Hail-Fire

The Hail-Fire is a Nerf blaster that was released on September 9, 2012, under the N-Strike Elite series. It requires four "AA" batteries to be operated.

It comes packaged with four six dart clips, twenty-four Elite Darts, and instructions.

Details
The Hail-Fire is a battery-operated semi-automatic flywheel system electronic clip system blaster. Its main feature is that of a rotating clip rack, which can hold up to eight clips at a time. This rack comes disassembled in packaging, and must be attached to the blaster.

It features an "Advanced Handle", which doubles as a carry handle and the mechanism which advances clips in the rack. Pushing it forward and then back will rotate a new clip into place. A clear jam door sits above where the active clip sits, inline with the blaster's internals and barrel.

It features two tactical rails: one on top of the blaster and one underneath, in front of the rotating clip rack. There are three strap points, with one built into the blaster's grip and one on either side of the blaster, atop the clip rack.

It advertises a firing range of up to seventy-five feet (twenty-two meters).

Capacity claims
The Hail-Fire is advertised as the "highest capacity Nerf blaster ever", claiming a maximum capacity of 144 darts. This, however, requires separate accessories and additional darts than what is included, as the Hail-Fire only includes twenty-four darts and four six dart clips.

Multiple product sets, such as the Hail-Fire Upgrade Kit or Hail-Fire Bonus Pack value pack, provide a full six dart clip loadout, totaling at a capacity of forty-eight darts.

Using a full set of ten dart clips will give a maximum capacity of eighty darts. A full set of eight twelve dart clips will give a maximum of ninety-six darts. The 144 capacity claim, however, is matched when a full set of eighteen dart clips is used.

The Hail-Fire can use eight Firefly Tech clips, four eighteen dart drums, or four thirty-five dart drums at once with no spacing issues. This would give a capacity of 144 darts, 72 darts, and 140 darts, respectively.

Using the N-Strike Flip Clip accessory, it is theoretically possible to have a total of 288 darts, connecting sixteen N-Strike eighteen dart clips together and equipping them to the Hail-Fire. Similarly, the N-Strike Modulus Flip Clips theoretically provide a capacity of 192 darts. Despite these being possible, the Hail-Fire carousel has been reported by some as notoriously flimsy and apparently does not advance well with a load much greater than originally prescribed.

History
The Hail-Fire was announced on February 10, 2012, alongside the rest of the N-Strike Elite series. The blaster was specifically mentioned as "the most impressive blaster in the collection hitting shelves on 9.9.12". Some fans initially believed that the Hail-Fire would be a re-released Longshot CS-6, in the veins of the Rampage, an updated Raider Rapid Fire CS-35, and Retaliator, an updated Recon CS-6. This was later dismissed when the blaster was featured in a teaser "sizzle" video shown at the 2012 New York Toy Fair. This led some fans to create mock-ups of the blaster, based on what little imagery had been shown off.

Images of the Hail-Fire were included in a German website's accidental leak on April 5, 2012. It was then given an outright reveal on April 27, 2012. Official images were finally on May 30, 2012 from Nerf's Facebook page. From there, video demonstrations would be shown and other forms of information until it began appearing on store shelves, in some places earlier than others.

In 2014, a Sonic ICE variant of the Hail-Fire was released.

Color schemes
The Hail-Fire has been released with the following color schemes:


 * N-Strike Elite (blue, white, black, gray, and orange)
 * N-Strike Elite running change "economy" variant (same plastic colors as the standard version, but sporting considerably fewer paint operations)
 * Sonic ICE (clear blue, white, black, gray, and orange)

Modification
As a motorized flywheel blaster, the Hail-Fire is a candidate for voltage modification and motor replacement.

The two semicircular pieces that cover the clip carousel can be removed after assembly, with some force. Without the large cover pieces, clips do not have to be removed to load darts. This also allows the carousel to be rotated easily by hand.

Value packs
The Walmart-exclusive Hail-Fire Bonus Pack features a Hail-Fire with a full set of forty-eight Elite Darts and eight six dart clips.

Trivia

 * The Hail-Fire is the third Nerf blaster to have a special release on September 9th, alongside the Stampede ECS in 2010 and the Raider CS-35 in 2009.
 * Unlike most other early blasters in the N-Strike Elite line, the Hail-Fire is not a successor to any previous N-Strike blaster, making it the first completely original blaster in the series.
 * The Hail-Fire can be reloaded through the jam door; because the jam door is larger to accomodate the clip rack, this is considerably more comfortable to do compared to other blasters.
 * Prior to the 2018 RIVAL Prometheus MXVIII-20K, it had the highest advertised capacity of any stock Nerf blaster.
 * A flash game was created to promote the release of the blaster called Hail-Fire Test Labs.
 * In addition, the Hail-Fire is also a featured blaster in the Build-a-Blaster flash game.