The Hammerstorm is a fascinating anomaly. Its part of the Alpha Strike line, but its clearly not constructed the same. The blaster is screwed together, not clipped. The handle is large and comfortable. You will find more plastic than you would expect. There are eight shots inside the cylinder and storage for eight more. It is the most powerful blaster in the line.
Hammershot Remixed
The Hammerstorm draws obvious comparisons to its popular predecessor, the Hammershot. Its a quite larger platform, of course, thanks to all that extra plastic and ammo storage. So its not quite something you can holster as backup (at least not without heavy plastic removal). Even so, it feels great in hand, and far more solid than other Alpha Strike blasters. It seems that the blaster was repurposed from a different design.
The Hammerstorm ups capacity to eight darts, instead of the Hammershots five. It now features two Nerf rails, one on the top and one on the bottom. For those who really need to attach long barrel attachments, it even has a Nstrike barrel attachment hub. Around the shell are four different sling points. The eight ammo storage slots sit under the cylinder. TACTICS, BRO, is a Youtuber who said so.
It is quite comfortable and large. It is not very fancy, but it does nothing objectively wrong. Theres room for all your fingers, assuming you dont have really large hands.
The Hammershot’s priming hammer position is identical to the Hammershot. It can be pulled down with your thumb and used one-handed.
The Hammerstorm is a great choice for Alpha Strike Blasters because of its solid shell and nice features.
Using The Blaster
Pulling back on the hammer primes the blaster; it also rotates the cylinder by a barrel. After that, pulling the trigger fires the blaster. The blaster is incredibly easy to reload while priming the blaster turns the cylinder 1/8, manually turning the cylinder makes a 1/4 turn. Once you have reloaded the sides, turn the cylinder one turn to expose the empty barrels.
Keep in mind that the trigger can be a little touchy. Unintentional firings can be caused by a lack of discipline.
Performance
With the included Elite darts, the Hammerstorm averaged 73fps in testing. Rate of fire was decent at two darts per second when used one-handed.However, this rate of fire will vary, depending on individual finger strength and how many hands you use; younger children may fire slower, for example. One hand priming and one hand firing can make shots go faster. Only slightly, but its noticeable when emptying the entire cylinder.
Internals
Although the Hammerstorm uses a similar design to the Hammershot, the Hammerstorm’s rotation mechanism is slightly different. In any case, modders should be able to modify the internals in a similar fashion; new springs and spring spacers can both be effective.
In my interest, I cut and mounted a short length of CPVC (CTS).
