Adventure Force Exact Strike vs Buzz Bee Air Warriors Sentry – Comparison and Teardown

The Exact Strike is manufactured by Buzz Bee for Walmart’s Adventure Force store brand. It is packaged along with five “Exact Strike” and two “Long Distance” darts.  These correspond to Buzz Bee’s Precise Pro and Long Distance Darts respectively. This package sells for the almost unbelievable $3.88 and is available in most Walmart stores. The packaging makes range claims of up to 100 Feet.

The Long Distance darts are recolored in the green shafts with blue tips to match the Adventure Force color scheme common with most of their blaster line. The blaster is one of the few not released in Adventure Force green, instead keeping the Buzz Bee Precision Blaster color scheme, in common with the Exact Attack, Thermal Hunter, Sentry, and (Thermal ) Zenith models.  

As mentioned when we compared the Zenith to the Exact Strike, paint apps are limited to a nicely stylized print of the name on both sized of the blaster. Buzz Bee has forgone paint and instead decorates the shell with a combination of mold styling and secondary plastics. In the Sentry’s case, this is primarily achieved with a large white sculpted piece running nearly the full barrel length, a charcoal sculpted back piece on the handle, and a safety orange coin-button shape on “hammer” end of the blaster to match the barrel safety tip and trigger. The slide is teh same charcoal as the back piece to the handle. The red of the shell really pops, I continue to be surprised how much I like this color.  The lower half of the shell has a dimpled crosshatch pattern to give a nice tactile feel while the upper continues the horizontal line-motif from the white inset piece.

In hand, it has the default issue of all Buzz Bee blasters when in the hands of an adult. The handle is small, both in length and diameter. I’m a average sized adult with fairly skinny fingers, so I don’t have much problem with this. I can comfortably get three fingers around the handle and have the bottom of the handle rest on my pinkie. There is a mock pair of iron sights 

Like most dual barrel Buzz Bee blasters, it alternates which barrel fires between shots.

The Air Warriors Sentry is one of the new entries into the Air Warriors line that came along with the price Pro darts. It is packaged with five Precise Pro darts and makes range claims of up to 90 feet. Like the double drum Barbarian, this was effectively a K-Mart exclusive to some parts of the country ( if not everywhere – I’ve seen no specific documentation to that ) that has slowly trickled into the secondary and second tier markets.  It runs $5.99 to $6.99 where I’ve found it orderable online, or if you’re lucky, as low as $3.99 at discount stores like Ross where I have been seeing them lately.

As above, the Sentry’s decoration is done primarily with inset plastics, the paint being limited to a stylized tampograph of the name on the left side of the shell. The right has a spot for it, but either mine is missing or this was only done on the packaging display side of the blaster. The shell uses two colors of insets, light grey for the back handle wrap and and under-barrel grip and white for a sort of trapezoidal shape near the hammer end and a half oval that runs from the barrel to the blaster’s midpoint. The slide is also in light grey.  Only the trigger and the safety tips on the barrels are in our favorite orange. Oddly, the back end of an iron sight setup is on this blaster, but it is blocked by the slide grip from being able to really line anything up, suggesting this might not have been the original slide for this blaster.

In hand, it has a the typically small handle for an adult we expect from a Buzz Bee design. The handle comfortably takes three fingers with the pinkie wrapping up below on the slope down to the bottom of the handle.

As with the Exact Strike, this blaster alternates barrels between shots.

Aside from the general description differences that can be inferred above, these two really aren’t that different from each other.  The Sentry is a small bit taller along the barrel, otherwise they have almost the same profile. The Sentry is overall slightly wider – about two shell’s worth – including the handle, making it feel larger in hand. The only other non-trivial difference is the shape of the slide. The Exact Strike has the same, minimalist sorta trapezoid slide as the Baron. The Sentry has a curvy shape that ends with a catch to help keep your hand from sliding off while priming. 

As expected, when opened, these are very much the same blaster, ammunition size aside. In examining the insides, I found only three differences between the Exact Strike and the Sentry. 

The first is probably the most obvious – the trigger mechanism. The Exact Strike mechanism looks to be a wholly lifted and scaled version of the Baron while the has a different has a different trigger shape.  Functionally, both provide the same result. The second is the color of the gearing ring on the plunger tube. The last was unexpected. The color orange used in the Exact Strike differs from the orange used by the Baron and Sentry. I can only assume this is a Walmart specification difference.

This is one of those times where the surface assumption on the internals is absolutely correct. Both provide a very nice pop when firing. It is quite satisfactory.  Given the choice of one over the other, I’d go with the Sentry. The extra bit of size make all the difference in feel, particularly on the slide.

But don’t take my word for it, here are other reviews.

Walcom’s take on the Sentry

Brando Nerf’s Sentry unboxing.

Bret/Beret’s review of the Exact Strike

More as I uncover them.