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SledgefireShells-2

Three SledgeFire shells, examples of a shell.

A shell is a type of dart holding device. In addition to coming included with their patron blasters, some shells are also sold in refill packs.

Details[]

Shells, as their name would suggest, were designed to mimic real life shells or cartridge casings. They are essentially a plastic housing that a dart (or multiple darts) can be inserted into. Currently, all Nerf shells usually hold three darts, but off-brand shells, such as Buzz Bee's, only hold a single dart.

Depending on the design, shells may have built-in air restrictors, which means that dry-firing the blaster without a shell loaded may damage the blaster as the blaster itself does not have an air restrictor.

Blasters that are designed to hold shells usually have a mechanism that automatically ejects the spent shell during priming or reloading. As a result, shell-fed blasters are usually not as practical as conventional blasters, as the shells can be easily lost in the heat of battle, and most blasters that use shells cannot work without them.

History[]

In 2005, Buzz Bee created the first dart blaster shell, initially meant for blasters in the Ruff Stuff Air Blasters series, such as the Rapid Fire Rifle and the Double Shot. Shell-compatible blasters eventually expanded to other series, such as the Air Blasters and Air Warriors series. Their low, cylindrical, dart-like profile allowed them to be used in various proprietary clips such as the six shell clip and the four dart clip, although feeding issues with their patron blasters arose due to their complexity. Buzz Bee shells also housed the blaster's air restrictor, since the blaster did not have one itself. Lately, Buzz Bee has been drifting away from designing shell-compatible blasters in favor of creating more conventional and cross-brand compatible designs.

In 2013, Hasbro created the SledgeFire shell, compatible with the Zombie Strike SledgeFire. The shell was able to hold three darts in a triangular pattern, and was only compatible with its patron blaster.

In 2019, the Elite Shell, along with the DS number code, was created for the N-Strike Elite Trilogy DS-15. Being able to hold three Elite Darts, the design was very similar to the SledgeFire shell, although the two shells are not cross compatible.

Modification[]

A popular modification for Buzz Bee shells is to remove the air restrictor. This modification, however, can be difficult, as well as tedious if one would like to perform this modification on multiple shells.

There are aftermarket 3D printed shells that are compatible with the SledgeFire, that can fire different forms of ammunition such as a single Mega Dart instead of Zombie Strike Darts or Elite Darts. Some of these shells may require air restrictor removal or modification of the barrel to work. Additionally, due to the rarity of SledgeFire shells, there have been 3D-printed versions of shells that work with the stock SledgeFire, although they may need to be sanded to seat the darts properly, and using these shells may yield decreased performance.

Sometimes the dart post in shells are removed to allow compatibility with other darts.

Absolver shell[]

An absolver shell is a type of homemade shell (often repurposed cylinders or turrets) used on homemade Nerf blasters. The chambers of the cylinder or turret have all been linked together, so that all darts fire at once. Some designs allow these shells to be removed quickly or threaded on. Due to the sheer amount of darts that must be delivered, absolver shells are usually used on air powered blasters.

Shell variations[]

Nerf[]

Name Year released
SledgefireShells-2 SledgeFire shell 2013
Shell trilogy new Elite Shell 2019
Unknown Gjallarhorn Elite shell 2023
Unknown Gjallarhorn Mega shell 2023

Buzz Bee[]

Name Year released
Shell buzz bee Shell 2005

Lanard[]

Name Year released
Shell shock shell Shell ?

X-Shot[]

Name Year released
Xshotshell Shell 2011

Third-party[]

Name Year released
Shellingtonshell Shellington shell 2018
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