Gel Fight Scorpion VZ61 SMG

Thought a review of the Scorpion VZ61 SMG might be of interest. This particular blaster is very available, several gel blaster outlets list it in their stock, price averages around $199, this unit set me back $159 with a seller discount code.

Manufactured by Gel Fire, same people who make the Cyberpunk Quasar DR-12. This review won’t go into the unusual offset gearbox in this blaster :

That’s been covered in this forum already, forum searching “Quasar” will take you to a pretty solid look at the gearbox by Bigmuthadrums and Chapinb.

What You Get :


VZ61 SMG blaster
Stick Mag
Drum Mag
7.4v battery & USB Charger
Eye Pro (garbage)

The blaster comes fully assembled minus the battery cover (in an accessory bag with the rubbish charger, battery and a screwdriver you couldn’t tighten your Raybans with).

First Impressions :

Very solid nylon build (think Kriss Vector), decent Allen head assembly screws, steel folding stock/brace, alloy inner barrel (7.4mm measured, but more likely 7.5mm standard approx 12cm long), falls short of the outer barrel by about 10mm so no extra barrel length to fit a hop up.


Interesting also that the feed tube on the mag is positioned at the rear… obviously to get as much inner barrel length as possible. It would be viable to lose a few centimetres off the alloy barrel so that with a short hop up on the overall length would be roughly the same. Nylon outer barrel would need to be trimmed back to suit.

Both stick and drum mag have a solid feel, quality nylon. 55-60 gel capacity for the stick, 220-230 for the drum. Has a functioning ambi charging handle, fire select lever and trigger are nylon build.

The stick mag fills through a flip down hatch on the front of the mag, the drum through a hatch accessed by rotating the lever on the front face of the drum.


Interesting to note the stick mag was a very neat fit in the magwell with minimal movement, while the drum was tight to the point of unuseable. It required a fair bit of sanding down on the sides of the mag neck to get an acceptable fit and to allow the mag catch to function properly.

Both mags are lacking gel stoppers as is the t piece so mag out means gels everywhere unless you keep it upright. May look into retrofitting stoppers, but as this is mostly ornamental, probably not.

Trigger pull is light, actuating a Gen 8 style micro switch, there’s a little bit of dead trigger on the pull but could be easily taken up with a pad on the trigger if it’s an issue for you. The trigger safety is mechanical and feels fairly flimsy, like it would break the lock mech if a heavy hand tried firing from safety.

Fire select lever is reasonably positive, there are three settings, safe, semi auto and full auto. Weirdly, the sequence is safe to full auto to semi, similar to an AK.

Fire control is via a MOSFET located in the handgrip, four screws out and it’s accessible, although replacement MOSFETs may be hard to source.

Steel folding stock is functional but puts the blaster in an awkward position. It is easily removed (one screw and nut) if you’d prefer to run it as a straight up pistol.

Battery cover is awkward… it’s designed to fit only one way, a spring loaded detent lug (circled) on one end locks it into the grip. The lug is depressed by rotating the lanyard fixture on the base, and a firm upward pull frees the cover. The problem is the rotating fixture is at the opposite end to the lug, makes it difficult to lift the flush fitting cover upwards, and there’s no room for a fingernail. It can be removed, but it’s awkward.



The Wiring :

Well… mine arrived with a chunk of insulation out of one of the battery lead wires, required pulling off the JST connector and heat shrinking to cover the bare wire.

The wiring from the MOSFET was a tangled mess just left loose in the battery compartment. Not correctly routed and didn’t allow room for the battery. One red wire had been pinched quite badly on a screw post and on the outside of the grip on assembly.


Replaced the pinched wire, rerouted the whole loom (there’s a fairly large space in the body of the shell to accomodate it) and freed up some space in the grip for the supplied 7.4v battery, which does NOT fit regardless due to being too long.

Tried an old 11.1v Vector checker battery and it fits well with room for the balance plug and JST. It still requires some careful placement but it fits. How long the MOSFET survives running 11.1v is unknown, but one of the tiny 7.4v lipos would be fine.

Performance :

Not too shabby for such a small unit. Seems a little picky on gels, it didn’t like the smaller ones. LDT Heavy Milkies showed 180FPS on the chrono, WI Reds clocked 160FPS, Pinks averaged 170FPS, 165FPS for X-Force Ice Balls and very suprisigly, 190+FPS for Ultra Elites… yes, it will spit Ultras out quite efficiently.

Rate of fire was a bit all over the place, but that would be due to gel issues. Chrono showed around 17-18RPS, pretty much like a Vector on 11.1v lipo.

Conclusion :

Mine’s a display piece, so a lot of issues like performance, reliability, etc don’t really matter.

Would I buy it for kids? No… there are better options. The grip is large and a little uncomfortable for small hands, the trigger although light feels weak and would probably end up broken, the battery’s small and a little awkward to replace and every mag change will see you knee deep in gels with the lack of gel stoppers in the mags and t piece.

It’s a fun unit, hits harder than a Beretta M92 on 14.8v and has better trigger response, so as AEG pistols go, it’s not half bad. Fun for the backyard and hardhitting enough to get your kids yelping. But as a skirmish blaster it’s got a lot of shortcomings.

Overall, QC issues with mine aside, it’s going to be interesting to see what comes next from Gel Fire. Their build quality is reasonably good. :+1:

Did I mention their instruction sheet is written COMPLETELY in English? :+1:

POST EDIT :

Couldn’t resist the temptation to fit a hop up to the VZ61.


Cut down DK-13 hop up, required losing the whole nylon outer barrel up to the rings, reduced the inner barrel by 17mm to snug the hop up against what was left of the outer. I managed to retained the original overall length and no loss of FPS, much improved accuracy.

There was a tendency to fire two gels now and then. Checking the bottom of the t piece I could see it was a little spacious and was allowing the gels to sit side by side.

Inserted an alloy bush 9.0mm OD X 8.0mm ID into the t piece to keep the gels in line, so far no more double feeding.

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You got an instruction sheet…?? AND a battery.??
I got ripped off…!!

Good review, much more comprehensive than my 5 second quick peek…

It looks like they’re using that gearbox on several models, to get mileage out of it…

It would fit into a uzi model, I’d reckon…

As you stated, build quality is good For a sub $200 nylon blaster…
An uzi , at that price, and build solidness , would be a winner…

If anyone’s interested, I hobby have EOFY sale on now, for $159…
Good value, at that price point…

Does the “thumb flare” , on the grip, bother you a bit, as well…?
and I agree…the stock extended does feel unnatural, and makes it unwieldy…but retracted…adds to the cool factor…

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Thanks for the kind words, man :+1:

Seems I got lucky with the included battery… or unlucky, cos it doesn’t fit anyway :laughing:

Yeah, the flare on the grip is a bit of a pain… especially on the left side for a rightie… but the real steel grip’s the same, maybe Czech thumbs are different to ours :woozy_face: Thought about reshaping it, but it’s all about the look for me, so no. They do look cool with the brace folded, just need a long black leather coat and a pair of sensible shoes made in The People’s Shoe Factory and the KGB look’s complete. :sunglasses:

These aren’t going to be for everyone, and some won’t like them for the lower FPS. But you can’t compare an AEG pistol to a GBB, and considering most other AEG pistols like 14.8v M92s are lucky to hit 150 with sweet FA options to increase it, I think these little gearboxes are punching above their weight.

I like it… but then I do like the obscure underdogs. :wink:

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Awesome comprehensive review, especially interesting with the performance of the different gels.
It’s unfortunate the supplied battery doesn’t fit, which would have any new hobbyist quite baffled and frustrated with it OOTB.

I like your comments about how kid proof it would be, as we all know that is quite the ruggedness test for any blaster!

Took a lot of teaching for my young bloke to eventually stop destroying triggers in the excitement of battle together.

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Thank ye kindly, Doc :blush:

Funny thing is there’s very little flex in the trigger itself when safety’s on… but give it a squeeze and you can see the whole trigger assembly rotating, so whatever they’ve used to block the trigger must be pretty thin.

When my kids were younger it would have lasted 2.5 nanoseconds :joy:

My young bloke is quite heavily disabled through his Autism and a big strong bugger to boot!

Very hard to communicate with as can’t have a simple conversation with him, but through time and patience continually physically trying to get him to understand…. we both eventually were able to get the message across that touching the trigger worked just the same as him gorilla gripping the poor fragile things!

The message finally got through after countless upsets when his blaster broke and then I would have him sit down with me explaining everything as I disassembled them and fitted new metal triggers, upgraded switch blocks and heavier springs :+1:

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Yeah, I sympathise… my brother-in-law is a bit on the spectrum. Very very mild, but it shows now and then. Quick to get angry when things don’t go his way, a lack of understanding, very moody. I know you know what I mean.

He’s not heavy handed, but drew donuts on the mechanical aptitude. But he’s a great guy, we just have to keep it in mind whenever there’s stuff to do involving his input. :blush:

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The blurb on the box of the VZ is a bit of a crack up… :laughing:


“Put battle back where it belongs, in the bakyard” :thinking:

Might be a few people over in the Ukraine who disagree with that… :joy:

Haha. Thanks for the write up.

Seems I need some spectrum gear. I find Tim easy to use anywhere too. Usually doesen’t shit himself. :rofl: :+1:

Dang - sold out everywhere

Wow, really…that’s a bummer…
But then , it was a funky little item,at a cheaper price point…

Vipertac seem to still have stock, but then their website isn’t always properly listed

GBU have stock of them for $169, Vipertac for $199 and iHobby for $199.

but GBU… we all know what they’re like

True that… but if they’ve got stock and they’re the cheapest…

Just sayin’… might as well take advantage of them like they take advantage of evetyone else. :joy:

yeah, just wanna hope you don’t have issues or get a dud, if you’re willing to run that gambit.

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With the cheaper stuff I always work on the assumption it’s gonna need fettling in some way or other and that’s something I always do myself. So warranty/returns aren’t an issue for me.

Having said that, I don’t like rewarding arsehole companies with my business either. But if it’s a hard to get older blaster I’ll buy it from anyone.

If I could find a BF C96 Mauser I’d buy it even if it was from TacToys :joy:

Totally agree!

I never gave a crap about warranties other than being supplied with a completely different product than what was ordered/paid for.

Otherwise, every single new blaster got immediately torn apart straight out of the box for reviews and testing.

I would always order at least two of each model, leaving one OOTB in standard new condition, but then modify the crap out of the others…… so any small defects or performance issues were never relevant anyway.

But as you commented, I would keep an eye on how different suppliers treated their average newcomer customers as to returns/warranty issues, and if they were a bunch of difficult assholes…… I certainly would never purchase anything from them and steer people away from dealing with their businesses.

After sales services are very important for the reputation of any business, so look after those who look after their customers :white_check_mark:

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Thanks - looks like operator error when searching - iHobby = $199 - 16% = $167

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There ya go! :+1:

Looks like “New Blaster Day” coming up for Wombat :wink: