The Flood Force Surge is the smallest of the air pressure-based water blasters released by Swimways Corp. in 2015. Like the other air pressure-based Flood Force water blasters, this item could have been better, but instead suffers from a lack of quality control and consequently falls short.

Packaging .:

As can be seen readily from the package, the Flood Force Surge comes as a two pack: one red and yellow blaster and one green and blue blaster. The packaging, itself, looks rather cheap with faded colors, already stressed plastic ties holding the two products loosely in place and decoration only on the front and back panels (side and bottom panels are bare). The rear panel is dominated by a cut-out target that, despite it laminated-like texture, is still made of cardboard and will end up readily damaged if used for water-stream target practice. The red-version of the Surge is mostly visible while the green-version is partly obscured by the lower-front panel. The box states these blasters use "Power Pressure" and, with no visible nozzle cap and bottle-shaped reservoirs, these blasters appear to make use of pressurized reservoir technology.

Design .:

Like the Flood Force Hurricane and Flood Force Tsunami, the Surge has angular styling with its recessed true nozzle being far smaller than it initially appears. The handle-like opening on its top is too small to be an effective handle and is primarily for design purposes only. As predicted, the Surge uses pressurized reservoir technology and its back-side reservoir completely detaches, held to the blaster via its screw threads.

Build and Ergonomics .:
While the design is decent aesthetically, there are a number of parts on its mold that were not manufactured properly with parts of the center ridge having sharp edges. One should check over one's blaster for defects before handing it over to a younger user or else they may end up injured. The plastic, itself, does not feel very sturdy and even feels soft in spots. These are definitely potential safety hazards.

The Surge's trigger/grip region is functional and adequate. The trigger, itself, pivots as opposed to pulls, likely due to this blaster using a simple pinch-trigger valve. The pump, however, is lightly textured and was initially stuck and unmoveable. Aftering getting is unjammed, the pump moved decently, but the stroke distance is quite short, moving only small amounts of air per stroke. As a resulting, the Surge required many more pumps than most other air pressure water blasters in order to build up good operating pressure.

Overall Performance .:

The Flood Force Surge appears to benefit from its smaller size. Compared to the Flood Force Hurricane and Flood Force Tsunami, the Surge has double their output as the amount of internal tubing is less. Unfortunately, being twice as powerful as two very poorly performing water blasters does not result in a good water blaster. The Surge's output remains less than a Super Soaker SS 50: Classic Series. Beyond that, the fact that this blaster uses a pinch trigger valve became all too apparent when initially pressurizing this water blaster for testing. Once the reservoir's pressure exceeded that of the valve, the Surge being tested began trickling water out of its nozzle even when the trigger was not being pressed. This made doing output measurements a little trickier. While the Flood Force Surge may be okay for small, casual water fights, this water blaster is easily outclassed by most similarly-sized pump-action and nearly all other pressurized water blasters (with the ironic exception of the other, larger air pressure Flood Force models which actual perform worse than the smaller Surge). For the Flood Force Surge's price and performance, there are so many better options out there.

Pros

Uses air pressure; able to produce continuous streams

Cons

Reservoir cannot be pressurized well (unable to attain better performance due to trigger pinch valve readily activating); small nozzle compounds its poor output and range problems; takes a lot of pumps to build and maintain pressure; short pump stroke.

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