Lanard Huntsman 50 - the big hitter out of nowhere!

Recently, several british nerfers (including myself) were tipped off to a sighting of new dart blasters being stocked in B&M bargains:

Not exactly a name synonymous with the phrase 'decent produce'.

So a little digging around the dark corners of the internets, I discovered that the range in question was in fact a brand new range from Lanard, which I'll be looking at in a future post. However today, we'll be looking at one blaster in particular - The Huntsman 50.

So when I first found the blaster, I had my usual presumptions brewing in the back of my mind. The weight of the blaster seemed off, it felt far too light for a blaster of this length (being about 2" shorter than a longstrike). The break down feature of the blaster has a nice feel to it, it doesn't feel like it's simply going to fall apart in your hands while you're firing. The scope is simple, just being 2 clear lens, with no form of cross hairs. The scope itself simply slides onto the 20mm rail, held in place by friction alone (but don't panic, I've tested if thoroughly and discovered it's not going anywhere fast). The plastic quality felt poor, again a standard for most 'off brand' blasters. The darts also appeared to have a quality control issue, with some being much thinner in diameter leading to loss of range and wild accuracy. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much... until I actually fired it with Elite darts.

Bolt action FTW...

This little bugger has one hell of a spring at it's heart - you can feel the tension on the draw as you prime the blaster. Internally, it's a VERY unique system. So unique that I've never seen it before and probably never will as it very over-designed. As you draw the priming handle back, not only are you pulling the plunger rod back, but you are also DROPPING THE BREECH DOWN to meet the dart in the top on the magazine. This means the plunger tube is stationary during the whole priming process, and that it's the breech that moves down, has the dart loaded into it by a plastic arm in front of the dart, and then back up again to meet the plunger tube. There is also no form of air restrictor, just a dart post inside the short breech. The plunger tube itself is very small, not much longer than the dart itself, but I've gotten high 30's to low 40's with every shot, however accuracy is none existent. This is due to the length of the breech and the size of the muzzle. To increase accuracy you would severely sacrifice range, and with the internals in their current form, that's a lot to lose. Performance did improve significantly with Nerf ELITE darts, but it was still clear this blaster has very little else to offer. 

Overall, I like this blaster. It can do the job, and at a very reasonable price (£14.99). My only concern is that internal system will need to be studied very carefully before mods are attempted, especially if you hope to add range AND accuracy....