Review: Nerf Elite 2.0 Motoblitz CS-10

The Nerf Elite 2.0 Motoblitz fulfils a long-standing desire of mine (and I'm sure many others), that being a mag-fed blaster with an underslung shotgun blaster. While I initially passed on the Motoblitz at its retail price (partly due to lack of interest in Nerf overall), Aussie Targets recently marked them down to 20AUD for clearance, which was a deal far too good to pass up.

The Box

The Motoblitz comes in a fairly basic open style box, as has been the trend for most Elite 2.0 blasters.

Motoblitz Main Blaster

Barring the top mounted scope, the Motoblitz is actually about as compact as reasonably practicable. The faux barrel is only as long as necessary to mount the underslung shotgun blaster, which admittedly is still very long by most blaster standards. The stock is quite short, reminiscent of (but nowhere near as bad as) the old Elite Crossbolt.

The colour scheme and detailing matches other Elite 2.0 and new-era Nerf products, with mainly a metallic blue that I am honestly not a big fan of. The underslung shotgun blaster uses primarily white, again with moulded details and a little paint. Notably, barring the Motoblitz text and Nerf logo, all other coloured detailing is done using coloured plastic inserts rather than paint. This could be very useful for separating components for painting.

The Motoblitz is very thin, which surprised me when I first got my hands on it - I was expecting a lot more bulk and heft.

Note the tube scope on the top of the blaster - this scope is far too low to use, as it sits directly on top of the cheekrest. I can only look through it by de-shouldering the blaster entirely. I would have preferred if they didn't have the scope at all, and just had a long tactical rail in its place.

Speaking of tactical rails, there are three of them - one on top of the scope, and two on the sides just below the scope.

The handle of the main blaster is reasonably sized, however I find the thumbhole stock part of it to be a little too wide, and occasionally rubs against the inside of my wrist. It's not as bad as the old Elite Crossbolt, but can still be irritating.

Being a standard modern flywheeler, the Motoblitz has a rev trigger just below the main trigger. This rev trigger feels sharper and narrower than the ones I am used to, which is a very slight discomfort. I also find the main trigger rather stiff and uncomfortable, though I'm used to Full-Autos, and it's nowhere near as bad as the old N-Strike/Elite Rayvens.

As mentioned previously, the flywheeler part of the Motoblitz is a bullpup flywheeler, with the magwell directly behind the handle and forming the bulk of the stock. Presumably in trying to keep overall blaster length limited, the stock is quite short, and certainly too short for comfort for me. I would have liked at least another 5cm more, although I am of course not the target audience any more.

The Motoblitz magwell has a small lever release, which I find quite effective. It is long and smooth enough to easily use deliberately, but small enough to be difficult to trigger accidentally.

The left side of the magwell has a small slide-down jam door that honestly does not expose much. Interestingly opening it does not deactivate the flywheels, despite saying so in the instructions.

As standard for a Semi-Auto flywheeler, the Motoblitz takes 4 AA batteries. They fit in a bay on the left side of the blaster, just above the trigger.

Motoblitz Underslung Blaster

Of course, the key draw of the Motoblitz is its underslung shotgun blaster. This blaster is completely independent of the main blaster, being attached under the barrel but otherwise having its own separate internals.

Unlike the main blaster, the underslung blaster uses a set of air tanks, pressurised using the pump grip.

The pump grip is reasonably well sized, and easy to grip and pump. It takes somewhere around 5-7 pumps to pressurise the tanks to the point where the over pressure valve activates and prevents further pressurisation.

The underslung blaster has large red buttons instead of a trigger, one on each side. It is easy to reach the buttons with your pump hand thumb when the pump is all the way back, but sadly not possible to reach with your main hand.

The underslung blaster has 6 barrels, and fires all 6 darts simultaneously upon pressing one of the buttons. As each barrel uses a separate air tank, dart performance is not affected by the number of darts loaded.

This underslung blaster is very similar to the old N-Strike Hornet in using separate air tanks and having a "blast" button to fire all darts at once. Unlike the Hornet, the Motoblitz underslung blaster cannot fire the barrels one-by-one, though given the complexity of the Hornet's mechanism to do so, its absence is a benefit for maintenance and modding.

10 Dart Mag

The included 10 dart mag is pretty ordinary. The only things of note are that it has rubber "feet" like the original 18 dart mags, and that mine at least had trouble actually fitting in the tenth dart - it was much more comfortable fitting just 9.

Motoblitz Performance

Using the Motoblitz is very simple, especially if you are familiar with Nerf blasters. The flywheeler must be revved up by holding the rev trigger before pulling the trigger to fire darts - insufficient revs will decrease muzzle velocity and range. 

Despite the very long faux barrel, at full revs the main flywheel blaster clocked an average of around 64FPS with Elite darts with good consistency. I used 4×1.2V rechargeable AAs. This is slightly above-average for an Aus-release blaster, though still only translates to around 8-11m range.

The shotgun secondary blaster uses individual tanks for each barrel, so loading fewer than 6 darts does not affect performance. I found each barrel to be relatively consistent, mostly averaging just under 55FPS with Elites. This translated to roughly 8m range, with the usual Elite dart variation.

Accuracy as you might expect from a blaster using Elite darts is fairly poor. At full range (centred approx 8.5m) I was getting groupings more than 1m wide with both blasters. This is almost entirely down to Elites being an awful dart type. The underslung shotgun blaster achieves accuracy through volume. Both blaster parts would have much better accuracy with better darts.

As usual for a Semi-Auto flywheeler, the main blaster can be fired quite quickly, though anything faster than about 1 dart-per-second will significantly reduce range. 4-5 darts-per-second is possible with very good technique, but will bog down the flywheels drastically, potentially to the point of jamming entirely.

The underslung blaster naturally takes much, much longer to load up, pressurise, and fire.

Game Utility

Functionally, the Motoblitz is no different to any other Semi-Auto flywheeler. Given sufficient time to rev-up, the main blaster can put out darts quite quickly at close range. Additionally, its underslung shotgun blaster gives it a great emergency or spread shot that does not require any rev time - a notable advantage over most other flywheelers.

The most notable disadvantage the Motoblitz has compared to other flywheelers is its length and particularly faux barrel length (which can cause issues if you turn too quickly). Even this however isn't terrible as its stock length is quite short, and the underslung blaster is only as long as it needs to be comfortably usable.

Value and Summary

The Motoblitz's regular retail price in Australia is 60AUD, which isn't terrible by today's standards. Back in 2012, the N-Strike Rayven, the original mag-fed bullpup flywheeler, retailed for around 40-60AUD depending on store. Take into account inflation and the fact that the Motoblitz incorporates an entire extra blaster under its barrel, and I think the Motoblitz is a solid buy at its base price - certainly more so than most of Nerf's other recent offerings. I would have liked a higher capacity mag but that's a relatively minor complaint.

The main blaster is the standard Semi-Auto flywheeler fare, solid but nothing exceptional. The underslung blaster is relatively simple, effective, and well integrated - certainly one of the better gimmicks Nerf has done in recent times. This is exactly the sort of blaster that Nerf should focus on producing, since for practicality and performance they have been far outclassed.

Of course, for the clearance price of 20AUD, the Motoblitz is an absolute steal.

Power: 5/7

Accuracy: 2.5/5

Rate of Fire: 4.5/5

Usability: 4/5

Value for Money: 4.5/5 (based on Aus RRP)

Overall: 3.81/5 - the use of Elite darts really drags down the rating of an otherwise very solid blaster.

Personal Rating: 4/5 - A fun blaster with an actually decent (and long sought-after) gimmick, however I think it is ugly and has several minor usability issues.

Internals and Mod Potential

Most Elite 2.0 blasters have used a combination of screws and clips/solvent welds for assembly, which makes many of them significantly more difficult to open up. Thankfully, the Motoblitz is actually fairly easy to open up, using only screws and no clips/solvent welds.

Image is from Blasterhub's review as I haven't actually opened mine.

The base blaster is a very standard Semi-Auto flywheeler setup; if you've seen any of them before, you'll be able to grasp the internals of this one very quickly. All of the same mod potential applies as well, although the very long faux barrel may prove slightly problematic.

The underslung blaster is very reminiscent of the old N-Strike Hornet, which also used individual small tanks for each of its six barrels. Unlike the Hornet, the Motoblitz's underslung blaster does not have an additional trigger and so cannot be fired Semi-Auto in sequence - however this means its internals are also comparatively very simple.