Homemade Spring Pistol

This is my attempt at a homemade springer. It's intended to be a pistol and a tester. I used the spring from an Xploderz 200, I need to add an industrial spring in there. It uses a similar design to SGNerf's homemades, although I simplified it a bit. There's 5" of draw. It get's about 90'. The prime will eventually be a pump or bolt action.

Here's the removable shoulder stock which still accepts my 2x UMB.

The bushing is inset for less deadspace.

I need to redo the seal (hilariously janky but pretty good), and tweak a few things. The ring catch is functioning very well and you can really bang the blaster about without accidentally firing. I like it so far but need to build a larger version! There's only a few things that differ from SGNerf's design but I'll do a write-up when it's well tested.

For Fun Mod

I came across this tiny promotional Super Soaker water pistol. It was given away at burger king at some point. No real guts I suppose (triangle screws). You just fill it and whomp the pump handle forward. It didn't do too bad as a water gun and seemed sturdy. So I sealed the back of the barrel area, glued on some cpvc, enlarged the nozzle & gave it a go. To my surprise it got 15-20'! With decent dart speed too. Accuracy and range are tricky, with the mechanism of firing being so odd. But I like the idea of shooting someone at 5' with an underpowered blaster. Some practice might get some rof & hits. It seems to like buzz-bee darts and doesn't fire stefans worth a damn. Fun little in your face blaster that gives the other guy a sporting chance.

Spring / Air Combo

I couldn't resist trying this! A wip air blaster grafted onto a wip springer. The SGNerf style homemade is my first homemade springer. It needs tweaks and an eventual spring upgrade after I get the dimensions right. I hope to get a bolt action prime working. The whole contraption needs lightening before I glue & screw it together. I haven't decided on a loading system for the air blasters yet. I might do petg barrels and ramrodded darts.

2x UMB Progress

I made a few changes to my in-progress primary. The pump is the ubiquitous schwinn single action. The beginning of a trigger is there. I chopped 1/4" off the front of alot of the fittings for weight and to raise the shoulder stock a bit. I still have to do some final adjustments to the placement of the tanks. Then the dreaded check valves!

2x UMB Layout

I'm still tinkering with this a bit (the conduit on the tank area is temp), but this is close to the final layout for my 2x umb primary. The schwinn pump has an oval shape which is nice although it's a little heavy, being metal. There's alot less deadspace between the pump and each checkvalve. An sspb's oprv will be sunk into the pvc tee. The triggers shouldn't be too tough to get functional. Thanks to Pause for the cheek rest suggestion!

Pump Replaced SSPB Tweaks

I added a slice of pvc coupler to my sspb's handle to reinforce the pump. I had to saw that pump off because it dried slightly off due to my trying to reposition it.

I switched out the cpvc pump handles for baton material (lighter) and added a little foam to the end. I also sanded the top of the sspb's blast button flat, down to the orange stub, to decrease the reach for my thumb.

Micro Wye with Baton Hopper

This is kind of a kludge attempt at making a really lightweight wye for an airgun. The baton needs the rifling sanded away and then a small amount of further sanding (mostly to even out the i.d. in spots) to get good feeding. The fit is so close that this likely won't work with springer size darts. I don't know for sure though. I haven't tried sanding further yet. Other than that it offers reduced deadspace, light weight and it's clear.

Down the maw.

 I'm using a cpvc elbow as an experiment. My only other was a conduit so it's kinda apples and oranges. But it feeds well and the only thing now is finding a larger i.d. material for springer fit darts.

Tek 3 Turret Repair

I finally busted my sspb's tek 3 turret. Dang. But it was easy to fix.

I cut what was left of the stock turret near the screw off with a razor knife. The hole was marked and a small hole drilled (didn't document the size). I dug around for an appropriate screw but had to file a bit from the head to get it into the pivot. I added some craft foam (Thanks princexbuster at NH) as a seal. There was a little tuning of the holes for the air inlet and at the back of the turret. I drilled out the holes a little larger without having to redo the stock ball detent. It still indexes nice and the extra performance is noticable.

Small Batch Silicone Darts

These darts have surprised me with their durability and accuracy. They resemble glue domes but have less death potential, imo. Straight silicone is injected into a syringe to allow for precise application. A cavity must be burnt or drilled into the foam. It's pretty easy, which works for me, and is also fast. The main thing is to keep the silicone away from the edges of the foam no matter what. Any overlap will result in squibs. I show pool noodle foam and stock darts but I'm sure this will work with fbr. I used dap silicone rubber sealant from kmart. Give the darts 5 (ugh) days to cure. My janky makeshift hotglue gun/burning tool is not ideal but workable.

Heat Matched Darts with CPVC

Following a post by Burr on NH I tried heating some cpvc barrel material with a common coffee warmer instead of metal on a cooktop.  I had some (19!) barrels cut to 2 1/2" for an absolver. There's a rubber band holding them together. The warmer is not a particularly powerful one. I tried mine on high and it deformed a few barrels so I would stick to low at first. In usage I found it best to load it with darts (to about 1/4" of the bottom) and then place it on the warmer for 15 - 20 minutes (longer for stock darts). It's hard to gauge but my darts melted a bit at the bottom when they were done. A little less gets a tighter dart but over 25 minutes started to deform the surface of the foam.

 The fit I got with stefans and 25 minutes was a loose airgun fit. In petg it would need tightening rings. At 15 a springer fit seemed usual. It's not fully consistent with the darts in the center getting a bit hotter sometimes perhaps.

Here's some stock darts I ran through. They fit into cpvc much easier and seem to keep their size well.

Once the barrels cool down the darts are easily pushed out or removed. I found it important not to twist stock darts in lest they wind up crooked after cooling.

Pool Noodle Swords

They connect!

The blade is 1/2" thinwall pvc glued to a threaded coupler. I added some shelf liner to the grips for a sharkskin look. The pommel is a slice from a football/missile. I had a dream that I cracked my tv screen. 2 Days later I made this. Evidence for ancient aliens? Giorgio Tsoukalos's hair is skeptical. These are really fun and well balanced in use. I have always loved Japanese swords and now I have 2! And need 4 more! I want another like this and 2 short swords. I might even add foam handguards.

This is cheap and simple to do. I trimmed the pool noodles to shape with a razor knife and a sharp serrated kitchen knife. The sword with the pommel has a pvc male threaded coupler glued to the blade. And then it's handle uses a threaded male conduit coupler, 1/2" pvc handle grip (for weight) and a 1/2" endcap pommel. I covered the endcap with light blue craft foam and sliped a slice of a football/missile on the end for style. I wrapped the grips with blue rubber shelf liner and used rubber bands to hold it on. Then some cloth tape to keep everything together. When I eyeball it all straight I'll goop the pool noodles to the blades. The additional sword that connects to this uses a longer length for the blade and a female coupler as a pommel.

Silicone Dart Test

These are some test darts made along the lines of shmmee's oogoo darts and KaneTheMediocre's Vans. I took my pool noodle blanks and created a cavity inside with a makeshift add-on to my hotglue gun. Then I pumped in some Dap brand silicone and shaped up the heads.

Here's my janky makeshift tool. I'll have to streamline this soon.

Dollar Store Toy Baton Barrels

mig and badwrench have been working with these toy baton barrels, as they have rifling built in. I haven't had alot of success with them with stefans. I have seen benefits for streamlines, but it hasn't worked consistently for me. I tried sanding the interiors today and saw good results. Streamlines are more consistent now even at range. I still get spiraling darts occasionally but even they land close to the target. I think with some dart cherry picking I can actual use streamlines now! With some tweaks this could also be an alternative to petg that's available locally (for some).

Please excuse my dollar store sandpaper as I don't use much. I mention it because I doubt good 60 grit sandpaper will be right for this task. Try something finer I guess. I found a tube which was a good fit when 1 layer of sandpaper was duct taped to it. Sand in 1 twisting direction till it's close and then try sanding through the barrel. Clear out the sanding debris alot. I went through 2 pieces. I sanded until I got an air fit. The tubing was .435. It wasn't tricky although one end was sanded a little more than the other.

Easter Basket Deal$

My local Deal$ clearance store has nerf easter baskets for $5 right now. There's a nerfhoop, sspb and a vortex football included. Not a bad deal on some items that are harder to find. I'm going to have to look at other, small clearance chains for sspb's now. I have to go back and get more!

Beta UMB Primary Tweaks

I took the opportunity afforded by this badass day to tweak my umb primary. I had already added some support to the tank and barrel, a little comfort and some orange.   

Today I adjusted the oprv to 1 1/2 pumps, tweaked the trigger, added an oring to the inside of the female coupler and fitted the face of the male coupler. It didn't add much range but really helped dart speed and accuracy. I need to make a new wye next.

This is still the beta for my idea of a double UMB tank primary. I'll use a dual action pump, reduced deadspace between the pump and tank, an sspb oprv for added pressure and a little extra tank volume next. This crappy trigger works so well I might keep it! It takes about 1 minute to make! I'll give it a good stress test and see if it damages the blast pin.

UMB Powered Reflex

 
I built this as a compact, ergo little missile launcher. The guts of a Buzz-Bee Ultimate Missile Blast are chopped up and re-kegiggered to create this little beast. It has a good sized, sten style, tank expansion from 1/2" pvc & a cpvc endcap. The pump is plugged and takes upto 12 pumps. The pump handle was chopped and replaced with cpvc. The bushing for the pump is a 1/2" pvc coupler (filed to fit in the pump tube) with some thinwall nested inside. I removed some material from the back of the grip and extended it as well with white hard foam. The shell is reinforced. It's a tank! Here's the guts :

The trigger is scrap pvc channel grafted onto the stock trigger.

The performance is great with 60' slightly angled shots (Buzz-Bee Missiles) A larger expansion or pump replacement would be nice but there's not too much room! I plan on a full write-up on this one after I'm done with other projects.

Clingy Darts

These are fun little darts/arrows with a special sticky tip. You're probably familiar with this material from other small toys. They fly pretty nice and stick to almost anything. The heads might be useful for nerfy projects and the foam is close to mega sized. Check the heads for straightness in the package. They don't hold especially well to the foam either but I haven't had one rip off yet. The foam is lower density. Pictured with a mega sized blank. My dollar store has a ton of these!

Prep for my first War!

koree and hongfuu are hosting a Philly war soon. It'll be my first war ever so I am quite happy. I've been shifting things around and this is what I have to bring so far.

The 3b and air rifle are my primarys, the sspbs can fill that role pretty well too. The double shot is probably going to get used alot! Couple of hold-outs. The reflex and the overpowered snipe blast are for showing off and any alternative ammo. I need to make a ton of darts, learn about game types, figure out how to get there, finish a bunch of stuff... Lol!

Mini Reflex Review

This is a dollar store blaster I couldn't resist. It's not bad performance-wise with 13' average ranges (stock nerf darts). Streamlines get an extra few feet occasionally. It's a direct plunger but the barrel ports the air into the darts hole. Dart fit is very important. There's probably not too much modding potential due to the horrible quality of the plastic. Mine had some stress marks on the priming rod screw port already! The plunger tube's I.D. is a very close match to CPVC.

It comes with 3 short yellow darts. It works with all the stock darts I tried.Primed with a tagger. Priming is a little tricky as there's not much to hold onto.

Cracked open. There was an ammo holder to be removed first. I pried it loose and it slid off from the front. No pic due to losing it. One screw was already stripped and I lost another!

Plunger details. Gets a decent seal!

Not the worst dollar store blaster, as it will launch a dart past 0 feet. It's pretty fragile though which likely relegates it to the curious. There might be some potential for modding but the plastic is soo flimsy. Proceed with caution!

Dollar Store Arrows

My dollar store carries some nerfy stuff. My favorite so far are these arrows. The are labeled "Silly Shotz" & use a rubber band for launching. I've found them to be have decent performance out of UMB's and the like.

They fly fairly accurately with some punch! They hold up to some power too. My little reflex launches them to 45' flat and can send them 55'+ angled. They work fine with a UMB's missile launcher for an adapter. They have a rubber band running through them. Better range might be had by modifying them a bit. They are not solid foam. That's probably why they don't destroy themselves.

They had that little bitty reflex and I had to pick it up.

Semi Homemade Air Primary

This is the progress I've made today on my BB UMB primary. The pump needs a little more effort than I'd like. The OPRV kicks in nicely at 2 pumps. The check valve in the stub of the tank works nicely. It seems accurate. The trigger is a length of vinyl tubing! This is as close as I have come to a homemade and I'm really surprised that it works. It's getting 110'+ with glue domes and no tweaks. Of course this is still beta.

Double BB UMB Rifle

This is a 2 tank rifle that's in a very early stage. I hope to get this working soon. There's a checkvalve for each tank. I hope that I can get an OPRV to work with this design. The triggers will likely be seperate. I can already see that it's going to be hell to get both tanks to point straight!

Modified Buzz Bee Double Shot

I tried NeverWriteTwice's BB DS mods out. I did a few things different. There's a wrist-strap for priming, it's a bit more compact and I threw on some Tek-3 turrets. Oh, and a tank-expanded SSPB hotglued right where it works best for range!

I think there's a way to add some extra power to the DS. I hope it stays together though! NWT placed in taerkitty's Awfuls contest with this design and I really like it. I, like him, don't plan on moving the CPVC couplers anywhere as it points very nicely this way.

If you're thinking about a side-arm with some interesting twists a BB DS might make a great blaster for you!

SSPB Pump Replacement

I've been trying to build something primary worthy out of a SSPB and this comes close. I would like to try a third one with a few tweaks to see if I can get there. I get 100' but would like 120'! It holds 8 shots with a 1.1" dart. The wye uses a cpvc elbow, a cigar tube hopper and a little tubing nested into the stub to match the blast valve size better (Thanks torumatoko4!) The stub is kept inline with the barrel when trimmed to shape. I like to do it this way for aim but it also seems to improve airflow.

The pumps are from a Buzz-Bee Equalizer water gun. I selected them for their thin size. I wish I had some even thinner ones. I have to look at some other pumps.

For a full look visit Nerf Revolution or The Home of Foam!

Spider-Man Helix / 4B Shotcannon

 This blaster uses a 4B tank, an extra large tank expansion, a dual action Spalding ball pump and a special inline absolved clip. I imagined this as a versatile, semi auto shotgun. It still needs a little work but is a fun blaster. It loses darts like crazy indoors though!

The internal volume of the tank expansion was sized to the available space in the shell. I added a simple string/spring trigger attached to the 4B's lever along with a spring against the blast valve. It needs re-doing, but I hate triggers and always put them off! I used 3/4" threaded fittings. At the time I only had the male fitting in conduit. I would normally like to use cpvc threaded fittings as they seem more durable and precise.

The barrels are spread horizontally by a piece of thinwall pvc. It gives a much better spread at range.

The performance of this blaster/attachment combo is impressive. It makes quite a sound when fired at high pressures! It was made for .8" darts. It holds 80 at that size and gives 2-3 good shots. It can get darts out to 100' but only at higher pressures. The spread at range is 20-25'. I have a feeling that I can improve the pattern a bit with those rifled, dollar store baton barrels. The pattern starts at about 40' and goes out to 80' with good coverage. Safety is certainly a concern with this much power. I sized things for 1 pump close range shots. With 20+ darts leaving the barrel, the energy each dart has is safe. I would not fire this thing at anyone at close range with a few pumps. The effort involved in getting 100' pressure is quite high. Still I would love to do an adjustable oprv or pressure regulator on this in the future. I would also like to try shmmee's oogoo darts. I plan on separate write-ups on the blaster & attachment,