Board Thread:Off-topic discussion/@comment-28773666-20170425155256/@comment-27306930-20170426043250

As an engineer, all I can say is much of the discussion about direct vs. reverse plungers, and the associated dead spaces, is largely academic. Nerf darts only weigh a gram or two. Compared to the total kinetic energy of the spring and the design of the air restrictor and the effective length of the dart chamber, the plunger mechanism itself is effectively irrelevant. You push air into a finite space at a specific rate, and you generate a finite amount of energy. Plain and simple. The mechanism is irrelevant. Blown, puffed, spurted, impelled, pushed, it doesn't matter. Energy imparted into the system equals energy transferred into the dart. 