Nerf Spectre REV-5 Review

The Spectre REV-5 is Nerf's attempt to make a stealth orientated blaster. It comes with a silencer, folding stock and 5 darts. The silencer has a short, refled barrel, not unlike the one in the Recon's barrel. It looks seriously awesome but serves no real purpose. Now here's the stupid part. The Spectre comes with 5 whistler darts. Because the silencer doesn't actually silence darts, this is really quite an oxymoron.

The folding stock is a new and welcome addition to Nerf's attachment list. It provides a stock that is kind of sturdy, and can fold out of the way when you want to go crazy with, for example, slam fire. It is also useful for storage when it is attached to a blaster. However, because of its design, it is naturally a little flimsy and feels kind of weak. I personally quite like it, but for actual usage I'd stick with a Raider/Barricade stock.

The silencer is a cool looking attachment which does pretty much nothing. It doesn't silence blasters and it doesn't affect ranges or accuracy much. All in all, use it for the tacticool and nothing else.

The Spectre has a barrel attachment nub and a stock attachment point for the silencer and folding stock. This also means that you customise the Spectre almost as much as a Recon. However, I don't like the Spectre with attachments - they make it look kinda stupid.

The handle on the Spectre is very comfortable, though is quite short. I'm not that large, but the grip would be too small for those with large hands.

The Spectre has a 5 dart rotating barrel, like the Maverick. Unlike the Maverick, the barrels flip out all the way so you don't need to do the 'Russian Roulette Mod' which involves sanding/cutting. The Spectre's barrel rotates whenever you pull the slide, instead of each trigger pull like the Maverick. I find this a good and bad thing as I like spinning the barrel really quick with the trigger, but trigger rotating barrels often reduce the air seal between the barrel and plunger, and is more likely to cause jams.

The Spectre is quite thin; a lot thinner than a Maverick. It's tactical rail is only slightly thinner than the Spectre itself. It only holds 5 darts as opposed to the Mav's 6, and it has a very thin sheet of plastic around the dart, unlike the Maverick's fat barrel. This helps in holstering and storage. The Spectre is slightly longer than a Maverick, so holstering it can be slightly more annoying.

Now to the most important part of the blaster: How does it perform?
Initially, quite well. It can consistently hit my front doofrom 8-9m away at at least 0.5m above the ground using good whistlers. Full ranges reach up to 13m.

Accuracy is excellent as well. I can consistently hit a target from 8-9m after a first tracer shot.

The Spectre can be rapid-fired rather easily. Instead of holding the Spectre like a pistol, use your spare hand to hold the slide. That way, as soon as you pull the trigger, you can pull back on the slide. Just be careful not to engage the rotation mech 'slip clutch', which allows manual rotation of the barrel. To avoid this problem, simply avoid pulling too hard on the slide. You can achieve 2-3 darts per second like this.

One niggle I have about the Spectre is that the trigger is sometimes a little sticky. This was easily cured by adding a spring behind the trigger. Now, with my slightly modded Spectre, I cannot find anything I would change. The Spectre makes an excellent sidearm.

At $24 AUD at Target, it's also very affordable. It's only $10 off the Maverick ($15). I highly recommend this if you want to be different from your friends. I even go so far as to say that I prefer this over the Maverick. Just make sure you have a primary like an Alpha Trooper, Raider or Longshot.
On the whole, the Spectre is primarily a replacement/upgrade for the Maverick with extra tacticool options.With the Strongarm now available in retail stores, the Spectre is largely rendered obsolete, and tacticool is largerly ignored for pistols. Additionally an Elite Spectre has been released with proper Elite ranges.

Pros:
Power and accuracy, easier to use (IMO) than the Maverick, quieter than Mav, easier to holster due to it being thinner, has barrel attachment nub and stock attachment point for customisation fun, comes with cool looking silencer and folding stock, other generic revolver pros
Cons:
Less capacity than Maverick, more expensive than Maverick, less available than Maverick, generic revolver cons

EDIT 18/6/14: One thing I didn't notice until now is that the trigger hole is tiny. My trigger finger constantly scrapes on the inside of it which is quite annoying. I've reduced the Usefulness (Usability) score for this.

Power: 5/7
Accuracy: 4.5/5
Value for Money: 4.5/5
Usefulness: 2.5/5
Rate of fire: 3/5
Overall: 3.61/5

Personal Rating: 4/5 - much much much better than the Maverick.

Quiet, good blasting, much fun.