Nerf Rapid Fire AS-20

Nerf NStrike Rapid Fire AS-20

The Nerf Rapid Fire AS-20 is fairly good sized, and smaller children (three to four years old) might find it a little unwieldy to pump and tote around, although weight isn't too prohibitive even for that age group. Nerf Rapid Fire AS-20 takes 23 pumps to fully pump the gun up. There must be a release valve somewhere because you can hear it let the extra air out if you continue pumping after it's fully pumped up. This is probably a built-in safety device to keep Nerf Guns darts velocity at a safe level.

There is a selector switch on the side that allows you to switch between fully automatic and semi-automatic. Actually, the semi-auto setting is sort of a slow automatic as, if you keep the trigger pulled, the gun will continue firing at a rate of about two shots per second.

On the full-auto setting, the rate of fire is surprisingly fast for a toy about seven or eight rounds per second. That means you can empty the Nerf Gun of all 20 "micro darts" in about three seconds. It was enough to put a smile on this big kid's face.

I quickly began scouting my house for targets and found a large-screen TV makes a great one as the Nerf Guns darts have suction cups on the end and will stick to a smooth, flat surface such as a screen.

Darts are loaded one at a time into their individual launch tubes on the end. When firing, the end rotates in a circle the way a Gatling gun does. The gun produces a very audible noise each time it fires and releases pumped up air.

It isn't excessively loud, though, and I actually found it a welcome sound effect that added to the fun of shooting. In fact, kids could play with this toy and all Nerf Guns without any darts and still have some fun with just the sound it produces (which it does even when no darts are loaded).