The Curious XXP 175

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James G.
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:50 pm

The Curious XXP 175

Post by James G. » Fri May 12, 2023 10:45 am

While I was looking on eBay, for something else, I saw that apparently these are really 'in' right now; there's probably 5+ for sale from various people, more than you would expect given that it was produced for a short time.

A reference list of some of its odd characteristics:

• It has dual nozzles. There are only a handful of blasters with multiple nozzles, almost all of which are considered either objectively gimmicky, or at least relatively so when compared to 'normal' blasters in the same line.
• It has a rare branding, being one of only two XXPs.
• It has screw-in reservoirs at a time when this was going out of style, and when the larger 275 had a modern capped tank.
• It has two reservoirs. The SS 200 also has two. Are there any others? I'm not presently aware of any.
• Although being a larger blaster, it has no separate pressure chamber. From a non-exhaustive look, it may be the largest post-SS-line Larami blaster ever made that uses pressurized reservoirs.
• The nomenclature isn't coherent. The XXP 275 looks a lot like a double-nozzle XP 250, which seems to establish a potential pattern for the XXP line: make a double-nozzle version of something, add 25 to the number. However, the XXP 175 is clearly not inspired in any way by the XP 150 (judging by the latter's reviews, if it had been, it probably would have been better-loved). Aqua-Zone suggests it is more like a dual XP 65.

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Overall, it is like the platypus of '90s Super Soakers. It seems strange that so many unusual decisions should all come into play in the same blaster, unless they were deliberately trying to make it as quirky as possible. Is there some sort of rhyme or reason to it that I'm missing, based on their product strategy at the time? If not, have Mr. Johnson or a Larami employee ever talked about it?

SSCBen
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Re: The Curious XXP 175

Post by SSCBen » Sat May 13, 2023 1:58 pm

Interesting analysis. I too would like to hear the story behind some of the stranger blasters. Unfortunately, we've heard little about internal Larami decisions from back in the day.

There might be something in the book by Al Davis, but I've never seen mention of it outside of iSoaker.com: http://www.isoaker.com/Armoury/Analysis ... -davis.php

I just did some Google searches, and looks like you can buy an eBook version on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Super-Soaker-Al- ... B007NJR7ES

Sometimes you can find some information about decisions made in patents, but to my knowledge there was no patent specifically for the XXP 175.

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