Nerf Elite Roughcut 2x4 Review (20m Aus grey trigger, White paintjob)

I present to you a review of one of Nerf's few shotguns, the Elite Roughcut 2x4, in its Psuedo-Whiteout (henceforth called "White") paintjob no less!

The Roughcut is one of the two blasters in the "Multishot Madness" mini-series by Nerf, whose key unique feature is of course the ability to fire multiple projectiles with one shot. The Roughcut is the Elite line's contribution to the mini series, with the Vortex Diatron being Vortex's contribution. Besides the Diatron and Roughcut though, no other blaster is officially part of the Multishot Madness series, despite other blasters such as the Sledgefire being able to fire multiple darts.

 Out of the box, just the Roughcut and its 8 A. coded Elites. Note that a regular blue Elite Roughcut has a sealed box, while the White Roughcut has an open box, which seems to be a new marketing strategy for Nerf.

Just a good look at the sides of the White Roughcut. The awesome paintjob and the cool design of the Roughcut makes for one awesome looking blaster. I personally feel that the 2x4 barrel battery makes the Roughcut a little wide and far too tall, but I guess there's no other easy way to do the 2x4 multishot thing.

Here from the back of the Roughcut, you can see how the front iron sight lines up with the tac rail and the back iron sight. Also note the ribbing on the handle. It does nothing besides add texture.

From the top, you can see the width of the Roughcut by comparison with the tac rail.

Underneath, a couple of points noting include the width of the pump grip, which is rather narrow considering it's barely wider than the handle. Also note the length of the priming slot. Like other slam fire blasters, the Roughcut has a half-prime lock which prevents the pump grip from going past half way unless fully primed.

From in front, an empty battery of the eight barrels.

Loaded with its eight Elite darts.

Unlike other blasters I've used, the pump grip of the Roughcut is a little short and uncomfortable for my hands. It is quite angular and sharp, and this is not helped in any way by it being short and narrow.

From the other side, you can clearly see that my hand is significantly larger than the pump grip.

These pics show the length of the full prime. It's about the same length as the EAT, Rampage, Retaliator, etc.

The priming indicator in the side of the shell. There's one on each side, one for each plunger. There are two plungers, and each fires its side of the battery. The orange you see in the priming indicator is part of the plunger rod.

This is unprimed, with no plunger rod in sight.

And the other side, primed and unprimed.

Lining up the iron sights.

The handle of the Roughcut is possibly the most flat/rifle grip like that I have ever held. It's more flat than even the Longstrike's grip, which is already very flat by Nerf blaster handle standards. It's reasonably comfortable, especially when firing from the hip, but holding it up to aim down sights requires a shift in grip to maintain comfort.

Size comparison of the Retaliator vs the Roughcut. The Roughcut's not a huge amount shorter, thanks to the extra length from the Retaliator's butt. The Retaliator is taller by virtue of its pistol grip. The Roughcut is far wider naturally, due to its dual plunger tubes.

A sticker that was on my Roughcut. It's not a sticker I've found on other Nerf blasters, so the Roughcut must have particular trouble with darts stored in it.

The Roughcut is primed conventionally, by pulling the pump grip back all the way and then pushing it forward all the way. Like all other blasters there are various locks to prevent you from doing all sorts of things that a child may accidentally do. So pull back, push forward, fire. Just like so many other Nerf blasters,
What makes the Roughcut unique then? It's multishot ability. The Roughcut has two plunger tubes, which gives it the ability to fire two darts at once. Additionally, thanks to the design of the plunger catch, a partial trigger pull will fire the left side plunger, and a full trigger pull will fire the right side plunger. Thus a full trigger pull gives the illusion of multishot ability. The Roughcut uses a "smart AR" system like the Triad, which allows it to "know" which barrels are loaded and which are not. With a full load, the Roughcut fires both top loaded darts each prime and fire. So the first fire would shoot the top two darts, the second fire shoots the upper middle two darts, the third firing the lower middle two darts, and the fourth firing the bottom two darts.
When the Roughcut isn't fully loaded though, some unusual stuff happens.

Take this example of a not-fully-loaded Roughcut. The first half trigger pull would fire the top dart on the right in the second highest barrel (left side from shooter's POV), with a full pull firing the top left dart in the top barrel. The second half pull would fire the second dart on the right in the fourth barrel, with a full pull firing the second dart on the left, in the second barrel. In this way, the Roughcut's smart AR ensures that so long as there is a dart loaded on both sides of the battery, each half trigger pull will fire a dart and a full trigger pull will fire two darts.

The staged trigger pull also helps to conserve ammo, as it allows you to effectively fire off darts one by one with a little practice and trigger discipline. Doing so turns the Roughcut effectively into an eight shot blaster.

The Roughcut also has slam-fire. This allows you to hold down the trigger and repeatedly prime the blaster to rapid fire off a stream of darts. It's an awesome feature on any blaster that gets it, but on a blaster with double fire ability, it's downright deadly. I'm very pleased that Nerf decided to give the Roughcut slam-fire, even though it didn't need it to have a good dart output.

And now of course, performance.
Range wise the Roughcut is not quite on par with other Elite blasters, reaching an average of around 11m roughly flat. The range is actually rather hard to measure, as the Roughcut is extremely inconsistent.
Accuracy is severely lacking. Darts swerve everywhere after around 6m of travel, making it almost impossible to get a solid hit that isn't due to luck at 8m+. The double shot feature compensates for this slightly, but one good shot is far better than two or even three horrid shots.
As for the rate of fire, wow. The Roughcut can effortlessly put out 4 darts in a second, and with a bit more effort you can get 6dps. However, the grip is rather badly designed for slam fire, as it's very easy for your hand to slip off, hence limiting the Roughcut's ROF to a little below 8dps.

Do note that improving the range through spring upgrades is difficult, as the Roughcut uses a gearbox system whose gears are very prone to stripping if the springs you use are too powerful. This means that the Roughcut is more limited in range than any of its other Elite brethren.

So how can the Roughcut be summed up? The best way I can describe it is that the Roughcut is an awesome looking blaster great for spewing out darts quickly (though it runs dry just as quickly) and looking awesome, but good luck trying to get any hits with it at a reasonable range. It's regular retail is around 40AUD, with its cheapest being 20AUD on sale at Kmart. The White Roughcut is a Target exclusive, with standard price of 40AUD, although I got mine for 32AUD on sale. For 20-30AUD, I do recommend the Roughcut if you're looking for something fun, if you want to make a Masterkey, or if you want a blaster that can spew out a bunch of darts quickly. 40AUD is a bit much considering what else you can buy for that amount of money, such as an Elite Alpha or Retaliator. I wouldn't recommend the Roughcut as your primary war blaster unless you're using it in close quarters, as the multi-shot and horrid accuracy will waste your ammo incredibly quickly.

It's a fun blaster, but don't expect to dominate the Nerf battlefield with it.

Pros: Double shot ability, slam-fire gives ridiculous dart output, looks and feels awesome
Cons: Ammo wastage due to double shot and horrid accuracy, range is slightly lacking, pump is uncomfortable especially for slam-firing

Power: 4.5/7
Accuracy: 2/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
Usability: 3.5/5
Rate of Fire: 4.5/5
Overall: 3.34/5

Personal Rating: 2.5/5 - Though it is quite impractical as a war blaster, there is still the fun and coolness of being a pump action shotgun. I for some reason really don't like the Roughcut, something about it feels off.