July 3, 1999.
The XP 90: Pulse Fire - A Good Weapon or Just a Novelty Item?

That question about the XP 90 has plagued me for the longest time. Everytime I found myself in the toy section of some store staring at the various water weaponry available, I have always given the XP 90 a strange look. The XP 90 looked like a larger version of an XP 65 with different colours and a peculiar looking nozzle. Time passed and my collection grew, but everytime I came across the XP 90, I would always walk by uncertain whether or not it would be worth the purchase.

This day found me in a store having a good sale on their water weapon stock. Wanting to take advantage of the sale but realizing I already had everything else they were offering, I took the XP 90 in hand, scrutinized it for any potential defects, then decided to buy it and try it out.

At home, I promptly freed the weapon from the box, unscrewed the water reservoir and filled it up in the bathroom tub. Screwing it back on and praying that the seal wouldn't leak, I pumped up the XP 90, set the nozzle to stream and fired...

Water burst forth for the first time in a long time through the opening, harmlessly impacting on the tiled walls lining the bathtub. The power was not great, but I suspected it was due to lack of pumping and decided to pump awhile longer before firing another burst. I was pleasantly surprised by the stream the XP 90 pushed forth. I was not thrilled about the fact that the XP 90 requires its water reservoir to be depressurized and unscrewed to be filled, but the weapon did function well without leaking which gave it permission to join the collection.

However, curiosity came over me. "What does the pulse setting do?" Pumping up the reservoir with more air, I rotated the nozzle 180 degrees to line up Pulse with the top arrow. At this position, the nozzle is able to slide a short distance back and forth. I fired and was amused by both the motion of the nozzle and the pulsing stream, not to mention the noise the XP 90 made (plastic on plastic). While pulsing, a lot of water seemed to be slowed greatly in velocity, not getting very far from the end of the nozzle. At the peak of the pulse, the stream did not appear to hit the wall with as much force. I suspect that pulsing does decrease range though this has yet to be verified. However, the pulse setting definitely dramatically reduced water consumption. Whether this is good or bad depends on one's point of view. It is good in the fact that on pulse, one will last longer in a water fight but bad since one will not soak one's opponents as readily.

The XP 90 does appear to do as Larami Ltd. claimed but its usefulness in the field remains ambiguous. The pulse feature is interesting but perhaps could have been better used on a CPS-based weapon or at least an XP with a separate firing chamber instead of this single reservoir/pressure chamber weapon. (Imagine, a pulsing CPS 3000?) Somehow, the term, "sprinkler", comes to mind. My two cents...