
I really think this is a two or three-star out of five.
I don't know why you'd buy this over the Nexus.
I'd really go find a used Nexus or go find a Max Stryker because some of these flaws
are so glaring that aren't easy fixes, and there's really no way around it.
So, if you ever wondered if my reviews are honest, this should be it(!)
This was sent to me for free.
I love the company Dart Zone; I really don't love this product overall,
and I’m pretty disappointed with its performance, ultimately.
Hopefully, Dart Zone will come up with a solution for this
but let me know what you think in the comments and what your experiences have been.
Sometimes I say something negative about a blaster, and the whole comments lights up
with,” you're the only one having this problem,” and other times,
I say it's perfect, and other people think the opposite.
So, no matter what I say,
I know you're going to have a different opinion, and I’d love to hear from you.
Until next time, I’m out of darts.