With my son interested in airsoft, I recently got back into things and have played 2 indoor games so far. One thing I always love having around are tossable grenades, so handy for getting people in difficult positions. When I played previously, well before the pandemic I’d run around with 6 Airsoft Innovation Impact Tornado grenades but seeing as how they’re now 12-15 years old, 2 are permanently out of action, leaving me with 4 to split between Brandon and I. After the first game, another one of my Tornado Impact grenades went down and with Airsoft Innovations out of business, I don’t think I’ll be able to to resurrect the dead units. That’s alright it’s been a long time and they’ve served me well, I’ll keep the broken grenades as a memento and for spare parts for my remaining grenades.
Looking around I saw that Action Sports Gear (ASG for short) based out of Europe had a few different models. There’s the slightly older Storm Apocalypse and the D-Tonator series, well my local airsoft store had the older unit in stock so I bought 2.
The retail package comes with the grenade itself & a small brief instruction manual. Physically, the grenade is 10 x 4.8 x 4.8 cm in size and is slightly smaller than the AI Tornado Impact grenade.
Since the dimensions of the ASG Storm Apocalypse is close to the AI Impact Tornado (minus the pin), it fits in all the same pouches I used back then like the Eagle Smoke grenade pouch. The ASG grenade has a bit too much girth to fit in the 40mm grenade pouches that I have though it’s possible it could fit in others where the elastic is more stretchy.
Setting up the trigger on the AI Impact Tornado Grenade was not difficult but time consuming if you had a bunch of them like me but resetting the ASG Storm Apocalypse is much easier. There’s a switch at the top that says ON & OFF. To load the BBs, set the grenade to the ON position load up 155 in the lone BB port, once that’s done move the selector switch to the OFF position (moving it to OFF pushes a nub down that stops BBs from rolling out which is handy), gas up the grenade and you’re set! To use when you’re in game, simply flick the selector to ON and toss.
When the ASG Storm Apocalypse grenade goes off, the spread of the BBs is very good, well over 15′ (don’t have the capability to test in a larger area) which is similar to my experiences with the AI Tornado Impact grenade. I have no way to test the power of the grenade but subjectively when I drop the grenade right in front of me, the BBs ejected hurt slightly less than when I do the same with an AI Tornado on my bare legs & feet. Sorry, I know that’s not an exact science but the best I have at the moment.
When I played CQB at Urban Ops Airsoft in Toronto, the grenades were very effective and I had no problems with people not calling hits after tossing a grenade into the room. I’ve never had a grenade disappear but I did mark mine with my made up rack number in case one goes missing.
I haven’t used the ASG Storm Apocalypse in an outdoor setting yet but I did drop the grenade in the grass in my backyard, if the grass is tall it either doesn’t go off or gets bogged down by the softness, when freshly cut or on compacted dirt the grenade works a lot better.
The ASG Storm Apocalypse is a pleasant evolutionary step up from the AI Tornado Impact grenade in usability and a great CQB/indoor tool, if you haven’t tried using grenades yet you should get one as it’ll open up a new avenue of gameplay for you.
Oh I do have ASG D-Tonator impact grenades too but I’ll talk about those in a separate review. 😉
