N-Strike ELITE Stryfe

I have been hoping that Nerf would introduce a dart gun like this -- a compact non-bullpup configuration of flywheel-based dart gun. I really wanted to like this thing! First the good things... --Comfortable to hold, balanced well enough that you don't immediately develop wrist fatigue holding it. --Feels solidly built -- no creaking sounds when holding or firing it. --The motor spins up quickly enough that you can realistically fire a dart after only a short delay to rev up the flywheels. --The rear part is compatible with stocks from various other Nerf dart guns, which provides a bit of flexibility. Now the bad things -- oh, so many... --Frequent jamming, in the sense that the main trigger sometimes cannot be pulled to fire a dart, even when there is a full clip of darts in place -- after testing all sorts of combinations of old and new darts with both old and new ammo clips and ammo drums, I can honestly say that it does NOT matter whether you use old or new darts, and it does not matter whether you use old or new clips/drums (I even had a jam with its own 6-dart clip and the 6 darts that came with in the box in place) -- this thing just loves to jam up more than any other dart gun I've ever tried. --Speaking of jamming, the jam door looks tantalizingly like it provides good access to where the darts are taken off the top of a clip and pushed into the location of the flywheels, but when you open the nice big jam door, you find an all-too-narrow opening underneath it -- it is actually the most constricted access for clearing jams I've ever seen on a Nerf dart gun -- why? --Nerf clearly intended the front part of this dart gun to be compatible with the various barrel extensions that have been offered on other Nerf dart guns, but I can confirm that the barrel extensions from the Retaliator and the Recon both wobble in place after being attached -- this simply shouldn't happen, given that Nerf is the designer and manufacturer of all of these different parts -- the pieces should fit solidly together. --The clip-release button is in an awkward place facing towards the trigger grip and it doesn't fully release the clips when used -- the Stampede and Alpha Trooper have very nice and easily-used slide-controls on each side to allow operation with a finger of the trigger hand while that hand is still on the trigger grip, and the clip smoothly falls out when released -- on this dart gun, the clips stay stuck in place such that they need to be pulled out, and operation with a finger of a trigger hand still holding the trigger grip requires an awkward-feeling outward push of a finger of the trigger hand. Then there's a pet peeve I have about all of the flywheel-based foam dart guns I've ever tried... Why can't Nerf or anyone else offer a flywheel-based dart gun with QUIET motors -- is it really necessary for these things to be so loud? I presume it's a cost issue -- louder motors cost less than quieter ones. However, I would actually be willing to pay considerably more to have a flywheel-based dart gun that was actually quiet when revving -- and I don't think I'm alone! So far, it appears that modding this dart gun is the only way to solve the jamming problem -- but it shouldn't be necessary to do such things! This could have been the "end-all" of clip-type flywheel-based dart guns, but the annoyances are all too many. If you want an "elite" series flywheel-based dart gun, I highly recommend the new "elite" version of the Rayven (which was released pretty much side-by-side with the Stryfe). I've almost never had a jam on either the old all-green version of the Rayven or the new blue-and-white "elite" version. An update -- July 2014 I was sufficiently annoyed with the Stryfe that when the new orange-colored version showed up, I took a chance buying one with the thought in mind that Nerf might have fixed the jamming problems. While there was apparently some kind of change made by Nerf to the part of the Stryfe that senses whether there are any darts in the clip, the change only reduces occurrences of jamming by a little bit. As a result, even on the redesigned Stryfe, you still should apply the "tape" modification -- there are videos all over the Internet that describe this -- it essentially involves opening up the jam door and using a piece of tape to secure a small plastic piece that senses whether there are any darts in the clip in place so that it can't move -- you don't have to disassemble the Stryfe to do this. I have to admit to being uncertain of whether to leave my rating of this Nerf blaster at only 1 star. With this tape fix in place, the Stryfe actually becomes very enjoyable to use -- they even seem to have quieted the motors in the slightly modified version of the Stryfe. But I have trouble getting past the fact that a customer buying this product must actually engage in a bit of tinkering right out of the box just to make it work properly. If Nerf can't finally fix the mechanism that senses whether there are any darts in the clip, then they should just redesign the Stryfe to eliminate this troublesome feature altogether -- the Rayven never had this feature, and I don't think anyone finds that to be a problem with Rayven. In a sense, Nerf has just done exactly that -- the newly released Demolisher could be looked upon as a Stryfe to which the "missile" launcher has been added. The Demolisher appears to not have the feature where it tries to sense whether there are any darts in the clip, and Nerf even widened the opening behind the jam door so that it is easier to reach in and pull out a jammed dart (it's actually one of the wider openings for clearing out jams that I've seen). It would be great if Nerf would just take a step back and put these same fixes into a redone version of the Stryfe.