Why you don't see rubber dart blasters any more

Warning this post contains the "g" word

I can not verify all these claims as they are merely my theories based on what I've seen

Do you remember those dollar store dart blaster with non-foam darts? I never really see them in stores anymore. While they were complete crap, it was cool to see that you could get something amusing for a dollar. I recently saw a news report about a toy recall that happened several months ago and now I think I know why they don't sell them anymore. I may not be an expert about toy safety but thats not stopping me, welcome to my interpretation of cheap toy dart blaster safety through out time.

Back in the day, well before I was born, there was a time when safety standards weren't so high. Toys would shoot plastic projectiles shaped like the munition that they were emulating. As long they weren't disturbingly powerful it wasn't a problem. So toy guns would shoot plastic bullets much like this toy or this bad ass monstrosity. But back then kids would shoot each other with full power bbguns and didn't give a crap about safety goggles. You won't find many plastic bullet shooting toys any more because there is an obvious concern about causing permanent damage to eyes.

To make these safer but still appealing, toy manufacturers made suction cup dart guns. People are amused by the suction cups darts but the suction cup is actually a safety device, by having a soft tip much larger than the pupil of the eye it prevents the projectile from poking the eye in a way that may cause permanent damage. Perhaps this was hasbro's concern when they only made blasters that shot mega darts or other large foam missiles back in the day. Anyways dart guns like this became popular.

These weren't as awesome as the other multi-shot plastic bullet toy guns, but they were safe for kids to use without eye protection. They tend to have crappy performance and I believe most toys guns that use spring loaded air plungers tended to have better performance. Speaking of which, there are several other dart types designed for spring plungers, one I tend to see on more realistic looking dart guns are the wide plastic base and rubber suction cup tip darts like the one's on this toy:

I actually own one of these it's worth the money if for ~$2, I think these are fairly safe despite the plastic shaft on the darts because the darts only hit you with the rubber tip. There is yet another more popular kind of dart designed for cheap air plunger blasters, the all rubber suction cup dart like the one with this toy:

Besides the horrible performance these seem pretty safe, but I recently saw a news report about a toy dart gun recall on this toy

The kid was chewing on one of the darts and accidentally swallowed it and choked to death. I believe the dart's narrow shaft easily slip down his throat but the suction cup plugged his airway. Due to it's concave shape, the dart resisted moving back up when he coughed and the flexible head resisted movement from the tongue and esophagus so he choked to death. This explains why haven't I seen any of these kinds of dart toys recently. I believe that you can expect all blasters with narrow stems and suction cup tips to be eventually removed from the market.

What we're losing

First off, I belive the saftey concerns are rather legitimate, especially since the short soft rubber darts are very tempting to chew and a sudden reflex could cause a person to swallow the dart. However without designs like these the future of cheap $1 dart blasters are looking pretty bad. Previously, the narrower stems allowed for the production of smaller cheaper barrels. Now, to keep production cheap, companies use barrels stems that fit inside the darts much like these. the picture you see below is one of the nicer ones. Out of the box the darts fit too tight and often don't even leave barrel stem.

from Nerf Mods and Reveiws

And yes, the tips on those darts are plastic because these blasters are so weak that it doesn't create a safety concern. As a rule of thumb avoid blasters with plastic tipped darts unless you just want scrap parts

Wild Planet's Spy Gear toys have some blasters that use the old spring loaded dart system, like the viper blaster, and the choking hazard explains why they have such an unusual dart tip design. However, it's been put on a list for being one of the most dangerous toys. So I doubt many other companies are going to be willing to take the liability of producing these things

So right now If you are looking for a cheap blaster I would recommend investing in the tek 3 or the Nerf secret strike