X-Shot – Chaos Orbit
X-Shot Chaos – Testing Rival’s Rival on the German Market!
The new X-Shot Chaos series gets off to a promising start. The fully Rival-compatible blaster has much more to offer besides appealing design and innovative integrated magazines! Read more on what makes this blaster special.
Unboxing
The Chaos Orbit comes in a stylish display box. The new invisible mounting in the box is easy to remove by hand and avoids scratches on brandnew blasters when trying to cut the often used tight zip ties from the front. In addition to the fully assembled Blaster, the package contains written instructions, a sticker sheet and 24 Chaos Balls.
The stickers can be used to decorate the Blaster in its original style, even after an optical modding. The 24 Chaos Balls are enough to load the Blaster twice.
Handling
The Blaster has a comfortable grip that is not too small even for adult hands. The pump grip feels good as well and offers sufficient grip. Just like the Chaos Meteor, the internal pusher is pulled back until it locks into place and the balls are loaded through it into the blaster. There is a spring-loaded barrier in the follower which allows balls to pass into the magazine but prevents them from falling out. It is important that only so many balls are loaded that the barrier can still close properly. Otherwise the balls will jam the barrier and the magazine won’t work. As soon as the magazine is full or you don’t want to load any more balls, the pusher is unlocked at the push of a button and will push the balls into the chamber if opened. Every time the blaster is primed, a ball is loaded into the chamber and fired by a pull of the trigger.
Directly in front of the trigger there is a safety lock. It’ll prevent unintentional triggering. Since the safety is completely pushed through the Blaster from right to left and the handle is symmetrical, the Blaster is just as useful for left-handers as it is for right-handers. Depending on your personal posture, the shoulder stock could be a bit longer, however, it gives the blaster an amazing futuristic and compact look.
The built-in sights are just for the looks, since the crosshair imprinted in the plastic is rather obstructing the view than helping to aim. The tactical rails are also just an optical feature as they will not fit attachments, neither picantinny nor NERF Tactical Rail. Both will be fairly easy to change for modders though.
Performance
My readings showed an average value of 63 Fps and a hit rate of 10 out of 14 balls on 5m. The target was the DinA4 large opening of the „Moggihbox“. Due to the nature of the balls you can have a lot of fun with targeted ricochets, but you should also be careful not to shoot yourself in the face over the opposite wall when playing around in the living room. (This advice is of course not based on any personal experience! No!)
Internals
The Blaster is easy to disassemble. There are no hidden screws and most of them are the same length. Only the lower screw at the back of the shoulder support is much longer than the rest. Beside this longer screw there are three shorter ones. Two of them are at the upper end of the sight and the last one lives in the handle of the loading pusher. This little handle has to be unscrewed when opening the sled so the shell can be taken apart.
Onece opened you’ll find a plunger tube, which is comparable to that of a longshot. The plunger itself is screwed into place, allowing the spring to be changed easily. Longshot springs seem to be a bit too long on first glance. The priming mechanism moves a gear wheel, but this is only used to open and close the breech and not to transfer power. So this should not turn out to be a weak point. In the area around the trigger, however, there are several small springs that you should keep an eye on in order not to lose anything.
Personal Sentiment
Futuristic and Pump Action are my favourite things about blasters! I still prefer the classic darts over the balls, but I have been thinking about what kind of cool optical mods are possible since I first saw the orbit. This Blaster is just great fun to play with and looks amazing!
Author: SirScorp
Get your own Zuru X-Shot Orbit Blaster on Blasterparts.com.
