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“Winner of The Coveted Innovation Award at the 2003 Hong Kong Design Toy Show!”
As a child you probably had a disc gun. You know, the kind that shot little round multicolored plastic discs. (If you didn’t have a disc gun, then go right now to aisle 12 of your local grocery store. They’re still $1.95 and come with 20 discs, and we’re sorry your mom never bought you one. Go buy one for yourself right now, and come back and keep reading.) The Shot Blade is the love-child of that little disc gun on aisle 12 on steroids, and with a copious amount of caffeine and hot sauce thrown in for good measure. It’s well-built, way “trip,” and powerful. You couldn’t hurt a fly with that little disc gun from your childhood, but if you shoot someone with a Shot Blade they’ll know it. Just for the record we warn you never to do that.
Speaking of warnings, they’re all over the box. There’s a big red person on the front with an “X” through him, and the warning label reads “Do not aim or shoot at people!” Right next to the “Red Shirt,” a label reads “WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD SMALL PARTS. FOR AGES 14 & UP.” It gets better once you flip the box over. The safety instructions on the back read:
Never look down the muzzle even when unloaded.
Do not aim to hit people or animals. Especially at close distances.
Never put your finger on the trigger before shooting.
Avoid getting dust, sand, or other foreign particles, inside the SHOT-BLADE.
Do not tamper with the spring mechanism.
Keep out of the reach of small children.
Never load, or aim the SHOT-BLADE until a safe target has been selected.
Never aim at any surface that may cause a harmful ricochet.
Never aim, or shoot near anyone’s eyes or ears.
Always wear safety goggles, a facemask, or other protective clothing.
Be sure to read all the instructions carefully, and follow all the safety rules provided. As well, make sure anyone using the SHOT-BLADE understands the safest method for usage.
In case you are wondering why some of the safety warnings above are crossed out, those are the warnings we chose to ignore during our review of this product.
Here’s what you get:
Fresh out of the box.
Included is a strap, two types of action blades (I didn’t count but I think there are 15 of each for a total of 30 blades), and the Shot Blade itself. The packaging can be unfolded to form a decent cardboard target.
Loading the gun is easy, simply pull back on the front stock and slide it forward again. This will expose a small notch in the rear that you can slide an action blade on. All that’s left to do is to choose your target and pull the trigger. A satisfying *KA-CHANG!* follows as the spring mechanism fires the blade at blindingly-fast speed. We were able to achieve firings that would travel fifty or sixty feet WITHOUT trying hard for distance. Just make sure you place the blades so that they are flat against the surface with the rounded edges up to achieve maximum flight. We know you read the instructions carefully like we did, so you already knew to do that.
In my original post about this cool gadget, I mentioned that all I needed to know was how much this thing would sting if I shot a co-worker at point blank range. We don’t work together anymore, but whodack agreed to help me out with this. ThinkGeek.com was nice enough to send me an eval unit.
Click here for a Windows Media Video of our Shot Blade Launcher “How Much Does It Sting?” Test – Exclusive to GadgetMadness (right-click on target, and then select “Save to disk.”)
In case you can’t watch Windows Media files, the image below is the direct result of whodack firing the Shot Blade at my arm at point blank range. It still hurts a little as I type this, a day later.
Hey, that really stings!
So, what’s my conclusion? Go and buy one of these right now. It does what you wanted that little disc gun to do when you were a kid – take a chunk of skin out of your friend and leave a mark to prove how good your aim is. ThinkGeek mentions clearly on their site that the Shot Blade is most certainly NOT for children, and they are correct. The Shot Blade is intended for adults, or people actually stupid enough to fire projectiles at each other, like us. Speaking of which, don’t go and try anything we did. We aren’t professionals, we could have hurt ourselves badly, and if we had hurt ourselves we wouldn’t have anyone to blame but ourselves. Neither will you.
It won the “Coveted Innovation Award at the 2003 Hong Kong Design Toy Show” for a reason. The Shot Blade kicks our ass, Hong Kong style!
Get your Shot Blade Launcher Today at ThinkGeek.com!
What, you want more? Ok.
Just for fun, I velcro’ed my Aiptek DV2 video camera to the end of my eval unit for the purpose of chasing down co-workers and filming their reactions from the “Shot Blade Cam POV.” I’ll be terrorizing my fellow office workers next week, and will post the best reaction videos I get here.
Amazing stuff, velcro.
This is going to be some serious fun.
Shot Blade Launcher at ThinkGeek.com
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