Nerf Deploy Review and Mod

My Deploy mod (and review)

The Review

     Overall, the Deploy has taken a lot of criticism, and I want to defend it, just a little.  It is a reshelled Recon, which is nothing that I am a fan of.  However, suppose one didn't have a Recon.  Or Alpha Trooper or Longstrike or Raider.  Or they just thought it a neat gimmick and something new and unorthodox and gave it a try.

     I decided to give it a chance.  Honestly, I don't see the big deal about why everyone hates this blaster.  Is it great?  No, not really.  Is it bad?  No way.  Is it worse than the Recon?  Nope.  So even though it is a Recon in a new body, that's still better than nothing new at all.

     Now, the gimmick is the whole basis for this design.  It Deploys.  Push a button on the top carry handle and the whole thing unfolds.  Sounds pretty sweet, on the other hand, sounds pretty cheesy.  I thought it was interesting, if not very useful, and kind of fun too.  The only downside is that it is structurally less solid than a normal one piece blaster (i.e. minor wobbles/creaks).

     Performance is basically what you can expect from a standard Recon.  The problem is inconsistency.  Mine happens to get very good ranges of 35', more than I got out of my Recon.  However, it is generally reported as having <25' ranges, and being rather weak.  I am unsure as to the cause of this wide range of results.

     Something to note is the sound it produces, in more ways than one.  For being marketed as a stealth blaster, the deploying feature is laughably loud.  Firing produces a crisp, if overly loud snapping sound.  Because they all have the same firing system, it is odd that the Raider produces a sound comparable to coughing, with the Recon being in between the two.

     All in all, the Deploy was not particularly exciting, but was not a disappointment either.  For being marketed around a gimmick, it holds its own as a blaster, if not being anything groundbreaking in itself.  I have heard all sorts of bad things about it so I was surprised when this outranged my Recon and Raider.

The Mod

     The mod I did to this was fairly simple, but the design of this gun is so complex it was still not easy.  As you can see in the pictures,  I removed the stock.  I also removed some safeties / annoying catches from the inside.

     Taking it apart was not the easiest, and getting to take off the stock was many times more difficult than I had imagined.  I mean, take off the stock, easy right?  Well, it has screws from the inside of the shell so the whole blaster must be disassembled to get to it.

     The mechanism overall is pretty complex, with no purpose other than the deploying feature.  I must say, the design team goes to some extremes but it works so I'm not going to complain.

     Once inside and the stock has been removed, one could just close it back up and call it a day.  I wanted to figure out what in the world all the little levers and springs could do, and they're basically all some sort of "safety" mechanism or another.

     So I took them out.  Now I can decock it if I don't want to fire a shot or am just unloading the blaster and don't want to dryfire it.  The downside is that if you pull the trigger with the pump pulled back, it shoots forward with a loud sound.  It wasn't very stealthy to begin with.

     After closing it all up, I also took a hacksaw to a piece that stuck out behind the handle.  In the picture you can see a hole where that was, but it's much more comfortable now.

     Overall I'm quite happy with how this mod turned out.  It makes it more compact and useful, and less gimmicky.  It also has less rattling parts all over.  The Deploy isn't a bad blaster, and I never really liked it, but it's more interesting now and more useful overall.


The Bottom Line

Pros:

     

Cons:

     

Summary:  

Overall Score: