My youngest child’s 8th birthday was looming in the near future and I had to come up with some affordable gift ideas that might actually be entertaining. In the past, I’ve generally gone overboard with birthday presents for my kids and spent WAY too much money. However, due to a recent family “transition”, I’ve found myself relatively broke. No more expensive video games or electronic toys. My sweet little boy knew that birthdays were going to be “different” in our house from now on and he knew that, unfortunately, he was the first one to experience the significant downsizing. Last week he said “Don’t worry about buying me anything for my birthday, Mom. I don’t really need anything.” Pretty amazing words, coming from a child who is used to being spoiled rotten. I think he really thought I was going to skip his birthday this year. It was priceless to see his face when he came downstairs to a table of brightly wrapped presents. No, they didn’t include iPods or DVD players or any of the spendy things his friends got for their birthdays. What it DID include were some simple, affordable, and FUN gifts – one of which was the NERF Buzzsaw.

No Such Thing as Too Much NERF!

My kids (OK, my boys) have lots of different NERF weapons at their disposal. Hard to believe that there were any that they DIDN’T yet own. However, when I was perusing the toy aisles at Fred Meyer with my daughter, I noticed that all the NERF toys were on sale. One of the 50% off items was the NERF Buzzsaw gun. My daughter assured me that her little brother did not, in fact, own the Buzzsaw. For $7.49, it was a deal I could not pass up.

The NERF Buzzsaw is the most complicated-looking of three NERF ball blasters that shoot the green golf-ball size NERF “ballistic balls.” It has a slanted launch tube on top for loading the weapon, a large orange “buzzwheel” on the bottom that spins and revs up when you pull back on the light blue handle on the back, and green hand-grip trigger. The general idea is that you load the ballistic balls into the launch tube, pull back and forth on the handle a few times, and then pull the trigger and fire away. As the package says, just “Rev it up! Buzzwheel blasts ‘em out!”

Mom Should Not be Allowed to Play With Toys

During the excitement of opening all of these unexpected (but secretly hoped for) presents, my son thrust the NERF Buzzsaw at me and asked me if I could take it out of the package. Fortunately, as an experienced Mom, I was prepared with my heavy-duty toy package opening tools (just shy of a chainsaw). I wrestled it loose and then extracted the four green ballistic balls that came with it. Since my son was still distracted with another gift, I took it upon myself to do a little product testing. I mean, how hard could it be?

I crammed the four ballistic balls into the launch tube and then pulled the trigger. Nothing. Hmmm…. OK. I’ll pull back on this handle thingy. Did that, then pulled the trigger. Nothing. Uh oh. Did I buy him a dud? Oh, he’s going to be SO disappointed. My older son walked up behind me, watched my lame attempts and then said “Mom, you didn’t put all four balls in there, did you?”

Turns out that you are only supposed to insert THREE balls at a time – four will jam it up. Well, then why did they give us four? I cleared the jam, put three balls back in the launcher tube, pulled the handle out and pushed it back, and then pulled the trigger. One ball dribbled out the front of the gun. I pumped the handle again and pulled the trigger. This time a ball meekly plopped about two feet in front of the gun. Dang! I really DID buy a dud!

My 11-year old was watching the whole time with a smirk on his face. “Hand it over, Mom.” I gave it to him, cautioning him not to complain too loudly about what a lame toy this was because I didn’t want to upset my 8-year-old birthday boy. My son loaded the three ballistic balls, authoritatively pulled the handle back and forth several times, making a rather loud whirring sound, and then pulled the trigger. The balls flew at least 15 feet down the hallway and smacked loudly onto the wall. “COOL!”

Huh. I asked him how it got it to work so well for him and he said “Mom, it’s OBVIOUS!” Well, OK then. Eventually his little brother tried out the new NERF Buzzsaw and declared it “Radical!” as the balls were loudly ricocheting off the wall near my head. I ducked for cover and thanked my lucky stars that my boys were inherently equipped to operate this kind of perplexing toy. Obviously I was NOT equipped to do so.

Dr_Steph’s Recommendation

As far as my boys are concerned, the NERF Buzzsaw is a definite “keeper.” It interests the 11-year-old as much as it does the 8-year-old and getting the older child to be interested in simple and affordable toys is a difficult task these days. Personally, I think the toy is unnecessarily loud but that’s probably part of what makes it attractive to kids. It normally sells for $14.99 but I got it for half that price. If your children like loud toys that shoot, they will probably enjoy the NERF Buzzsaw. The balls do get lost easily so you might want to invest in a supplemental package of ballistic balls, usually sold in the NERF section along with all of the darts. We already owned another NERF “ball blaster” (the NERF Reactor) so we had some extra balls on hand.

Of course somewhere on the package it undoubtedly cautions against aiming this at people or animals. As my frazzled cats and I can both attest – you’ll survive. Just don’t forget to duck…

Thanks to MaryTara for adding this product in lightening speed!



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 7.49
Type of Toy: Other
Age Range of Child: Other