Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-27058814-20190118214856/@comment-29595756-20190119054240

It's quite different from dart blasters due to the nature of the discs. The torsion springs are the main force behind launching the discs out of the barrel of the blaster. I've seen two different styles when I've opened some of my Vortex blasters up.

The first style (found in most Vortex blasters), which seems to be used in the earlier blasters, uses a kind of hook like arm that is primed back and is powered by a torsion spring. This arm sits underneath of the disc when the blaster is primed. When the blaster is fired, the hook grabs the hard rubber ring underneath and flings the disc out, at the same time the disc rubs againts a roller on one side to create the spin that gives the disc the stability it needs to fly more or less straight.

The second variation (found in the Diatron) uses a sideways wall that is connected to a torsion spring. When primed, the wall is cocked back behind the discs, which pop up in front of the wall. When the trigger is pulled, the wall pushes the discs out which again rub some rollers to induce the spin.

Other than that, there isn't much else going on, and it's actually a very simple system. All of the complex looking bits that you see are parts of the locks and the over engineered way the discs actually get into position (I'm thinking about the Revonix 360 primarily). You still get a lot of the same trigger components that you would find in dart blasters, but that's about it for the parts that actually fire the discs.

Now on a side note, there are some other types that don't use Torsion at all. The Zombie Strike Vortex blasters, with the exception of the Fusefire, use a standard spring that you would find in a dart blaster. The spring has a wall in front of it, which shunts the disc out, and they are usually much more underwhelming in terms of performance than torsion powered ones. And then of course there is the Nitron which uses a single powered flywheel to fire discs.