Quick Review: Men-Gun Stacked Waffle/Honeycomb Darts

Men-Gun Stacked Waffle/Honeycomb darts are actually an older dart design, originating from K-nex's Kforce blaster line. I figured that given I was slowly collecting most of the currently popular darts, I might as well give these a shot as well.

DISCLAIMER: I was sent these darts by Lightake for review, however all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Compared to a Koosh (left), Waffle (middle right) and Accufake (right). The tip of the honeycomb is quite long, and is slightly rebated from the edge of the foam body. I believe this could help with compatability in long barrels and sealed breeches, however I do not have any such blasters left to test. The foam on my Honeycombss was quite thick and reasonably stiff.

Honeycombs are reasonably heavy, though not especially so. For reference, five Elite darts weigh in just under 5g on this scale, five Koosh just over 5g, and five Waffles at about 6.5g

Something to note about Honeycomb tips is that they don't really like to compress directly. While the sides flex quite easily, the central spine is a lot more stubborn and solid. This contrasts with most other popular dart types which compress readily.

I chrony tested Men-Gun Honeycombs in my Retaliator, RapidPDW and Bullpup RS, and the results can be found in this document. In the flywheelers, new Men-Gun darts achieved higher averages and smaller spreads than used G3 Koosh. On the other hand, in the Retaliator, they had a much lower average and slightly higher spread.
To get a feel for accuracy, I tested a new batch of darts outside with the Retaliator and Bullpup RS. With the Retaliator, I was seeing quite good accuracy (spread of about 0.5m at max range), but poor ranges, dropping noticeably shorter (on average at least 10%) than with Waffles or Koosh. The Bullpup RS had no such issues, achieving comparable ranges to the other two dart types while also maintaining quite good accuracy (around 0.75m at full range). With both blasters, the darts flew quite straight and true.
I believe that the thick foam of the Men-Gun darts is responsible for the performance issues seen with my Retaliator. I believe that the Retaliator does not have a strong enough spring to take full advantage of the longer effective barrel from the Worker bolt and tight fit of the Men-Gun darts. This may also present an issue with long, tight barrels but again I do not have any such blasters to test with.

Men-Gun Honeycombs are just one option in a sea of different dart types and manufacturers. My experience with them has been quite decent in flywheelers, but questionable in weaker springers. Additionally, I believe that the slightly smaller tip design gives it better compatability with long barrel blasters compared to darts with full width heads like Waffles and Accustrikes/Accufakes. The incompressibility of the Honeycomb heads may be a concern, as they may hit slightly harder than say Waffles or Koosh.

Overall, Waffles and Accufakes have better stock/stock-ish blaster compatability, but I believe Men-Gun Honeycombs have superior performance and compatability in long barrels. I'd say they're worth a shot if having a full length, long barrel compatible dart is appealling. For MHvZ, my most attended event, we have a large pool of Waffles/Accufakes as well as Worker G2 darts, so Men-Gun darts aren't really necessary.