Critical Brit #4: Nerf M41A Pulse Rifle Review

I’m back and this time it’s #4!
That’s right readers it’s time for my fourth critical brit review and for this installment I’d like to introduce you to a close, personal friend of mine, the (NERF) M41A Pulse Rifle!
Not many of you may know, as I haven’t posted about them for a long long time, but I’m a bit of a closet NERF nerd. I dont’ go crazy deep but, I have a select collection of Hasbro foam flingers and have had fun turning some of them from realtivly tame, family safe fun to overpowered, screaming, mag dumping, monsters.
Another thing I have loved for years is the classic action movie, Aliens. Seeing James Cameron’s sci-fi masterpiece for the first time, aged twelve, blew my mind, even on a slightly wonky 14″ portable TV. I had heard of it and the previous film but had zero knowledge of even what a Xenomorph looked like. It was the coolest shit on earth or even LV-426. The whole world they built was awesome from the Sulaco to the aliens to the drop ship, everything, especially the weapons. They were so chunky, those huge ass smart guns on harnesses sounded so badass but the star of the show for me was the Pulse rife.

So, in 2021, when I saw on twitter that Habro Pulse were taking pre-orders for a NERF based replica of the M41A I was on that page with my card out before you could say assholes and elbows, and now at long last, after moving house and almost forgetting about it, it’s finally here.
It ships in a large, specially designed box featuring the Weland-Yutani logo, Some acid melted holes and a host of other nice small details from the movie. It’s well presented and could easily just go on display in the open box.

Inside you get the full auto blaster, a special ten dart magazine, ten all grey standard size darts & three larger NERF mega darts for the over/under pump action launcher. Most of the time a premium nerf will come with their standard 18 dart mag but I’m fine with this capacity as it has to fit just like the ones from the movie and anything longer would stick way out and ruin the look.

Having looked up some measurements in my trusty Colonial Marines Technical Manual it seems to be near as damn it 1:1 scale at 70cm (27 inches) long and when you put the 4xC batteries in it has a nice weight to it. Nothing like the real thing (based on a tommy gun if you didn’t know), obviously, but nicely more than the standard NERF elite range.

The attention to detail is fantastic, end to end, and I can see this being the standard cosplay item over the ebay/etsy 3d prints from now on, it’s bang on. Plus it’s solid enough to not have to worry about it getting broken. It has the light up LCD counter when you insert the mag that can be set to 95 (as it should be) but it does only count down in single numbers as you fire, It would’ve been nice if it ran down from “95 to –” counting a few each dart as you empty it but I’ll take it. The other minor down side is the sound. It has as speaker that produces sound as you fire it, but it’s not exactly loud or good. It’s ok, the greneade launcher sound is better but the standard dart sound is weak and not as “pulse rifle” as I would have liked, but that’s a small grumble.

As an actual NERF blaster, it fires as any auto flywheel blaster does, pull the under trigger to rev the motors then hold the trigger to fire and it will empty all 10 darts in about 2 seconds with a range and dart speed thats in line with other flywheel NERF offerings. The pump action mega launcher is also as expected, though sadly it only takes one dart at a time and the pump is to prime the air cylinder not cycle more darts. As it’s internals are standard NERF, both the blasters will probably be easy enough to modify with uprated motors, springs, and more powerful battery packs that will take it up to comfortably grown up fun if you fancy a little more power. There’s a bunch of people on YouTube who do tutorials and you can get upto 50 dart mags from e-bay, but I think I’ll be leaving this stock as it’s mostly a display item for me and, besides, you’ll need to cut a couple of parts off any other NERF mags to make them fit.

Colour wise the black, white and yellow is based on the powerloader from the movie and not the brown (yes brown not green) of the movie pulse rifle. I’m not 100% sure why this is but I think it’s to avoid really getting into “replica” territory and it does make it still look like a toy so I think in the near future a strip, sand and paint will be happening following the legend Adam Savage’s NERF painting & weathering video (again on youtube) to make it a real display piece.
Overall this is a great bit of nostalgia that will be taking pride of place on my wall once it’s painted and the minor gripes are nothing deal breaking for me. The price was considerably more than your standard NERF at £99 ($110 US), but, as a limited run thing, I wasn’t going to pass that up. I have no idea if they will make any more & they are already going for £150 on e-bay, not that I plan on ever selling it.
Until next time, Stay frosty!

Special thanks to our resident Critical Brit @Steboost!

Let us know what you think of this review in the comments below or share this post on Twitter with the Hashtag #TNBCriticalBrit, or tweet with us @NerdBlitzPod.

Check out our first foray into publishing with our original short story collection,The Camping Trip And Other Stories!

Hungry for more of that great Nerd Blitz content, head over to Patreon.com/NerdBlitzPod and join at the $5 level to get instant access to numerous Podcasts, Reviews, Audio Dramas, and so much more!

And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.