How To Integrate A Firefly Turret

Yesterday, I finished yet another gun straight from the scrap pile - my ZomBBB: (ZombieBB, get it?)


It has half of a +bow spring in it, it has a Firefly turret on the front, and the handle has been moved to the side for reasons I cannot remember (I did that a looong time ago.)

It gets ranges in the 70's and occasional 80's.

While doing this mod, I took the opportunity to make a writeup on how to add a firefly turret to a gun.

Let's get started.

Rip the turret assembly out of your donor firefly. IIRC, you'll have to unscrew 5 screws.


Take out the screw in the center of the rotating mech and set all though pieces aside for now. Then unscrew the 6 screws (3 in front, 3 in back) from the turret:


Pry the turret apart with a flathead screwdriver:


All this shit falls out. Get rid of it.


Take a fairly long screwdriver, and punch out the peg pieces. You don't need/want those either.


Here's all the parts you should have now:

Here's the shit you don't need:

You also don't need the 6 screws you took out.

Now take a 1/2" drill bit (or a 17/32" one if you have it), and open up the holes in the back of the turret:

SAFETY WARNING: When drilling each hole, the drill bit will want to grab on to the part, and violently rip it out of your hands, spinning it wildly with the drill bit. This happened to me, and you can see where it took a small chunk out of my finger - I was lucky. You need to have a FIRM grip on the part. I suggest using vice-grips or channel-locks to hold on to the piece.

Take the larger pink part of the rotating mech, and shove it into a 1/2" PVC coupler as far as it will go. It will be a very tight fit.

On the other side of the coupler, cut it even with the pink piece:


Now start putting the turret back together, like this:




Then screw it together.

Please wait for PART 2.

Now you've got this module that you can slap onto any gun you want:

At this point, you should add barrels to it. I used the stock barrels for my BBB, since my slugs fit them ok.

Here's how I attached the turret to my BBB.

First, you need to coupler your gun: (ignore the paint)


Then, add a 1 1/4" piece of 1/2" PVC:


Then add (glue) a 1" by 1 1/4" Piece of polycarb sheet, with a 3/8" hole drilled through the middle of it:


Now, attach those two assemblies with DUCK TAPE!

Just kidding - there is epoxy and hot glue under the tape. An alternative to this would be hose-clamping them together.
Make sure you line one of the barrels up with the polycarb piece!

At this point, two things could happen:
1. the seal is good as is.
2. the inherent slop in the firefly rotation mech makes the seal shit.

If #2 applies to you, you need a bracket to hold the Firefly turret against the polycarb seal piece. I used a 3" piece of polycarb 90' angle (McMaster part #1755K12). I cut one side to fit around the turret, and screwed the other side into the PVC piece.



Now you're done!


I painted it to match the gun:


Ammo holders:


More pics:




Q's/C's/F's?

We have ranges, but there are two other camps in the "tastes great / less filling" debate of Nerf:

• what's the accuracy like?
• what's your rate of fire?

(edit) Great mod - I'm trying to do something like this right now, so this is very useful to me. The mod looks great, and a lot of fun to use.

Edited by taerKitty, 26 June 2009 - 09:27 PM.

As always great job.

This paintjob is great.

I also find the BBB easier to prime with the handle on the side.

Nice use of the firefly turret as well, (once again).

Are those the original firefly ammo holders on the side fo the gun?

Are those the original firefly ammo holders on the side fo the gun?

I believe so.

Damn sexy mod, ANF. Looks very functional. Almost reminds me of OATN's 'BitchX'. Is it awkward to turn the turret after every shot with the handle in the way?

Wow you're on a modding tear.

Great job again.

I might try something simliar with a tek 10 turret...

It auto-aligns due to the rotation mech right? I think you need to take a break from modding for a bit man. Creating so much awesomeness in such a short time can't be healthy.

I agree. You're going to run out of modding fuel.

Does it fire consistantly?

Edited by Shwanky, 26 June 2009 - 11:21 PM.

We have ranges, but there are two other camps in the "tastes great / less filling" debate of Nerf:

• what's the accuracy like?
• what's your rate of fire?

(edit) Great mod - I'm trying to do something like this right now, so this is very useful to me. The mod looks great, and a lot of fun to use.

Accuracy is decent, and ROF is much better than a standard BBB.
Good luck with your mod.

As always great job.

This paintjob is great.

I also find the BBB easier to prime with the handle on the side.

Nice use of the firefly turret as well, (once again).

Are those the original firefly ammo holders on the side fo the gun?

Yes those are Firefly ammo holders.

Are those the original firefly ammo holders on the side fo the gun?

I believe so.

Damn sexy mod, ANF. Looks very functional. Almost reminds me of OATN's 'BitchX'. Is it awkward to turn the turret after every shot with the handle in the way?

It's not awkward at all, surprisingly.

Wow you're on a modding tear.

Great job again.

I might try something simliar with a tek 10 turret...

Hehe, I've just got alot of messed up old guns that need resurrecting.

It auto-aligns due to the rotation mech right? I think you need to take a break from modding for a bit man. Creating so much awesomeness in such a short time can't be healthy.

Yep, it auto-aligns.
Take a break? but then what would I do?

I agree. You're going to run out of modding fuel.

Does it fire consistantly?

Yes. Thanks to the bracket I built, the seal is near-perfect, and ranges are extremely consistant. It's fairly accurate, too, or at least as accurate as a short-barrel gun can be.


Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I'll be lending this gun out to people at a war tommorrow, so I'll let you guys know how well it works out on the battlefield.

Fantastic, I love this. You have convinced me to buy a damn firefly

That thing not only is awesome looking but sexy as well. I want it to have my next children

Awesome, I love it.

One thing I may suggest is having the rotation mechanism above the coupler that attaches to your BBB. This might remove the need to have a bracket since gravity will help seal the turret instead. The only negative with this is you'll be shooting out of the bottom barrel instead of the top. But I guess that's just personal taste.

I've been playing around with turrets and adding them onto my singled blasters. They work very well. I'll have to try throwing on a Firefly turret.

Great mod, keep up the good work.

Would you be able to do this on a longshot? It seems this would help the RoF if your seals were good, only on previously singled longshots of course.

Anyways very good mod/write-up as always and of course keep 'em coming.

Wait so you manually rotate the turret and the mechanism clicks it into the right place?
Im assuming you could do this with a maverick turret also? (With slight modifications) That seems like it could be better on smaller guns...

Wait so you manually rotate the turret and the mechanism clicks it into the right place?
Im assuming you could do this with a maverick turret also? (With slight modifications) That seems like it could be better on smaller guns...

This wouldn’t work with a mav turret, but will work with most other turrets such as dtb.

One thing I may suggest is having the rotation mechanism above the coupler that attaches to your BBB. This might remove the need to have a bracket since gravity will help seal the turret instead. The only negative with this is you'll be shooting out of the bottom barrel instead of the top. But I guess that's just personal taste.

That's a great idea. I have one more FF turret left, and what ever I put it on, I'll do it that way.

Would you be able to do this on a longshot? It seems this would help the RoF if your seals were good, only on previously singled longshots of course.

You could definitely do this to a longshot. But it would need to be carbine'd, and the turret would be fixed to the plunger tube. You'd need to add a handle to the plunger and cock it that way (like an xbow). Of course, that's not the only way to do it, but it would be the most functional way.

Wait so you manually rotate the turret and the mechanism clicks it into the right place?
Im assuming you could do this with a maverick turret also? (With slight modifications) That seems like it could be better on smaller guns...

Yes it does, and yes you could do it with a Mav turret.

Wait so you manually rotate the turret and the mechanism clicks it into the right place?
Im assuming you could do this with a maverick turret also? (With slight modifications) That seems like it could be better on smaller guns...

This wouldn’t work with a mav turret, but will work with most other turrets such as dtb.

This would most certainly work with a Mav turret. You'd just have to permanently affix the rotating mech to the turret first.

Very nice work! Its very practical, and also pretty scary!!!

Once again, great job.

Do you think you would get better ranges if you rebarreled it?

Seriously though, are all of your new mods going to have a firefly turret?!?

Once again, great job.

Do you think you would get better ranges if you rebarreled it?

Seriously though, are all of your new mods going to have a firefly turret?!?

I would definitely get better ranges if I re-barreled it, but I was running low on barrel material at the time.

Nope, not all of them. Only 3. You've already seen 2 of them. One firefly turret left.

I noticed I hadn't commented in this...great job, man. I love seeing that you've posted a new topic in the mods section. I can't wait for the next to pop up. You could use a 1/8" thick piece of polycarb and just compensate by attaching the rotator mech of the turret farther back, right?

Again, good work. I look forward to seeing more.

If you feel that you are having problems with the seal, you should consider placing a piece of craft foam in the gap between the bbb barrel and the firefly turret, similar to what is on magstrikes, rf20s and the like. It will fill the gap, and allow you to still easily turn the turret. I have used this on my mav with positive results.