Look What T da B Just Got!

This is the LEGO Atlantis Harpoon Blaster--released in 2010 with the Atlantis LEGO series. It is essentially a reshelled Buzz Bee Big Blast. I have been looking for a BBBB for a long time now, and I'm really happy to have found one in good condition. I'm also a big fan of the black and red color scheme--much cooler than the old green and blue patterning. It's rare to find a blaster that isn't made by Nerf that exceeds all expectations for performance, but the BBBB (or 4B) certainly does. Just take a look at the air tank--it's enormous! Like all powerful air blasters, you can see water vapor come out of the barrel with each shot.

The previous owner already plugged the pump and removed the air restrictor, so I won't have to worry about those mods. A popular mod for these blasters is to cut down the front of the shell, since it's mainly just a hollow space to fit the rocket ammo. I will not be minimizing mine, since I think it looks really good as it is! What I will probably do for this blaster is integrate a hopper and barrel. I don't usually attach my barrels and hoppers permanently, but this blaster seems like it was made for a hopper and at least an 18'' barrel. I will drill a hole through the top for the hopper to go through and attach the wye to the front of the air tank. I can't wait to bust out the chronograph after this one is done :)

Amazing Stuff Coming

Hey guys,

Sorry I haven't posted in a while--here's a sneak peek of what's coming next!

T da B's Guide to Online Traffic School

Hi guys! I drive a Honda S2000, so it's quite hard for me to keep my driving habits under control. Recently, I had the pleasure of acquiring two tickets in the span of one week. That's two points on my record which will take three years to get me back to square one. Anyways, you can take traffic school once ever year-and-a-half, so this guide will serve as a reference to making your traffic school as painless as possible.

1. Register with your information and pour yourself a strong drink.
2. Click on your next section.
3. DO NOT READ ANYTHING! Scroll all the way to the bottom and click on "Take the Test"
4. Answer the questions to the best of your ability. You will have to guess on some of them.
5. Your incorrect responses will be displayed. Take note of them.
6. If you failed the test, repeat #3. If you passed, repeat #2.
7. Eventually, you will reach the final exam. Bullshit your way through and treat it like the other quizzes. It will use mostly questions that you already answered, and you have as many tries as you want. I got it first try with an 82%.

So there you have it--online traffic school completed successfully without reading a single thing!

My completion time: 50 minutes

Longshot Mod!

Background:
The Longshot really needs no introduction. Many consider it to be one of the best Nerf blasters ever made, and I would wholeheartedly agree. Just pop it open and take a look at the size of the plunger tube--it's massive! When it came out in 2006, the box deemed it the "longest Nerf blaster," at over 3 feet long. This was because you get two blasters in the box. The smaller, pathetic gun attaches to the front of the Longshot as a "barrel extension." The only problem with the front gun is that it only hurts ranges. The faux barrel has a larger diameter than a dart and only serves to slow the dart down with friction. There is a slight gain in accuracy as well, but the innate inaccuracy of the streamline dart negates this almost completely. The blaster comes with a collapsible stock, which I modded to be in-collapsible for reasons explained below.

Mods:

1. Popatachi Breech! This breech is based off the Sodizzle breech, which was one of the first CPVC Longshot breeches. I completely replaced the Longshot's barrel and breech with 1/2'' CPVC that joins together inside a sanded out CPVC coupler. The front of the breech and the rear of the barrel are tapered and coned out, so they meet together perfectly inside the coupler for that perfect air seal. The barrel is 10'' long, which provides dart speeds up to 185 feet per second! As you can see, I took the orange piece off the old breech so I could attach the new one to the bolt sled. The black piece from the rear of the old breech is hot glued to the back of the new CPVC breech and filled with hot glue to reduce deadspace. Popatachi also had the genius idea of using the rear barrel guide as a chamber to guide the dart into the coupler! See his write-up for exact details.
2. K26 spring replacement. Max load comes out to ~14kg (done using my Python program!). The prime is a little difficult with one hand, but not very hard at all with two. If you want to prime the blaster with one hand, then you absolutely need the next mod.
3. Steel sheet metal reinforcement epoxied to the bolt sled. The K26 spring has destroyed many blasters in its lifetime, and yours will be next if you don't take the necessary precautions. I cut two pieces of sheet metal in a L-shape so they conform to the bolt sled. They were epoxied on the inside of the sides of the bolt sled. You can still have some flex in between the two sides of the bolt sled, but at least the bend of the L is never going to break.
4. Reinforced folding stock with 1/2'' PVC. I used three pieces of PVC cut to the perfect length and stacked in a triangle to prevent the stock from being able to fold up. Why is this necessary? When you put a powerful spring in the Longshot you must usually prime it back with two hands. This usually means resting the stock up against your body, so if the spring is very strong the stock can collapse without warning and possibly injure you.
5. Filled in the spaces in the back of the plunger head with epoxy.
6. Reinforced trigger with epoxy. I filled in both sides of the long extension part with J.B. Weld.
7. Removed priming indicator. This was to make extra room for the plunger rod to occupy and allowing the breech to retract slightly further.
8. Teflon tape under the O-ring for an improved plunger seal.
9. 1/4'' craft foam hot glued to plunger head for impact deadening. This prolongs the life of your blaster and assures that your plunger rod doesn't snap in half!

Clip loading failure:
This mod has one major failure--it cannot chamber darts from a clip! I followed Popatachi's write-up to the tee, but for some reason I cannot prime far back enough to chamber even a 1.5'' stefan. I have a couple of theories for this, assuming I measured everything correctly, which I did :). My first theory is my spring. Popatachi powers his Longshot with a K18 nested over a BBB spring. Neither of those springs have as many coils per inch as the K26. This means that they will compress more than the K26, meaning you will be able to prime back further. My other theory is that Popatachi's mess-up in his write-up actually helps him get a little extra room to chamber the dart. His bolt sled is seated closer to the front of the blaster with the breech closed. This gives the bolt sled slightly more travel. This is why I think my clip loading is not functioning.

Summary:
This was a fun and time-consuming mod. It took careful measurement to get the breech measured properly and the coning of the breech and barrel meeting point took a while to get perfect as well. Remember, measure twice and cut once! Even though I got a single-loading Longshot in the end, it still hits hard enough to leave a raised welt with slugs!

To see how I've improved my modding, check out my second Longshot mod.

Hasbro vs. Pocket of Urbantaggers.com

I can't believe this! I just read an article about how Hasbro scammed an Australian blogger (Pocket) into giving out his address so their idiot lawyers could send a couple of goons to harass him and demand answers to their questions. Nice job shooting yourself in the foot and losing one of your biggest promoters, Hasbro. Read the full article below:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/04/24/nerf-guns-at-10-paces-hasbro-faces-boycott-after-siccing-lawyers-onto-fan-site/

Here is the original Urban Taggers post and Pocket's perspective:

http://urbantaggers.blogspot.com/2012/04/free-stuff-from-hasbro-story-of-uts.html 

By now the issue with Hasbro and the lawyers has been resolved--Hasbro finally got their shit together and cleared up the matter. Pocket did end up getting his Pinpoint Sights, and life is back to normal. Anyways, here is Pocket's post on Urbantaggers about the eventual resolution of the Hasbro fiasco:

http://urbantaggers.blogspot.com/2012/05/pinpoint-sights-arrived-resolution.html
This whole situation accentuates a bigger problem that manifests itself in larger companies--different organizations failing to communicate. I have worked at a large corporation, and there is definitely a feeling of isolation that is not present in smaller startups. Pocket got his Pinpoint Sights, but will this happen again?

~T

Why so many words, T da B?

Some of you may be wondering why this blog has so many damn words and not so many pictures. There are a few reasons for this:

1. My camera's LCD screen is broken and I need to get a new one before I can take any close-ups. For all my pictures so far, I've been using the built-in viewfinder to center my shots and praying that the flash doesn't completely white out my photos. I'm currently waiting on several promising ebay postings.
2. I'm covering my completed mods first and I'm not taking them apart again just to photograph my internals. In the future, I will be doing much more picture-heavy write-ups from start to finish, so don't worry! After my next post on the Longshot, I will have covered all of my completed mods.
3. I like to explain stuff in great detail, and sometimes pictures can't reveal everything.

In summation, give me a week or so and I'll have some beautiful close-ups for you all. I know many of you hate reading or thinking in general, so I'll try to balance photos and writing as best as I can in the future.

Peace!
~T

Nerf Rampage Mod!

Background:
This is the Nerf Rampage, one of the new Elite Series blasters. It is a "re-shelling" of the old N-Strike Raider, with one big difference--it has a direct plunger! This is why Hasbro claims "ranges up to 75 feet" on the box. With the new blue streamline darts and an angled shot, I think that claim is actually valid. I love the feel of this blaster--it is perfectly sized with extremely comfortable grips. It comes with the new Elite 25-round drum clip, which is a little lighter and more manageable than the old 35-round Raider drum. And of course, you get the new blue streamline darts, which have a slightly better weight distribution than the old pink ones.

List of mods:

1. Removed the air restrictors. I didn't do the best job with this--maybe I was drinking that night or something. I hacked and slashed my way to victory with a hammer and slotted screwdriver, and almost punctured the side of my breech! In the end I prevailed but it was a messy job--I should have cleaned it up with a hand file at least.
2. Removed the locks. There is a bolt lock on the half of the shell that the screws go through and a couple of locks under an orange square on the breech mechanism. Unscrew a couple of screws to get the orange square off and expose the locks inside.
3. Cut off the nub on the bolt sled that allows the blaster to be half-primed. This nub was on the Raider as well, and serves no purpose but to mess up your priming. It is in the middle of one side of the bolt sled.
4. 8kg spring replacement from SGNerf. This direct plunger requires a pretty precise spring fit, so I decided to go with someone else's that I knew would fit perfectly. Amazingly, this blaster does not require plunger padding! The sides of the plunger tube taper inwards very slightly, which gradually cushions the impact. The plunger head never even touches the end of the plunger tube. 
5. If you replace your mainspring, you will need to put in some work to get the Rampage to prime. Just like in the Alpha Trooper, the priming rod flexes under the increased spring tension, and it may flex just enough to prevent the plunger rod from catching. I would recommend epoxying the priming bar on both ends (front handle and bolt sled), or do as I did and add a piece of foam on top of your plunger head. There is a nice little "cup" in the plunger head that allows a round piece of foam to fit in nicely.

Summary:
All in all, this blaster is very nice! It now breaks 100 feet per second velocities with streamlines and still has its slam-fire capabilities. In the future, I might want to create a new breech for it that accepts stefans, since stock darts blow. For $30, this blaster is worth the money, especially if you liked the ergonomics of the Raider. I give it my seal of approval!

Cheers,
T da B