Adventure Force Sentry x2 Review

Or access to promotional art…

It’s very easy to dismiss the Sentry as what it looks like on first blush – a Kronos work-alike. That’s understandable. The Kronos hit the market and as the rare, nearly perfect, out of the box competitive blaster and there wasn’t a clear winner in this space. It is natural a competitor would eye that result. We’ll get a little more into that comparison later. As with all Adventure Force blasters, this is manufactured for Wal-Mart by one of the three second-tier blaster makers. So far, all of the HIR ball-blasters have been made by Dart Zone as indicated by both the box labeling and the “Powered by PT-DZ” call out on the blaster. 

The Sentry X2 is just shy of 31 cm long and a little under 6 cm at the widest, fitting into the same dimensions of most over-sized foam blaster pistols. It features a 6 round internal magazine accessed through a tilt forward access door at the top-side nose of the blaster. A second trigger acts as an active safety, which may cause consternation to some.

The plastic is solid as we have started to expect from Dart Zone, with almost no creaking when torqued and minimal rattle. Both of those are attributable to the ammunition door along with the expected spring rattle in the internal magazine.

The package includes the blaster, tied in with elastic bands, and 8 of Dart Zone’s orange Tactical Strike rounds for $9.99. 

The pistol grip is comfortable, at a size that suggests it was designed for the 14+ age on the label. The safety’s position is sensible for the setup and enforces the need for a little older, physically more coordinated user than a typical blaster. The prime is smooth and is solidly in the middle in the HIR blaster range of resistance. My 9-year-old probably could not prime it. There is a single sling point on the heel of the grip that some may find uncomfortable or annoying.

The shell decor continues with the Dart Zone futuristic blaster theme used in the Titanium, Velocity, Accelerator, and the Quantum, with mock cutouts, screw ports, and vents. The blaster carries over the color scheme from the Quantum and Velocity with the majority of the body in a vibrant blue. The nose, access door, and both triggers are Dart Zone’s flavor of safety orange with the slide using a metallic dark grey. The bottom side of the nose as what looks like a rail, though it’s not a design I have seen before, leaving me to think it is primarily for looks and to help place a screw port. The “iron sights” are small and seem as reasonably effective as they can be in foam.

Overall, I like it. I’ve noted before my fondness for the design style of Dart Zone’s HIR line and this blaster fully continues the aesthetic. If you like the previous works, you’ll probably like this one.

Looking at the above photo with all of the Rival Kronos derivatives, it is easy to ask “So, what’s different? The other blasters are all Kronos, But!” 

The Sentry holds three distinctions from the Kronos and its derivatives. The first is the price – $9.99. Holiday sales notwithstanding, the Kronos averages just under $15, down from its release price of $19.99. The other members of the “family” range from $19.99 ( D.Va, Heracles, Red Kronos, Blue Kronos ) to $24.99 ( Mercury ) excluding specialty packaging and licensed variants ( Dead Pool, various combo packs. ) The other two distinctions are in design. 

The first we’ve mentioned – the active safety.

On all Rival blasters, the safety is a passive mechanical switch that stays in a given mode to allow or prevent the trigger from pulling. The Sentry implements this as a dual trigger system, requiring both to fire, like most flywheel blasters. This will take some getting used to. 

The second distinction is the use of an internal, horizontal stick magazine. This design is also different in that the magazine spring doesn’t directly push the round into the chamber. When the blaster is primed, the front-most round gravity drops into the chamber. Even with this set up, it is possible to get an additional round in the magazine, but two causes it to not feed. I would caution against this with worn rounds.  An adjunct to this feature is the small trough in front of the magazine can hold an additional two rounds, allowing for an emergency top off without having to find rounds.

This also leads me to the one design issue I have found in the blaster so far – it will not load a round into the chamber when pointing straight down. The white arm you see in the magazine does not provide enough force to push the round into the chamber. It doesn’t require much angle to not have this occur and it doesn’t partially load which would result in a jam making this more of an annoyance than a problem.

The access door can pop off, which could speed loading.

Performance and Usage

I took a pair of these with me to the recent Texas Community Nerf battle and had a pretty good run. Turned out, I wouldn’t be the only one and so far, my experience with the blaster were pretty typical.

While I was there I ran a quick comparison between the Sentry X2, Kronos, Heracles, and Mercury and found it performed on par with the group. Weight was similarly clustered.

Ultimately, this is a VERY solid HIR blaster that performs well and is easy to use. It is the least expensive blaster in the space by a few dollars and should be easily found  in US stores.  If you re already invested in  small stack of Kronos blasters, you’ll probably want to pass on this as you might find it is not enough different to switch. That’s really the only place I’d give a no to if someone was looking for a HIR pistol.