Designing for our market

We're lucky here at BSUK: we are essentially our own market. We know what people want, we know what they need and why they want it. Most importantly, we know what they're prepared to pay. With those things in mind, I took to the drawing board and start modifying existing military specifications for our purposes.

There are several key differences in dealing with Nerfers. The first being the size and weight of the blaster. A Nerf Maverick, for example, is 377g after penny modding. A Colt .45 is going to be a lot smaller and critically, much denser. If you look at Viper and Blackhawk products (my main frames of reference) this is clear but we don't need that level of robustness: we need to deal with a large ABS shelled blaster but retain quick draw and security.

We then looked at the cost of military specification materials. 1000D Cordura fabric is costly (for commercial reasons, I won't say how much our supplier quoted but it was more than our market could afford) so we looked at the 500D instead. For reference, D is denier and refers to the fibre count or the 'how-tightly-woven-is-this-fabric-woven' factor. The higher, the tougher the material going to be. We got samples of both and quickly realised that for our purposes, the 500D is fine. It's tough, water resistant, reasonably breathable and flexible. For an analogy, it's like choosing between stainless steel and titanium: yes the latter is badass but for most applications steel will do.

Pop snaps and MALICE were another bone of contention. Yes, they're awesome and they suffice for the military but, again, they cost and they have a tolerance far, far higher than anything we would need. Iona and I spent a good long while looking at the retention problem and in the end we elected for simple Velcro strips and squares. What you get is a lightweight alternative. A lot of BUZAN's players spend a good time on the floor and the use of soft parts not only prevents injury but improves form factor. Indeed, several of our players have noted the fact that you stop feeling our drop-leg when you draw the blaster because it's practically featherweight. In play testing, we've yet to have a Velcro retention failure when using Nerf specification equipment.

We've had to make changes to military standards to get our product to market but quality and our central design criteria have never wavered. If people are interested, I'll get some videos of BUZAN's play test conditions put up at some point so you have an idea of the crucible our products are tested in. If a product design is found wanting there, it's sent back to the drawing board for re-evaluation because it's clearly not good enough. It's as simple as that.

I'm going to return to the development pipeline now. There are a few nice things coming in the next few days and I'll keep this place as updated as possible.

- Mike
BSUK, Managing Director