The NERF Mega Mastodon is a fully automatic, flywheel powered Mega blaster that holds 24 darts in its drum.
Now, if you know the size of Mega darts, you will know how big that drum is and hence how big the blaster is!
With batteries, it tips the scales at 7.5 lbs…so is this a big waste of space or an epic Mega Machine Gun?
Read on to find out…
Factsheet
Pros
- Reliable motorized performance
- Powerful with a surprisingly good rate of fire
- Heavy machine gun style form and ergonomics minimize the bulk and looks cool!
- Soooo much fun!
Cons
- Heavy…damn heavy!
- It needs 6 D batteries (not included) which add to the weight and are expensive
Key Features
- The form is taken from heavy machine guns
- 24 drum fed Mega darts
- Full Auto at around 2-3 shots per second
- Powered by 6 D batteries (not included)
- Massively fun!
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8/10
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7/10
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7/10
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8/10
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9/10
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5/10
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10/10
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10/10
Summary
Big, expensive and impractical but a full auto MEGA blaster that fires this hard and fast is always going to be huge fun
The only downside is the price of both the blaster and its D battery habit
Full NERF Mega Mastodon Review
Tipping the scales at 7.5 lbs. the Mastodon is nothing like a regular blaster. The motorized Mastodon promises a totally different experience, from the way you load it to the way you fire it.
However, it’s going to take more than just an impressive exterior to justify its purchase, so is the Mastodon as good as advertised?
Let’s start by getting it out of the box and set up…
Unboxing
In the box, you will find
- The Mega Mastodon blaster
- the drum (in three parts)
- the shield in two parts
- the carry handle
- the sling
- 24 darts, and
- the manual
The blaster is significant, and so to ship it, Hasbro has created it in multiple parts, which you will need to assemble. However, this is not too arduous; they all snap together easily.
The drum is in three parts, the shield in two parts as well, and finally, the carry handle. Once you have assembled those, they are not designed to come apart again.
Going over the blaster and starting up top, you’ll find the front sling mount. At the back, you will find the corresponding mounting point. You attach the sling here and will need the sling!
It should be noted that the little attachment clamps on the sling are metal. There is a simple reason for this, with the batteries, this thing is darn heavy! NERF really doesn’t use metal that often for like exterior things like this, so it is not just for effect. You have been warned
A chunk of the weight is comprised of those 6 D batteries. These are installed on the side of the blaster that does not have the mahoosive “MEGA” logo. You just take off the plate with a screwdriver, throw in the batteries, and you’re good to go.
Design
We have mentioned the sling attachment points, so starting at the front, you find an N-Strike tactical rail under the muzzle at the front, if you want to put a vertical grip or a lazer sight. There are also another two tactical rails on top.
The drum’s 24 dart capacity is nothing special for an elite blaster, but for a mega blaster, it is insane! However, to house all those MEGA darts, this thing is huge.
Underneath the blaster’s drum, there is a cage that protects the drum. This is designed to let you set the blaster down without damaging the drum. This cage also lets you fire with it resting on a wall or some such too.
Above the drum, you have the access door. In the event of a jam, you can get your finger in there and clear them out. Jams are actually very rare as turret blasters, in my experience, are a little bit more reliable than magazine-fed blasters
In the middle at the top is the carry handle. The carry handle is designed to allow you to fire from the hip, in true heavy gunner style, rather than the shoulder.
The handle pivots and rotates a little bit, which makes it really comfortable and you can easily tilt it up or down without changing your grip. This makes all the difference when you are wielding something as big and heavy as this, so top marks for that!
For the firing hand, the grip is in line with the mega line the grip and is a little oversized compared to the usual Elite grips. I think it’s comfortable, yet it won’t alienate a smaller hand, so I think they have this about right.
Loading and Firing
To load the Mastodon, you just push the darts into the drum, and you are then ready to go. The drum itself will rotate freely and reload you can just manually turn the drum to add more ammo. The click is not breaking the blaster; it is how it is intended to be loaded.
After you have the cylinder loaded up you just hold down the rev switch and hit the trigger and it’s a fully automatic blaster that just goes bang bang bang at a rate of a 2 – 3 per second. There is something steampunk about the way it feels and fires – the scale of it is like some Victorian engineering and the MEGA darts make a very satisfying noise when they hit.
Just to make it very clear, this only takes the MEGA darts, not N-Strike Elite darts.
Being a fully automatic blaster, the drum will rotate by itself as it fires. Of course, since this is a flywheel blaster, you have to squeeze the Rev trigger to spin them up before pulling the primary trigger. If you’ve used any other flywheel blasters it works the same way except it’s MEGA which is somehow cooler!
I got an average velocity of about 76 feet per second which is higher than other mega blasters and Elites, so you know it shoots harder and further. As far as accuracy goes, you know awesome the accuracy is going to be the same as any other nerf blaster, especially any other MEGA blaster
So yeah shooting this thing is a ball as it just thuds every time it fires so it feels so powerful it’s so big and it fires hard. It is so much fun it’s like shooting a blaster but bigger, badder and, you know, er heavier…did I mention it is heavy? 😉
Verdict
This is one super fun blaster not to spoil my opinion or anything but I’ve had so much fun testing this thing
The NERF Mega line has produced some quality blasters and the Mastodon is one of, if not the best they have.
I was expecting it to Jam or have some type of flaw but it shoots hard, with a good rate of fire and it’s overall really comfortable to use…however, the cost is a major factor.
I have to ask myself, would I rather have this or two rapid strikes or a Nemesis, with battery pack, or a bunch of other blasters plus ammo?
So my overall opinion is really based on money. If someone gave me a Mastodon, I’d love it (especially if they gave me a bunch of Mega darts because I don’t have a huge collection of those!)
Don’t get me wrong, it works really well, it’s super fun to use and I just feel like a heavy gunner in Aliens because it’s just it’s awesome
So there you have it – totally impractical and expensive but a great blaster and amazingly fun!