Mongoose Airsoft Reviews: Tornado Timer Grenade

Airsoft Innovations Tornado Timer Grenade Review

In the world of airsoft cqb senarios have become increasingly popular. With that popularity has come GRENADES. Everybody loves things that go bang! if you don't why not?. However something that just goes bang can sometimes be frustrating when try to get a kill. For example.... Have you ever been in a situation where you throw your pyro into a room or corridor you know someone is in but they don't get killed because they were outside the door in time or have hidden behind a door and not been hit. I know i have and it was frustrating. This is where the bb grenade comes in. There have been many bb grenades from pyro based ones to gas and co2 ones. They have all had there limitations from the time it takes to load them to the complicated systems they use. The tornado is another breed of gas bb grenade and in my opinion the best gas system grenade currently available. Capable of using 134a gas or propane and only having to load the bbs through 2 holes is a massive advantage over others available on the maket. But on to the review.

I purchased my grenade from www.fire-support.co.uk for £85 including P&P. They are available in multiple colours (see pic above). In the box you get the grenade, reset key, pin, gas chamber cap and a bottle of tornado lubrication oil (see pic left). It is important you only use the oil supplied and NOT silicon oil as it is to thin and will damage the grenade.

The grenade inside is a very simple affair comprising of the main gas chamber and gas release shuttle surrounded by intertwining bb chambers see in the pic right as green and yellow bb's. Loading the grenade was easier than I thought and is simply a case of using a speed loader push the bb's into there chambers, set the timer valve with the key and pin then fill with gas and screw on the gas cap and job done. All of the items required to load the grenade I carry on me anyway so reloading on the field would not be a problem.

Using The Grenade
Although the grenade is easy to set already using it is simple. Pull the pin, throw and whoosh! bb's flying everywhere. I first tried the grenade out at my local site on myself and must say the spread of bb's is immense. There was no part of me that did not get hit and I was a good 5 meters away. I noticed it is also very quiet as well just giving off a whoosh sound of gas expelling and then the clatter of bb's hitting everything.
In game I tried the grenade in a kill house environment and became the talk of the game. No one knew what had happened when they got hit and the look on faces was funny as hell. The typical "WTF?" expression.

The Techie Bit
The grenade itself is made from and aluminium core with high impact polymer cover and high impact abs internals. Its solid as a rock in other words. The grenade uses a gas expelling system to eject the bb's from the shell through two holes in the bottom of the gas chamber.

Summary
This is one well made piece of kit that will add a hole new dimension of game play to any airsofter and from personal experience would not part with it for anything. With the addition options you can buy to enhance the grenade for different styles and scenario's with the lever mechanism and the distraction device kit which turns it into a bang instead of a frag the situations this can be used in is endless. From hostage scenario's with the DD kit to leaving it standard to frag the enemy the versatility is amazing.