I want to introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41-A pulse rifle. –– Corporal Hicks, Aliens

By Iain Delaney:The M41-A “Pulse Rifle” has been an iconic sci-fi movie prop since they released the movie Aliens in 1986. The interest in the prop has endured even though, apart from Alien 3, it has not appeared in any subsequent Aliens movie. When fans learned it was derived from a Thompson machine gun and a SPAS-12 pump-action shotgun, cobbled together and wrapped in fibreglass, they immediately built their own replicas. Prop studios followed suit and high-priced replicas have been available for years now. But no one has released a toy version, compared to the wealth of toy Star Trek phasers, for example.

Until now. Hasbro has introduced their “Aliens M41-A” Nerf Rifle, a reasonably faithful replica of the movie prop that is also a functional Nerf dart gun. The toy is packaged in a cardboard box decorated with military markings, alien claw slashes, and holes made by acidic alien blood. Hasbro’s high-end collectible toys always seem to have great packaging and the Pulse Rifle is no exception.

Inside the box is the rifle itself, ten standard Nerf darts, three Nerf “Mega” darts, and the first major disappointment. In order to keep the toy more “parent-friendly” or for some equally strange reason, the pulse rifle has not been painted in its normal olive drab and black colors. Instead, Hasbro choose to paint it white, yellow, and black; colors “inspired by” the power loader from the movie. Many fans have bought the Nerf Pulse Rifle and re-painted it to the prop-accurate color scheme.

Other than that, there is very little to complain about with this toy. Insert 4 “C” batteries, load the darts into the clip, and fire away. Press the button to start the motor and pull the trigger to shoot one dart at a time or hold it down for continuous firing. The iconic ammo counter on the side actually works; counting down every shot that leaves the barrel. And each shot is accompanied by an electronic sound effect, supposedly “movie accurate”, but I didn’t think it was that close.

The grenade launcher works, too. Put a “Mega” dart in the launcher, pump the action, and pull the trigger forward of the magazine. The dart is launched with another sound effect.

This is a Nerf toy for fans of the movie, not hardcore Nerf fans. The magazine’s capacity is too small, and the toy is too cumbersome to use in Nerf skirmishes. But for Aliens fans who want a reasonably accurate prop replica that’s also a lot of fun to play with, the Nerf M41-A more than fills the bill.

The Nerf M41-A Pulse Rifle is available from https://hasbropulse.com for $99.99 (US).

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Iain Delaney was born in the UK but moved to Canada at an early age. The UK heritage explains his fascination with British TV SciFi, including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, UFO, and, of course, Dr. Who. After fumbling through high school, he fumbled through university, emerging with a degree in physics. With no desire to pursue graduate studies he discovered that a bachelor’s degree had little to no job prospects, so he took up a career in computer programming. In his off time he reads, watches TV and movies, collects toys, and makes attempts at writing. To that end he has a small number of articles published in role-playing game magazines and won two honorable mentions in the Writers of the Future contest. He is working on an urban fantasy YA trilogy and entertains delusions of selling it to movies or TV.