We have a SplattBall gun that keeps jamming. I also bought some cheapy $35 AR-15 blasters that almost completely fail every time we use them…constantly jamming.
Is it cheap ammo? Cheap guns? Or both?
I’m willing to spend for guns and or ammo that won’t jam. My son has high functioning autism, so reliability is super important. Or he gets extremely over-stimulated and has a meltdown.
Hey friend. Out of curiosity, are you American or Australian? Advice will differ based on geography.
American. Is this based in Australia?
We’re pretty much all Aussies here, yeah. But! I can still help.
This is one of the best retailers in Australia, they’ve recently expanded to the US.
“JG”, “Double Bell” and MP5 style blasters will stand up to a lot of punishment, and are hobby tier. They’re obviously the most expensive ones there, though.
The CYMA and Gen 8 M4s are less sturdy, but still better than the splatrball blasters. They can be modified too, if you and your kiddo want to get into technical work later.
Avoid the colourful and “Well” blasters.
That’s great info…thanks! Is there a higher quality gel ball maker that can maybe run more reliably in cheaper guns? I’m a firearms instructor, and this lack of reliability (even though they’re toys) is driving me crazy!
I’m wondering if maybe I can get better quality ammo too…or is it all the same super cheap stuff?
That same seller has some gel balls called AKA Tenacity. Those were sort of a revolutionary jump forward in reliability and ballistics, for gel blasters. They should feed better, especially in the hobby tier guns.
Cheaper gels, weirdly, tend to work better for cheaper blasters. They squish more, and have more tolerance going into the T-piece.
Welcome to gels biggest problem, because the gels at “grown” they’re not always going to be identical, unlike the little plastic balls you have over there.
X-force black label, Tenacity black and AKA gels I’ve found are the most consistent and work in almost everything I own, oddly enough not so much in the cheap blasters cause they’re nozzle/t-piece clearance isn’t tight enough.
Great minds think alike 
I had the same thought! …And it was quickly followed by ‘but fools rarely differ’ 
In the firearms world, when we have consistent malfunctions we look at ammo first. I’m assuming the same for gel blasters. I just found some blasters for $400-600!!! That’s literally the same price as an actual Glock. Crazy…
Nobody show him Danny’s $1,800 gas M4s. He’ll have a stroke.
Yeah pretty much the same, it’s a rabbit hole once you get into things like control growing gels and sorting.
Oh yeah some prices are stupid, we’re waiting on a shipment of mad Max themed shotgun, the real steel is about $550aud, the gel one is $750aud…
Ooooh that would be cool. We call those type of sawed off shotguns “Street Sweepers” here. Very cool.
Isn’t a “street sweeper” a striker12?
It’s just a generic double barrel but if the model they used in the mad Max movie.
Whatever the price is in USD add like another 25% or more and that’s AUD…
Do y’all have airsoft over there? Seems like these feel about the same pain-wise as airsoft.
Yeah the Striker 12 was officially named the Street Sweeper, but it’s a complete piece of crap and hasn’t been made in a couple of decades I think. Loading and unloading them safely is a complete disaster. It was also super cheaply made.
Everyone kind of stole the name and now calls any sawed of shotgun a street sweeper because the spread (with bird shot) is so much wider that the urban myth that “you don’t even need to aim it” started. It’s kind of like the generic name for the old sawed off double barrel cowboy/side by side shotguns are labeled as Coach Guns.
No, it’s for the most part banned, hence why we have gel, the blasters are almost identical except for the barrel/t-piece and that our mags are electric.
Some BS with the BB’s being deemed ammunition or something, it differs state to state.
Even with gel QLD, where most of us are, is like the last “free state” for gels blasters, all other states but one pretty much outright banned them cause of the brain dead ppl in charge.
Wasn’t the striker12 designed primarily for police use with none lethal rounds? partly why it’s such a pain to reload, or am I thinking of another odd shotgun. That exists in gel form too.
Sorry to hear that… Can’t believe people can be so obtuse.
Not sure of the original intent, but I taught civilian and LEO’s. It was available for a while on the civilian market. But capitalism rules and when someone builds crap, it doesn’t tend to last long. It was a fun to have kinda gun. A few departments tried them in the 80’s I heard (before my time). But you can’t beat an old fashioned pump or even semi shotgun. So much faster and easier to load, fire, maintain, cheaper, etc.
Those more gimicky guns never lasted for long. I don’t recall many departments actually having them. You can still find one for sale here and there here. But they’re not very highly sought after.