This New Nerf Rival Forerunner is the First Rival Blaster of 2023!
But is it the best Nerf can do with Rival?

YOU better wake up! The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping. There is another world, beneath it; and another world beneath that. And if you want to survive, you better learn to pull the trigger! Dramatic intros aside, I say that to say this: The Forerunner isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. It’s a similar style of blaster to the old Nerf Rival Takedown and both of those blasters are based on the excellent Nerf Rival Kronos internal tech.

The Nerf Rival Forerunner… of What Exactly?

I’m Blee the Nerfer, and this is the Nerf Rival Forerunner review! (No, NOT the Toyota 4Runner…) No, it’s not named after the vehicle, but forerunner is a real word. The definition of forerunner is “a person or thing that precedes the coming or development of someone or something else.” So then I guess my question is; the Forerunner is a forerunner of what exactly? A bit odd to name your blaster after something that just means “wait till you see what’s next!” But it does sound pretty cool, so I guess there’s that. Anyway.

So the Nerf Rival Forerunner is a short barrel, pump-action shotgun style blaster with a pistol grip and a 12 round internal tube magazine. Pretty nifty. But, like I said earlier, it’s not something we haven’t seen before on the Nerf scene. The Takedown, the Overwatch Reaper blaster, the CurveShot Helix, the Saturn… I mean the list goes on and on!

What’s in the Box?

In the box you’ll find the Nerf Rival Forerunner blaster and 12 of the newer (and bluer) Nerf Rival Accu-Round high impact rounds. These are supposed to be better, more accurate rounds for Rival blasters and they do indeed look different, with a blue color and noticeably different dimpling on the surface of the round. You’ll also find the instruction booklet in the box, but who in the blue cares about that? I’m going to explain how to operate this blaster right in this article, so let me be your instruction booklet. 😉

Nerf Rival Forerunner Feature Set

Starting at the front of the blaster, we’ll go over all of its external features one by one. First up, the safety orange muzzle. The muzzle on the Forerunner is standard. It’s large and bright, perfect for what a “safety” orange muzzle should be. Moving back from that, we find a surprisingly beefy pump grip, complete with hand stops and finger grooves. Groovy!

The pump grip is very decent and mostly comfortable, save for one caveat — but I’ll discuss that later in my final thoughts and opinions. Moving on up, we have the front “ABS” sight, with the precious tritium/green fiber optic looking enhancement rod insert. This front sight, of course, corresponds with the rear ABS sight. The rear sight on the Forerunner is has elevation adjustment, but no windage adjustment. It’s also a bright yellow instead of the green translucent “tritium” of the front sight.

On the back of the blaster, there’s no stock attachment point and so no stock, obviously. For a blaster like this, that’s actually pretty disappointing. But more on that later. Down below the missing shoulder stock, you’ll find the pistol grip. It’s nice and beefy, just how we like it. It fits my hand perfectly. The grip does seem to be made up of two separate pieces of plastic (the yellow and the blue) and I can feel them moving independently of each other if I squeeze the grip, but it’s not a big deal.

The trigger is comfortable and I have no complaints here. It’s springy and responsive and it gets the job done. The trigger guard is large and roomy and never restricts movement. Just above the trigger is the safety switch, flipping it will block the trigger and prevent you from shooting the blaster. Flip it back and you’re back in business. On the opposite side of the blaster is another functional switch; the jam-clearing button. If your Nerf Rival Forerunner ever jams, this little orange guy will be your best friend.

Forerunner of Great Aesthetics?

The Nerf Rival Forerunner has a great, tacti-cool look to it that really makes you want to grab it and pick it up. As part of the “Most Accurate Rival System” of blasters in the Accu-Rival series, it features the blue and black paint and yellow accents of its brother blasters, the Pathfinder and the Fate. If you like the color scheme of those other blasters, you’ll most likely feel the same way about this. Likewise, if you like short and stocky shotgun blasters, you’re going to love the Nerf Rival Forerunner.

Ergonomics To Be Rivaled With?

This is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, the ergonomics of the Nerf Rival Forerunner are great. The pistol grip is comfortable and should be accommodating for hands of all sizes. The pump-action grip is so beefy and oversized and, in theory, I love it. When fired from the hip, the Forerunner really shines. Everything just clicks and flows together in a way that makes perfect sense. But, if you want to actually aim the thing, that’s where we run into some more of Bleenga’s Grip Gripes.

Running the Nerf Rival Forerunner

But before we get into my grip gripes, let’s talk about how to actually run this thing. Let’s talk about how to operate this blaster. First things first, let’s load this blaster up. The Forerunner has a loading port on top of the blaster, just behind the forward sight. Once you pull the pump grip to the rear position, the loading port will open up, allowing you to insert your balls.

The Nerf Rival Forerunner comes with 12 balls, which is 10 more than a man usually has, and all of them can be loaded into the blaster at once. Yup, the Forerunner has a 12 round capacity, which is great. After you’re done sticking your balls in, slide the pump grip back to the forward position and you’re good to go. Locked and loaded!

Shockingly, the Nerf Rival Forerunner does NOT feature Slam-Fire tech. Each time you cycle the pump grip back and forth, you must pull the trigger to fire a single round. You can shotgun-load multiple rounds, but that buckshot gets less powerful the more rounds you add.

Forerunner Performance Stats

Despite, the lack of Slam-Fire, the Nerf Rival Forerunner still does a decent job shooting and performs well. Let’s check out the firing test portion of my video review here.:

As you can see in the video, firing the Forerunner is pretty fun. It cycles through its ammo reserve flawlessly and with the same power and accuracy of all of the other recent Nerf Rival series blasters. And most importantly? It is pretty fun.

I didn’t run it over the chronograph, but I will soon when I chrono all of my blasters and produce a master list. Without chrono-graphing it, I can say the power does feel normal for a Rival blaster. The accuracy of the blue balls seems top notch as well. I lost most of them already, but they seemed good when I had them. Overall, I really have no complaints with the performance of the Nerf Rival Forerunner.

Final Thoughts on the Forerunner

Anyway guys, like I said earlier, the Nerf Rival Forerunner is pretty fun. But, the way this blaster is designed, specifically the pump grip area, when I fire it up at shoulder or eye level for too long, my wrist gets strained. The way my wrist is bent while holding the grip forces it to flex in an unnatural way for me. Pump this grip definitely gives me some fatigue in my wrist after a while. I don’t know if it’s the back of the grip where the hand-stop is or what, but I don’t experience that with the Takedown, just this one so that might be an issue.

I feel like this blaster was really meant to be fired from the hip, Hollywood style. And if you fire it like that then it’s just fine, but tell me something: How do you guys like to fire your shotgun blasters? Do you fire it from the hip, Hollywood style, or do you like to get a little tactical and actually aim the thing? So that’s all I can say about the Nerf Rival Forerunner. It hits like a truck, it shoots just as hard as any other Rival blaster, the rest is up to you.

If you like the look of it and you think you’d like the feel of a regular pistol grip shotgun with a beefy pump grip in the front, you might want to check this thing out. I do like this blaster, I just don’t think I like it better than the Takedown.

The Competition (There’s a lot!)

Before the Forerunner, I mentioned a lot of other blasters because they all function the same internally. Ever since the Kronos released, they’ve been reusing that tech and making it bigger and bigger. So now we have the Nerf Rival Forerunner at 12 rounds and this is the highest capacity we’ve had with this tech. The Saturn only had a 10 round capacity, while the Takedown had 8 rounds. So this is most definitely the highest capacity we’ve had thus far and that’s… something.

We’ve been down this road before and I realized that’s what Nerf does– they just keep using the same formula and making blasters in slightly different shells and different colors. And I eat that right up. I’ve bought a Stryfe so many times just because they put it in a different shell. Including the latest Stryfe re-shell, the Nerf Elite 2.0 Stormcharge. I recently reviewed that blaster as well and you can check that out here: Nerf Stormcharge Review.

Now the question is: with all these similar blasters floating around does the Forerunner really have enough to stand out in the crowd? That’s arguable. And didn’t some modder already make this blaster? didn’t someone take the Kronos and jam a 12 round mag in the front and make a pump grip around that?

Should I Buy?

Well that’s a loaded question. If the four extra rounds is enough to sway you towards the Forerunner, then maybe. But then again we can’t talk about Nerf Rival shotguns without bringing in the Nerf rival Saturn, and honestly is the Forerunner really doing anything better than that? Sure, it has a two extra round capacity, but the Saturn has 10 rounds, which is very close. The Saturn also has a decently sized shoulder stock. It could be a little bigger but it’s a decent sized stock. It has a good pump grip and a 10 round capacity and Slam-Fire. So why should I get a Forerunner again?

Now in my video review, I answer my own rhetorical question with a response that… just isn’t true. Yet! In the video, I say the main reason to consider the Forerunner over those other blasters is because those blasters are older and harder to find. I thought they were discontinued. I know how hard it was for me to find a Nerf Rival Jupiter and that’s in the same series as the Saturn, so I thought those weren’t made anymore. Same thing with the Rival Takedown, but guys, these blasters are still readily available.

Oh yeah, it’s because they don’t make the Saturn anymore. So the Nerf Rival Forerunner is as good as it’s gonna get. You can still find a Takedown, though, but if you want the extra four rounds you’ll go for the Forerunner. And I know I said it doesn’t have a stock, but Nerf modders are Mad Men and if you check online right now you’ll find all kinds of mod kits for this thing already. It just came out and they didn’t waste any time! Check down below and you’ll see some of my favorite picks for Nerf Rival Forerunner mods and mod kits.

All right guys, that was about all for this one. This is where the review ends. If you enjoyed reading it, leave me a comment down below and let me know! Also be sure to tell me what you think of the Nerf Rival Forerunner. How do you think it compares to other Rival shotgun blasters?

Last update on 2025-06-14 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API