A blaster is a foam projectile firing toy. Nerf is the most well-known toy blaster brand; Nerf blaster is used as a blanket term for all dart blasters, despite there existing other brands and companies that produce dart blasters.

DetailsEdit

The foam projectile generally takes the shape of darts, discs, balls, or arrows. Blasters come in many forms that function like real-life weaponry, such as revolvers, pistols, machine guns, shotguns, rifles, and rocket launchers. This is much more evident in modern lines of blasters than earlier blasters.

Dart blaster brands/companiesEdit

• Air Zone
• Buzz Bee
• Koosh
• Lanard
• Nerf
• X-Shot

Blaster internal typesEdit

Air-poweredEdit

An air-powered blaster features an air tank where air is stored via pump and released via trigger, firing darts as it does so. Air-powered blasters generally feature a high rate of fire or a long firing range.

Plunger systemEdit

Main article: Plunger system

A plunger system blaster features a spring-powered plunger that forces air from out of a sealed tube and out the blaster, propelling a dart forward. There are two kinds of plunger systems: direct plunger and reverse plunger. Direct plunger blasters are generally stronger than reverse plunger blasters.

Spring-poweredEdit

A spring powered blaster simply features a spring that provides the power behind the dart being fired. 

Torsion spring-poweredEdit

A torsion spring-powered blaster features a sideways torsion spring that has a plastic stopper on the end. When fired, the spring coils back together and pushes a disc out of the blaster. The only blasters to feature torsion spring internals are the Nerf Vortex XLR disc blasters.

TriviaEdit

• Blasters are usually not referred to as "guns". This may be to avoid confusion with real guns and to also keep the idea of violence away from dart blasters. There are some exceptions to this by off-brand companies.