Get ready for the return of the Nerf Recon! This time, it’s got a certain Modulus-ness to it, doesn’t it?

The Nerf Recon, Modulus MKII Blaster

You’d think after the Nerf Elite Retaliator, the Nerf Modulus re-shell would be called the Modulus Retaliator. Nope! You’ve got to keep them guessing! Gotta stay on your toes, man! With that said, Nerf goes back to their roots and revisits their old N-Strike naming conventions with the brand new Nerf Recon, or I should say the Nerf Modulus Recon MK II.

Nerf Recon MKII: Nerf Modulus Aesthetics?

Wow! Just… wow! This thing looks great! But, before I go into detail on this blaster, let’s do a quick history lesson. The Nerf Recon came out 100 years ago (not really) and then the Nerf Retaliator came out as its successor. The Recon and the Retaliator look identical on the outside, besides the paint job. Internally there are some pretty drastic differences, but on the outside, they look the same. Enter in the new Nerf Recon, Modulus MKII. This thing looks absolutely fantastic. It’s definitely very similar to the original Recon and the Retaliator, but with some notable differences. The pistol slide is cut back and has an angled design around the sides. The top tac rail is larger and sits up higher. There’s even a second tactical rail on the side! And look at that handguard, it’s beautiful! Finally, you might notice that it has a new paint job and it’s a very Modulus-esque paint job, although it’s noticeably missing the bright green coloring.

Nerf Recon Modulus MKII Performance.:

So the Nerf Recon Modulus MKII looks great, we’ve gathered that much. But, we know looks don’t matter much if it doesn’t perform well. Luckily, I’m happy to report that the Nerf Modulus Recon MKII’s performance is on par with other Elite blasters. Well, mostly. If you were to measure performance with a chronograph, you’d see a slight drop off of a few feet per second, compared to the Nerf Elite Retaliator. People have claimed it doesn’t reach the same ranges but in my range tests, it performed well and about on par with everything else. As for the internals, they seemed to try to save a bit of cash and replaced a few of the original metal pieces with all plastic for this new build. Unless you’re modding this, the plastic substitute pieces won’t really matter. And if you’re going to mod it, it won’t be much of a problem to throw some Retal internals inside this shell. All in all, I am pleased with the performance of this blaster.

Nerf Recon, Modulus MKII Final Thoughts

A photo posted by Nerf Gun Attachments (@nerfgunattachments) on Dec 8, 2015 at 4:05am PST

So, is the Nerf Modulus Recon MKII a winner? Mostly, yes it is. It looks great and performs pretty well. So what could be the problem? Well, we’ll get into that right now. I didn’t really talk about the Nerf attachments included with this blaster in the review, and that’s because I don’t really think much of them. If I can be totally honest, the included shoulder stock is completely terrible. It looks fairly cool, but it is ridiculously short! It’s seriously ridiculous. This has got to be one of the shortest Nerf stocks ever made. It is shorter than the Nerf Retaliator stock. I just don’t get why they keep doing this. Anyway, the other attachment this blaster comes with is a barrel attachment. The barrel attachment is actually pretty cool and short enough to not really impact performance, but… I just don’t like it for this blaster. I’d rather throw a longer barrel on it, especially since I have future plans to mod this thing with a shotgun pump grip. And don’t even get me started on the 6 round mag. Geez. So, I don’t really think too much of the attachments included with the blaster. Now this issue isn’t a huge problem, and it doesn’t really take away from the base blaster, in my opinion. But, the sad part is, this is not the biggest issue that exists in this Nerf blaster. The biggest issue for this new Modulus version of the Nerf Recon is the mag-well. The way the magwell is designed makes it impossible to insert any Nerf magazine that has that little bump on the back of it. If you’d like to see what I’m talking about, check out my YouTube video review. Just know that this blaster will not accept anything other than a 6 or 12 round mag. No 10 round banana mags, no 3rd party 15 round banana mags (save for the Blasterparts mag), no 18 round mags and no 25 dart drums. The 35 dart drum is built just like a 6 round mag, with a huge drum at the bottom of it, so those actually do work. Everything else is off the table. Luckily there’s a quick fix for this issue. I have a video of the fix on my YouTube, but I’ll be writing an article for the fix very soon, too. Stay tuned.

Nerf Recon, Modulus MKII Recommended Attachments.:

This is, without a doubt, my favorite Nerf optical attachment. Hands down. And it pretty much goes with everything. It also goes especially well with assault rifle type blasters and the Nerf Modulus Recon will definitely be an AR when I’m done modding it. If you’re not modding this with a pump grip, you might want to forego any kind of top tac rail attachment since that’s how you have to prime the blaster. This attachment is commonly sold out, forcing you to buy the whole kit to get it.

Next up, let’s get a better, more aggressive barrel attachment on this thing. I like to use the white Nerf Elite XD Retaliator barrel. It looks great on the Modulus Recon, even with the blue stripe. Eventually, though, I will paint the blue stripe to a matching orange color. To procure a white Retaliator barrel, you have a few options. Just take the barrel off of the XD Retaliator you already own, if you have one. You could also order a brand new Retaliator from Amazon. Finally, you could grab one off of eBay for a few dollars. Either way, it will be relatively simple to get your hands on one of those barrels if you so desire.

Finally, bringing up the rear (quite literally) is the Worker Nerf Stock (in White). These stocks are very similar to old Nerf Lightning Storm / Switch Shot Super Soaker stocks, which is a very good thing. Those older Super Soaker stocks were excellent, but Nerf decided to discontinue them for some unknown reason. Oh well. Chinese company Worker has more than picked up the slack, making superior clones of the old stocks. Excellent.

That’s about it for the attachments for the Nerf Recon, Modulus MKII Edition. If you want some performance mods to go with these great attachments, you might want to look into a few upgrade kits from Orange Mod Works and a Pump Grip kit from Worker. Yeah.

Featured MOD.:

This is it, the Nerf Modulus Recon MKII for the Gods. All of this Nerfy goodness was brought to us by the Nerf Viking himself, Bobololo. This is the perfect modded Recon MKII, period. I am going to recreate this one from top to bottom. It’s just brilliant. He did everything I wanted to do with my Nerf Recon, even before I knew I wanted to do it. He has a white Worker stock, detailed with a Montana Golden Yellow spray paint. The white Retaliator barrel has been detailed with the same paint. He has a GavinFuzzy Customs Retaliator pump grip kit installed onto the front. He has turned the Modulus Recon into a work of art. I just hope my own will look as epic and as cool as this one. Kudos to you, Bobo!

If that’s not enough to get your engines racing, you could just pay this guy on Etsy to do a complete custom paint job for you.

 ***MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK***

Nerf Modulus Recon MKII Blaster