Review: Nerf Rebelle Secret Shot (grey trigger Aus)

Nerf's previous automatic deploying blaster, the N-Strike Deploy CS-6, was a miserable failure even by N-Strike standards. With insanely difficult to reassemble internals and horribly horrible performance, it has become a joke in the community. Now it has returned in a new form, the Rebelle Secret Shot.

 Pretty standard open style packaging, nothing notable here.

Everything out of the box, the Secret Shot, 4 Rebelle darts (one of which is a Message dart) and a single Decoder.
I picked the purple one over the pink as I personally prefer the swirly purple design compared to the pink diamonds which I don't like. Regardless which one you pick, there's an excessive amount of "girly" colours and designs, though that marketing strategy seems to have worked so far.

The folded up Secret Shot (SS) is a fairly innocuous piece. Sure the colouring, pattern and plastic construction clearly show that it's not a purse, unlike the Deploy, the SS *at a glance* is not as conspicuous and could pass for a fairly odd purse from a distance. In particular, the SS hides its barrels/muzzle and doesn't have a conspicuous clip (mag) sticking out of the top.

The carry handle is a neat piece and really adds to the authenticity of the "purse" mode.

That's a rather odd place for a gem, what could it possibly be there for?

It's within reach of your thumb holding the carry handle, it can't possibly be important can it?

The gem is the button that releases the stock of the Secret Shot from its folded position, exposing the muzzle and the handles. The stock will flip into position with some force (so don't put your face right behind it), and will lock in by itself consistently.
The gem release is fairly intuitive and only requires a small backwards pull to disengage the lock

Fully deployed. The SS has a very different profile to most blasters, even its fellow Rebelle blasters. Being designed to look like a purse, the shell of the SS is smooth and uniform, and when folded up is fairly simple box shape.

The handles, as expected, are painfully small in order to fit inside the stock when folded. I can't hold them comfortably, but I can get some semblance of a grip on them, certainly enough to use the SS.

The prime is pretty short as expected, but is surprisingly stiff. Still really easy compared to modded blasters, but certainly one of the stiffer primes of stock Nerf blasters that I've tried.
Interestingly the SS has slam-fire, despite having only 4 shots. I don't think slam-fire was advertised on the box, though I threw the box out a while back so I can't confirm that.

The SS's muzzle/barrel block. It's a 4-barrel Smart AR blaster, so that combined with pump action lets you fire off the 4 darts quite quickly and effortlessly.

The SS fires the top dart first, followed by...

 ...the right one (for the user), and then the bottom and finally the left (for the user). For the user it cycles clockwise starting with the top.
I have noticed a small power difference between barrels, though for the most part it's not significant enough to majorly affect usage. Naturally the most obvious difference comes from the first and last barrels, which are the top and left (from user's perspective) barrels. The last barrel is noticeably but not majorly weaker than the first, and the power difference between adjacent barrels is quite small.

Naturally any loaded darts are obscured by the stock when folded up. Naturally the SS can also be primed while folded up, so you can flip it open and immediately fire.

The stock is surprisingly decent. Not as comfortable or as sturdy as ideal, but it does the job well enough while still working to disguise the blaster well.

Surprisingly, the SS stock is about the same length as a Rapidstrike stock.

 

A unique feature of the stock is its ability to hold darts in these slots. Obviously a lot of flipping of the stock will cause the darts to fly out, but otherwise it's a neat way to store 4 spare darts. There's not that much spare space in the stock, since obviously when folded up it has to contain both handles as well.

To fold the stock back up, the stock release button must be pushed upwards.

Once the button is held up, the stock can be pulled down...

...and clipped back into folded position. Pushing the stock fully up will lock it back into folded position.

FPS shot, as mentioned before the Secret Shot has a very different profile to most blasters, its body is pretty much uniform and smooth.

Power wise the SS is surprisingly good. Its stiff prime comes from a stronger than usual spring, allowing it to keep up with the other Elite-era blasters. Ranges of about 13m-ish with Elites is about standard. It's quite consistent, though there is a little variance coming from the four barrels being smart AR cycled.
Accuracy is decent but not great, pretty standard for Elite-era Nerf blasters. From my accuracy testing I had several darts hit my door frame, though a slight majority did still pass through.
Rate of fire is surprisingly good, thanks to the short pump action stroke and slam-fire. I can get all 4 darts out within about a second which is quite good for a small blaster.

The Secret Shot retails for around 25-30AUD, on sale it can be found for 20AUD fairly regularly. That price range puts it a little below the Retal and about the same as the Cycloneshock or Hammershot. I'd say the price bracket is reasonable, considering it's a larger than usual multishot blaster with a neat gimmick. While I personally wouldn't get it for its regular price, the sale price of 20AUD is more than reasonable.
Unfortunately, to accomodate its compact form and (really fun) gimmick the Secret Shot has had to be limited to only 4 shots, and that lack of capacity really limits its practical viability. Obviously compared to clip (mag) system blasters (as a primary) the SS is totally pointless. As a secondary, it is superior in capacity only to very small blasters like the Triad, and is inferior in capacity to most pistol sized revolvers which are still smaller, like the Strongarm and Hammershot/Sweet Revenge. The 4Victory is a hammer primed pistol with the same capacity as the SS. Additionally, if stored in purse mode, the SS does take a short time to deploy and ready up, which is really not what you want in a secondary.
But obviously the Secret Shot isn't something you get with the intention of practical use, you get it because the deploying function is so silly and so much fun. If you're looking for something totally silly but still usable in say pistol rounds, the Secret Shot is a very good option. I certainly recommend it for something different and fun.

Pros: awesome flip-out feature, isn't completely conspicuous like the Deploy, surprisingly usable in pistol or similar rounds due to Elite-level performance
Cons: terribly small handles, low capacity

Power: 6/7
Accuracy: 3/5
Usability: 4/5
Rate of Fire: 4/5
Value for Money: 4/5
Overall: 3.76/5

Personal Rating: 4/5 - it's so much fun to carry around and flip open, and performs well enough to be usable in pistol rounds. But it's much more about the deploying action, it's just so much fun.