The Ultra dart-only mechanism here is combined with the pusher, and makes the master PCB necessary. If an Ultra dart doesn’t depress the safety, a plastic tab will slide into place, physically impeding pusher movement. If that was the only thing here, that would destroy the gears as the pusher fought against it. HOWEVER, there’s also a switch that ceases to be depressed when this happens. When that signal gets cut, the pusher motor is put into reverse, retracting the pusher instead of continuing the initial motion. Once the pusher position switch is engaged, the mechanism shuts off and resets, waiting for the next trigger depression to start things over again. Beyond the dual magazine setup and the new darts, the Select is also a full-auto blaster. Yep, we have a new “rifle” to play with! The magazine release is somewhat stiff, but doesn’t need to move far to let go of the six dart magazine. Finally, there’s an interesting artifact from product development. Namely, there’s a slot for a jam door switch, but the switch itself isn’t there. Seeing as Ultra blasters have mechanisms to prevent firing non-Ultra darts and objects, I assume that provision was made for an extra switch until the pusher mechanism safety was proven. At that point, Hasbro could delete the switch to save money…and since molds were already made, there was no point in investing in new ones simply to remove that slot.

NERF Ultra Select Blaster | Smyths Toys UK

The guts of the blaster can come out all at once, which will make rewiring a breeze. Whereas a Rapidstrike (or Turbine, for that matter) have the pusher gears in a discrete unit, the pusher motor, switches, and various gears are all contained in the general clamshell of guts here. Overall it’s a fun blaster to handle, despite the design issues inherent with the Ultra line. Performance

Final Opinion

As for modification, there’s room to make the blaster do quite a bit. First, it’s easy to rewire the motors; as long as your soldering and wiring is clean, it’ll fit without shell cutting. Second, after you’ve removed the “Dart DRM”, you should shave off the pusher arm extension that moved the dart flap out of the way. Doing so frees up room in the shell for a lipo battery.

NERF Ultra Strike Motorized Blaster, Integrated Sight NERF Ultra Strike Motorized Blaster, Integrated Sight

EDIT: After buying another and having it actually fire straight, I can raise the score some. But not as high as it could be, due to QA issues. Hasbro, please note: it looks bad when your blaster has an integrated sight that’s completely useless due to the blaster not shooting in the same direction. Looks Good, At Least The Ultra Select is, quite frankly, a demonstration of what Ultra should have been. The new darts show what Ultra could have promised, had they waited to release the line a little longer. The blaster, meanwhile, offers a great platform, with both full-auto capabilities and being able to swap magazines on the fly, faster than physically replacing the magazines themselves.The carry handle is nice, though I suspect it serves to also strengthen the shell (a magazine carriage instead of a single magazine well means less support for the blaster shell itself). There are also multiple sling points, and a solitary tactical rail on top. The large barrel is aggressive looking, and wide enough to not interfere with dart flight. It’s a new year, and already we’re seeing new blasters on shelves! In this case, it’s the Stryfe of the Ultra line. The Amp moves Ultra farther into the mainstream in terms of combat usefulness. However, due to a fun performance issue, it seems like Ultra flywheelers still aren’t quite there yet. This is where things get interesting. It’s the setup you’d expect from a Rapidstrike (scotch yoke pusher, three switch setup), but with extra bits attached, and a main PCB controlling everything. Let’s get the main issue out of the way: this blaster constantly and consistently shoots to the right of whatever you’re pointing at. It’s still early in distribution to know whether all models do this, but the only other person I know with one also sees the same issue. Many Ultra 2 reviewers had issues with their blasters shooting to the right. ( I seemed to just have general accuracy issues) At the time, many Ultra 2s didn’t have flywheels lined up with each other or the darts, so performance issues were easy to blame on that. In this case, however…everything looks lined up properly. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The blaster just…shoots right. You can account for it, yes, but in the heat of foam-flinging combat, that’s a rather larger hurdle to overcome.

Nerf Hasbro Ultra Amp Motorised Blaster, 6-Dart Clip, 6 Ultra Nerf Hasbro Ultra Amp Motorised Blaster, 6-Dart Clip, 6 Ultra

As for the rest of the blaster, it’s not as bad as it could be. The blaster still has the main grip that’s too small, although at this point most of us have gotten used to it. In this case, the front grip actually helps. Not only is is serviceable, but it also means less need to tightly grab the main handle. As such, it’s not as uncomfortable. The issue now, however, is whether it’s too late for blaster fans to care. Ultra magazines aren’t something we’ve seen in stores, aside from select hobby shops, so the effectiveness of the Select in a loadout is questionable (unless you’re a weird person like me). The new darts work far better, but buying them separately has yet to be confirmed.