Review: Buzz Bee Rail Raider (15m) [Monorail Blaster]

The Rail Raider (aka Monorail Blaster) is a rather unique blaster, fed by an internal tube magazine loaded from the rear. This is a feeding mechanism that is near non-existant in foam blasters, with the only comparable blaster that comes to mind being the disc-firing Fusefire. Naturally the reveal of this blaster was met with much hype and anticipation.

Disclaimer: This blaster was sent to me for review by Buzz Bee Toys. Despite their contribution, I will do my best to ensure that this review remains as objective and unbiased as possible.
The Box

Standard box stuff, Buzz Bee generally doesn't do anything special or different.

The Rail Raider Blaster

The Rail Raider is a rather long, chunky blaster very similar to a real-steel pump action shotgun. As a result of its design, it is rather front heavy, though surprisingly well balanced when held with two hands.

It is reasonably wide and surprisingly weighty.

The Rail Raider has a uniquely styled tactical rail on top. It is very different aesthetically to Buzz Bee's tactical rail design, however it is still compatible with Buzz Bee attachments. The above picture features the Heatseeking Scope attached without issue.

I'm personally not a fan of the handle. It is reasonably sized, and of a decent length, however my main issue is with the gap between the handle and the trigger guard. This gap is just large enough for a finger to fit, however it is very tight and extremely uncomfortable on the unfortunate finger trapped in there. This is further amplified by the Rail Raider being rather front heavy, thus exerting a lot of force on the trapped finger. The trigger is also quite far away from the handle, however I felt this to be largely a non-issue, as I could still reach it without a problem.

My natural grip on the handle has my middle finger out underneath the trigger guard. This offers a much better support of the front-heavy blaster, and avoids the discomfort of being trapped behind the trigger guard.

The pump grip on the other hand, is quite nice. It is well sized and comfortable to hold, and the pumping action feels quite solid.

The Rail Raider has a jam door just underneath the muzzle that opens out towards the left. It can be opened at any time. The jam door aperture exposes the bolt and chamber area, ideal for clearing any jams that might occur in the front area.

As mentioned before, the Rail Raider uses an internal magazine. This magazine can be seen through the clear top of the blaster, underneath the tactical rail. It is very different to conventional box magazines, as it advances darts without use of a spring-loaded follower.

The internal magazine is covered at the rear by a door piece. This door clicks closed into place and effectively seals the magazine.

The door can be opened by pulling it backwards, then lifting it up. This exposes the rear of the magazine, allowing darts to be inserted.

Filling the magazine requires loading six darts from the rear. Inserting a new dart pushes the already loaded darts forward towards the feeding mech and chamber. The door must be closed before priming to allow feeding.

Darts are held in place by various friction methods, including these small, spring-loaded arms. These help to ensure precise and reliable dart movement during feeding.

The backwards stroke of the pump grip primes the blaster and loads a dart into the chamber area. The forward stroke chambers the dart into the bolt, and pulls all darts in the magazine forward one space. This action is not entirely reliable, sometimes failing to pull the rearmost dart forward. This happens most with deformed, thin or unusually short darts. This leaves a gap in the magazine between darts, which if not accounted for will result in a blank shot. The magazine can be advanced without firing by holding the trigger down while pumping. This however runs the risk of  loading a dart into the chamber area when it is not ready for a new dart, resulting in a complete jam of the blaster.

The Rail Raider includes a small detachable iron sight piece. It is extremely basic, offering no special functionality.

The iron sight mounts on the tactical rail, and can mount on other Buzz Bee tactical rails without issue.

Performance

The Rail Raider achieves a roughly 70fps muzzle velocity with the darts I tested it with, including Koosh, PrecisePro and Long Distance. Range wise, with the included Long Distance darts, it was achieving anywhere from 10-15m at true flat. LD darts are ridiculously inconsistent and love to veer off path or soar far away.
Likewise, accuracy with Long Distance darts is terrible, comparable to using Elites or perhaps even Streamlines. There is absolutely no guarantee that the darts will fly anywhere near your target if they are further than 6m away.
Rate of fire is rather limited. With a reliable feeding mech, the pump action of the Rail Raider would normally allow at least 2-3 darts per second without issue. Unfortunately, the feeding mech often can't keep up with this sort of ROF, and will jam up very easily. I've found that the fastest ROF reliably achievable is around 1-1.5 darts per second, with any faster greatly increasing the chance of jamming.

Game Utility
The Rail Raider has limited practical use. It has very low capacity for its size, has very limited ROF and relatively poor reliability. Its one potential use is as a scavenger blaster, as reloading is simply a matter of inserting darts into the loading hole. This is slightly easier than reloading individual barrels in a revolver or Smart-AR blaster. In general however, the Rail Raider is outclassed in just about every role by other blasters.

Value and Summary
The Buzz Bee Monorail Blaster retails for around 20USD, and is available in Australia as the Rail Raider from Mr Toys Toyworld for 30AUD. It's not a great deal by any means, considering the sorts of blasters available in the same price range, but it's far from a rip-off. While the Monorail/Rail Raider may not be the most practical blaster, it's certainly quite unique and a lot of fun. If you're in the market for such a blaster, I'd definitely recommend giving it a look. If you're looking for something that is practical and will do well in combat, probably look elsewhere.

Power: 6/7
Accuracy: 1/5
Rate of Fire: 2/5
Usability: 3/5
Value for Money: 4/5
Overall: 2.86/5

Personal Rating: 3.5/5 - annoyingly unreliable and slow, and really not practical, but it's a heap of fun and feels awesome to use when it does work properly.

A link to the review I posted on BlasterHub: link