POINT BLANK with Howe
Tornado Grenade $99.95
When I review equipment I don’t care about what little prissy box it comes in, I care about how the quality of the item. More important than this is how the equipment is going to perform for me when I am trying to kill someone and that person is shooting back. I’m not here to suck up to any manufacturer I’m here to give you a no B.S. Point Blank Review.
MATERIAL 9/10
The plastic material used is very solid. It looks nice and seems pretty rugged. I haven’t had any problems with it yet.
It’s hard to rate the design on this grenade as it doesn’t look like a real grenade but they came up with this specific shape to facilitate the spinning process. It looks good enough, you can tell it’s a grenade so I’ll give it good marks here.
PRACTICALITY 9/10
This grenade is a one shot item, you won’t be using it much on the field, as it takes several minutes to reload. I would be surprised if you use it more than once or twice during a typical skirm (unless you go back to reload a lot.)
ACCESSORIES 10/10
There aren’t a lot of parts on this grenade which I really like. You have the pin, valve key (which are connected) and the end cap. After you throw this grenade there aren’t any parts for you to go and attempt to find. This area was very well thought out.
FIELD TESTING 7/10
This is where things get dicey. I’m sure you have seen the videos at http://www.airsoft-innovations.com/Grenade.html but if you notice all of their tests are on a hard, flat surface. This hard flat surface is what allows the grenade to spin around and throw bb’s everywhere. Now that is all nice and dandy if you are doing a cqc event or at PTOC but what about where you are out on a field?
I tested this in the field below my house and got very mediocre results. One-half of the bb’s shot out but the other half just shot straight into the ground. The grenade was not able to spin. Now if I had thrown this in a bunker with someone it probably would have killed most people in it, but once you get out of a 5 yard radius there is a good chance you won’t hit the MZB (Mutant Zombie Biker) if he happens to be on the opposite side of the way the bb’s are spraying he will live to shoot back.
So in this section I’m going to split my ratings of the two surfaces:
Hard Floor=5/5
Grassy Field=2/5
7/10
VALUE 5/10
Now the grenade price states $99.95 but you have to pay another $20 or so in shipping from Canada which means the grenade is really $120.
I think the grenade delivers most of what it claims it will do. The cost is high in my opinion for what you get.
I would compare owning this grenade with owning a M203. Most people don’t use them much on the field but it is cool to have.
OVERALL SCORE: 40/50
Beginner to Airsoft: Don’t’ waste your time or money on this item. It is not a necessity and you are better off spending this money on a better AEG, boots, plate carrier, etc.
Experienced Airsoft Warrior So you already have just about everything you need to whoop a$$ on the field, except a grenade. There are times that this could definitely come in handy when you are trying to get people out of a dug-in position. My only real objection is that this grenade is overpriced for what you get.
Knowing what I now know about the grenade would I buy it again? Probably yes, I will have fun with this from time to time. I have a generous airsoft budget so it was a no brainier for me to buy the grenade but if things are tight for you financially I wouldn’t recommend you pick this up.
-Howe has spoken