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The Hail-Fire is an electronic Nerf blaster that was released on September 9, 2012[1] under the N-Strike Elite series. It requires four "AA" batteries to operate.

It comes packaged with four six dart clips and twenty-four Elite Darts.

Details

The blaster requires assembling before use.[2] It is a fairly small yet squat and wide semi-automatic blaster that feels more weighted than other smaller flywheel blasters. The Hail-Fire has the highest advertised ammo capacity of any stock Nerf blaster: 144 darts.

The Hail-Fire, like other N-Strike Elite blasters, features a digital camouflage design etched into it. It features one medium sized tactical rail on top of the blaster and a very small one in front of the rotating ammo rack that is similar to the one on the Stampede ECS. The jam door is located at the top front of the blaster and is a clear slide. The orange battery door is located at the top back of the blaster. It is incompatible with shoulder stocks and barrel extensions.

The carry handle, called the Advance Handle, is located at the front of the blaster. The jam door must be closed for the advance handle to work. In order to advance to the next clip, crank the handle forward and then pull the handle back. It is relatively difficult to advance it fast; it is suggested to do fir and slow unless the need arrives to do it fast.

The Hail-Fire features two triggers, the top being a firing trigger and bottom being the acceleration trigger. There is no manual priming mechanism of any kind on the blaster.

The two semicircular pieces that cover the magazine carousel must be assembled out of the box, but they can be removed after assembly (with some force). Without the large cover pieces, the blaster looks far less formidable, but magazines do not have to be removed to load darts. Also, this allows the carousel to be rotated by hand.

Capacity claims

Despite advertising a capacity of 144 darts, the Hail-Fire only comes packaged with twenty-four; another four six dart clips will give the blaster a full stock capacity of forty-eight darts. This full stock capacity is achieved by purchasing the Hail-Fire Upgrade Kit, or purchasing a Hail-Fire value pack.

Because the Hail-Fire is compatible with other clips, using eight twelve dart clips will give a maximum of ninety-six darts and eight eighteen dart clips will give the total maximum capacity of 144 darts.

Basic Nerf has confirmed the Hail-Fire can use eight Firefly Tech clips, four eighteen dart drums, or four thirty-five dart drums at once with no issues.[3]

With the addition of the Flip Clip, it is possible to have a total of 288 darts using the N-Strike eighteen dart clips.

History

It continues the trend of "flagship" Nerf blasters being released on September 9, which first started in 2009 with the Raider CS-35 under the N-Strike series. Unlike most other early blasters in the N-Strike Elite line, the Hail-Fire is not a successor to any previous N-Strike blaster.

The Hail-Fire was first discussed six days after the N-Strike Elite line was discovered in the form of a Hasbro press release on February 10, 2012.[4] This mentioned "the most impressive blaster in the collection hitting shelves on 9.9.12". That same day what would become the official title of the blaster was also known.[5] Some fans initially believed that the Hail-Fire would be a re-released Longshot CS-6 in the veins of the Rampage, an updated Raider CS-35, and Retaliator, an updated Recon CS-6. This was later dismissed when part of the blaster was revealed in a preview video shown at the 2012 Toy Fair.[6]

As the full shot of the Hail-Fire had not been yet known, there had been speculation as to what it exactly looked like based upon available information at the time and the few given shots of the blaster itself, with some fans going far enough to recreate what they believed it to look like.[7] A sizzle video with the full Elite line at the time was released on February 22, 2014 although it contained a silhouette shot of the Hail-Fire and not a full blaster shot.[8] The sizzle video was shown at the 2012 Toy Fair, however audience members were not allowed to take photographs or videos of it.[9]

Further concepts for the Hail-Fire began popping up during the timespan between the sizzle video and its accidental reveal.[10] A German website accidentally leaked images of the three known N-Strike Elite blasters as well as the at-the-time untitled Stockade, seen for the first time, on April 5, 2012.[11] It was then given an outright reveal on April 27, 2014.[12] Official images were finally released sometime around May 30, 2012 from Nerf Nation.[13] From there video demonstrations would be shown and other forms of information until it began appearing on store shelves, in some places earlier than others.[14]

Color schemes

The Hail-Fire has been released with the following color schemes:

Modification

Being a motorized flywheel blaster, the Hail-Fire has a rather limited modification potential. Like most motorized blasters, standard modifications like voltage modification can be done.[15]

Value packs

There is a Walmart-exclusive special value bonus pack features a Hail-Fire with a full set of forty-eight darts and eight clips which was discovered in September 2012.[16]

Reloading and firing

To reload the Hail-Fire, first turn off the blaster and pull the loaded clips out. Load up to six Elite Darts into each of the packaged six dart clips. Load up to eight clips, with darts facing outwards, into the blaster and turn the blaster back on.

Hold down the acceleration trigger and pull the trigger to fire darts. Once a clip is emptied, crank the Advance Handle to switch to the next clip to continue firing.

Trivia

Nerf_N-Strike_Elite_Hail-Fire

Nerf N-Strike Elite Hail-Fire

The official Hail-Fire teaser video.

  • The Hail-Fire can be loaded through the jam door; this is considerably more comfortable than with other blasters. Its jam door is also substantially larger than most other jam doors.
  • The Hail-Fire is advertised as the flagship of N-Strike Elite.
  • It has the highest advertised capacity of any Nerf blaster.
  • It is the only Elite clip system blaster that can't use barrel extensions nor shoulder stocks.
  • A flash game was created to promote the release of the blaster called Hail-Fire Test Labs. In addition, the Hail-Fire is a featured blaster in the Build-a-Blaster flash game.

Gallery

The full image gallery for Hail-Fire may be viewed at Hail-Fire/Gallery.

References

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