To be fair, Shaki’s Rocket Bullet is not the kind of toy I would have picked out on my own, but it was a freebie, and since I’m always looking for a bullet that I’ll actually enjoy, I thought I might as well give it a chance. Sadly, Shaki’s bullet did not win me over. It’s just too buzzy, and the performance is spotty—not horribly, but enough to annoy.

For these reasons, I don’t really feel comfortable recommending the Rocket Bullet to anyone, but if you feel that you absolutely must have it, you should at least have some idea of what it’s good for—at least in theory.

The Rocket Bullet is rather unique, as bullets go; its length and graduated ridges give you the option of using it internally as well as externally; it should be long enough to reach all but the very deepest of G-spots, and while it’s too large to deliver pinpoint clitoral stimulation, the shaft is narrow enough to provide somewhat targeted vibrations. It has multiple vibration patterns and speeds, and since it’s powered by a battery pack that takes two AAs, it is somewhat stronger than bullets powered only by watch batteries. A man could use it to stimulate his perineum or the shaft of his penis, but it shouldn’t be used for prostate stimulation (or for anal stimulation of any kind, for that matter); it’s not very long, and the cord is too flimsy to be useful for retrieval.

Shaki’s bullet is made of ABS plastic, so it is relatively safe, as these things go; it is hypoallergenic and latex and phthalate-free, and it had no scent or taste when I opened the box. Plastic can’t be sterilized, though—and even if it could be, you can’t exactly drop a vibrator in boiling water—so you’ll have to use a condom or toy cover if you want to share the Rocket Bullet.

The plastic of the battery pack has a pleasant matte texture similar to Velvet Cote, while the bullet itself is shiny and smoother with some kind of metallic coating. Personally, I’m a little worried that the coating might start flaking, but then again, I don’t really see myself using this toy often enough for that to be a problem.

The Rocket Bullet has two main parts—the bullet itself, and the battery pack it’s connected to. The bullet, as I’ve already said, is somewhat unique in that it can be inserted. While its relatively small size is unlikely to please size queens—it’s 5” long, insertable to about 4”, and 1 1/4” inches in diameter at the widest—the slight ripples on the side of the Rocket Bullet make it more interesting than a similarly sized smooth toy. In fact, the bulges are one of the few things about this toy that I actually like. Its overall shape was also quite pleasing to me, because I prefer toys that, like the Rocket Bullet, are widest at the head and then taper through the shaft.


The Rocket Bullet compared to a standard size vibe (iTap G-vibe) and a standard bullet (the Ammunition).

The battery pack is pretty standard. It’s 4” tall and about 1 1/2” wide, but a bit slimmer in the middle, which makes holding it easier. To get to the battery compartment, you unscrew the base and insert the batteries according to the almost-impossible-to-make-out directions. To turn the vibrator on, you press the on/off button, and to change the setting you press the button immediately above it that has the number “7” written on it (I assume because the Rocket Bullet has—supposedly—seven settings). A red light tells you whether the bullet is on or off, but there is no way of knowing which setting you’re on without cycling through them, and the bullet will not “remember” which setting you were using if you turn it off.


Battery pack.

The cord is 21” long. This sounds good on paper, but in practice I found it a bit short, especially as far as cleaning is concerned.

Before I get into anything else about the Rocket Bullet’s performance, I just want to point out that according to its packaging, it has seven settings. As far as I can tell, this is just flat out untrue; the final setting is, to me at least, indistinguishable from the highest setting of constant vibration. In some ways, I think this is actually a little ingenious; I occasionally like to use patterned vibrations to warm up, but I’d find it very difficult to orgasm with one, so I like the idea of being able to switch the vibrator into high gear to finish off without having to cycle through a bunch of other settings. But still, accuracy, people.

The settings, as far as I can make out, are as follows:

1. Low constant vibration
2. Medium constant vibration
3. High constant vibration
4. Escalation and decline (wave-like pattern)
5. Fast pulse
6. Reeeally fast pulse (I think of it as the vibrations vibrating, but maybe I’m weird)
7. High constant vibration again

I’m not usually one for patterns, but I will say that the sixth setting was a new experience for me; I’ve never encountered anything like it in another vibe, and I sort of liked it.

Unfortunately, I just can’t enjoy the vibrations themselves. At their most powerful, they’re moderately strong—for reference I’d say the first setting is a 1 or 2 and the third is a 3—but they are very buzzy. This annoys me for a few reasons, but the main one is that I can’t really exert much pressure without dampening the vibrations to the point that I can barely feel them. I had to change my masturbation technique to sort of circling the vibrator around my clit, and I was not happy about it.

I also find that buzzy vibrators tend to annoy me more in terms of sound. It’s not that the Rocket Bullet is unusually loud—again, I’d say it’s around a 3 when you run it at full power—but the vibrations are higher-pitched than those of rumblier vibes, and they get on my nerves more than louder but lower vibrations do.

I will say that I enjoyed the Rocket Bullet a bit more when I used it internally, but not so much that I can really envision myself using it again. The vibe is long enough and wide enough to do an okay job of stimulating my G-spot, but when I actually have the vibrator turned on, I can’t feel the texture of the toy—just the buzzy vibrations, which are quieter internally but still a sort of ho-hum experience. If I use the Rocket Bullet as a dildo, I can appreciate the texture a lot more, but it’s not doing anything for me that other toys can’t do better. If I want to use a rigid, rippling, insertable toy, I’d much prefer my new glass dildo, which a) is longer, and thus easier to thrust, and b) doesn’t have an annoyingly short cord getting in the way constantly.

The nail in the coffin, though, is the fact that the toy doesn’t always turn on/switch settings when you press the appropriate button. It does eventually—usually the second time—but the fact that there were technical issues at all the very first time I used the toy makes me think it’s poorly constructed.

Plastic itself is fairly easy to clean—toy cleaner, wipes, or antibacterial soap and water all will do the trick—but I personally find battery pack bullets some of the most frustrating toys, in terms of upkeep. As much as I like EF’s wipes, I still like to rinse my toys off in water as well (I have OCD, if that tells you anything). And while Shaki claims their bullet is waterproof (including, I assume, the battery pack, since it looks like it has a rubber O-ring) I am just not sure I trust them, given the other issues I’ve had with the vibe’s performance. Plus, the box says to “keep the wire and controller dry when cleaning,” so there’s that mixed message to deal with. The Rocket Bullet is, however, a fairly easy toy to store; it’s not discreet, but it’s small, and since it’s made of plastic, you don’t have to quarantine it like you do silicone toys. You can also use it with both water and silicone-based lubes.

It’s sad, but one of my favorite things about this toy was the packaging. Not because it’s good—it’s not subtle at all, and the fact that it says you can use the toy anally is a little alarming—but because it’s amusingly translated. My favorite part has got to be “The dial could adjust the frequency of vibration,” because it is so unintentionally accurate—well, except for the “dial” part, since it doesn’t have one. The button “could” change the setting, but that doesn’t mean it always will. Unfortunately, the box it comes in is cardboard and extremely indiscreet, so it’s not really good for storage, and I'll probably just end up tossing it.

In the interests of total honesty, I feel like I should say that I am 100% sure I could get off with this toy. But while there may be no such thing as a bad orgasm, there are most definitely orgasms that are just not worth the trouble, and I know that any orgasm I managed to have with the Rocket Bullet would be one of those.

Why am I so sure? Well, first of all, I cannot tell you how many times during my first two sessions with the Rocket Bullet I was on the brink of orgasm and had something go wrong just when I was thinking that there was absolutely no way I was NOT going to come. This is a problem I often have with more targeted stimulation, and is probably the main reason I prefer vibes with larger heads; if my hand slips at the wrong moment, a small toy can shift into a less pleasurable position. The problem with the Rocket Bullet was that when this happened, I discovered, to my chagrin, that I was instantly back to square one as far as arousal was concerned.

I’m not entirely sure why this should be the case; my best guess is that it was a combination of the very surface-level stimulation and my mental state, which was by then one of extreme frustration. The point is, it hardly seemed worth starting over, because it had taken me so much effort to get to the brink of orgasm in the first place; there are toys that I can just press to my clit and come with, and there are toys that require a lot of straining and sweating and unpleasantness. This was definitely the latter.

To end the review on an upbeat note, though, I will say that I learned something important about myself from this toy, which is that a vibrator can be fairly powerful and still fail to get me off if the vibrations are too buzzy.