Tried & Tested: AI New Impact Grenade
User: Jack
Length of ownership: Three Month
Usage: Room clearing
Cost: £80.00
Available from: All good airsoft retailers
Airsoft Innovations' Timer Grenade has been around for a fair while, and although it's the best attempt at a reusable gas powered 'nade, I'll admit to being a little unimpressed - the reliability of the timer just lets down too often. With that in mind, I approached the new Impact Grenade with a fair bit of skepticism. I couldn't have been more wrong! Using a clever system of balanced metal pieces, pull the pin on the impact grenade, and as soon as it strikes something it blows, with a fair old crack and shower of 200 BBs.
It's far from BFG loud, which is a good thing as I play at Urban Assault, where the noise levels are strictly enforced. It's more than loud enough to startle the enemy and the inevitable spattering of plastic pellets really drives the message home.
In three months of use, the grenade has only let me down once, and that was the first chuck of the day in sub-zero temperatures. It performed flawlessly for the rest of the game… lobbing it up into a window to hear a boom, clatter, then "Dammit! Hit…" made having to head up there after the game to retrieve it more than worthwhile.
Maintenance of the grenade is simple, and well explained in the owner's manual (no Chinglish here). A small bottle of silicone, specially designed for the grenade is also supplied, but most importunely it's pretty simple to reset - you just need to be careful not to lose the three small trigger pieces.
I thought I'd never be turned into the ways of reusable grenades, but the AI Impact Grenade has changed my mind. It's brilliant!