The Bladerunner works for me, as in it is not total garbage. But its build quality and materials are not very high end for the price. You can get better built vibratos, built by hand in the U.S.A., out of clearly specified materials, for less. E.g. Callaham or Hipshot. Bladerunner are made in China, and – at least when I ordered mine – the Bladerunner materials used were not specified.
I also have problems with how far back the pivot/hinge point is. It makes for odd vibrato geometry if you float the vibrato. For those who deck it, it's probably fine. When you float, the bridge plate sits at a fairly extreme angle, and thus responds too quickly when diving. I feel like those who float would benefit from shims under the mounting plate. That way you could pull up or down, but keep the bridge plate parallel to the fretboard (like a two point vibrato).
Also, something about the saddle geometry of the pivot point being so far back and the bride plate sitting at such a steep angle makes it so a few of the saddles can barely intonate while remaining on the bridge plate. If I went to lighter strings than my 11s, the D saddle would want to be off the front end of the bridge plate and over the spring.
And, when my new Bladerunner arrived, the intonation screws were so cheaply made that more than half of the saddle height screws were effectively stripped out – so softly cut that an Allen wrench wouldn't grab the sides of the holes. The Allen wrench they supplied was total Chinese junk – also soft sided. But even with a quality Allen wrench of the right size, there was slippage in the height screws. They set me a batch of replacements, and 1/3 of those were bad too. In the end, I was able to get it working with 10 decent height screws and two so-so ones.
I feel like the design is something that can be got used to and worked around. But the materials and build quality are unacceptable at that price. It's like they designed a vibrato that would have been nice if nicely built in house...and then immediately turned around and outsourced a cheap-o version of it, at what should have been the price for an in-house unit.
Bottom line, it's not complete garbage on an absolute level...but for the price, it is. It should be an $80 piece of hardware.
