I picked up a pair of Secret Strikes from Meijer last night. They both seem to have a small problem, and I want to know if this is par for the course on SSPB's, or if the two I got were somehow flawed, albeit in identical fashion.

Here's what they do: If I pump really slowly, the air won't fill the tank at all. I have to use firm pumps in order to get the air to go into the tank. (it may also have something to do with the angle the pump is moving in...? I haven't tested them a lot yet) Also, as I am pumping (firmly, as described above), the dart in the barrel will usually start to move up a bit, which tells me some of the air is being released from the air tank early.

Basically, if I pump it up with firm pumps, then insert a dart, I'm getting a decent shot - but it seems like more effort than should be required. Is this how all of them work (or at least the current crop of N-Strike variety), or should I take them back to the store and exchange them - hoping for less flawed examples?

If this is how things are, does anyone know possible solutions? I am thinking that plugging the OP valve will help part of the problem (though that is a difficlut proposition with the SSPB, involving cutting the pump area open and re-gluing it after pulling out the pump handle and sealing the OP). But the part that really bothers me is the dart moving in the barrel. I am hoping to put a coupler on this and attempt a shotgun load with a 6" barrel (for close encounters indoors - 10' range spread fire would be awesome with the way we play), but I would prefer to not have to pump the thing before loading up the barrel, so solving this part of the problem would be nice.

If you need any other info, let me know - I really want to figure this out as I plan to use these things as modular integrations - mod writeup to come if I am successful.

I have to disagree - but it is due to my circumstances. For me, a Longshot would beat out the Big Blast in almost any situation I will face. Why? Because we play indoors. There is only one room in the church where we play that a range greater than 60' would even mean anything. (That would be the sanctuary/auditorium.) In any other room or hallway, 60' is enough to go from wall to wall, and in most cases from corner to corner.

So in my case, the ROF of the Longshot versus the single-loading nature of a singled Big Blast makes the Longshot a no-brainer choice.


(The choice gets even easier when you consider the possibility of a solid integration in the Longshot. Slap a singled AT2K where the bipod was, or something similar, and you could even have access to that single, long ranged shot that the Big Blast offers - or at least a long enough range to hit anywhere in the Sanctuary!)

Since we play indoor, mostly stock, and with a lot of old SM250's that can't fire the taggers - my group has had the best results with the Sonic Micros. They tend to go 5-10 feet farther than standard suction-cup micros, and they don't get jammed on to the firing posts of our older guns (like taggers do *). They also fit & work well in most of the newer guns that we're starting to employ (i.e. Mav's, NF's, FF's).



* SuperMaxx 250's, the old guns we use, have firing posts rather than barrels, and the taggers get stuck on them to the point that their heads get blown off rather than the dart firing correctly!

and shoots a new form of DtD without the velcro on it, possibly hailing back to the old megas that the DT3 used, just with a DtG Tip

Actually, I'm fairly certain that it fires Sonic Micros - you know, the ones that whistle when you fire them out of anything with sufficient power (i.e. isn't stock).

To quote Gizmodo's article:

N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25
(Ages 6 years & up/Approximate Retail Price: $39.99/Available: Fall 2008)
The top-of-the-line blaster for mission supremacy, the NERF N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25 blaster is a 25-dart belt-fed fully automatic blaster that will intimidate any opponent. This impressive blaster comes complete with a fold-up tripod to steady your aim, 25 sonic micro darts that whistle through the air when launched and a 25-dart belt. The NERF N-STRIKE VULCAN EBF-25 blaster features the Tactical Rail System allowing players to customize their blaster for each mission - for example, players can use the green 'night vision' Tactical Light accessory (sold separately) for nighttime missions. Six "D" batteries are required but not included.

True, but Big Blasts don't have the Batman logo, those funky missiles, an overly complicated unfolding process or the patented "Johnny 5 Extendo-Head Scope" thingy.

Only pay attention to optical zoom. Digital zoom means absolutely nothing.

In case that confused anyone, what he means is that the optical zoom is practical, it can actually get you a better shot by using the camera's optics to clearly zoom in on more distant objects. The optical zoom just takes the image being fed to the camera's computer and blows it up like you would an image in paint - it simply resizes the pixels of the image. This is useless because you can do this later (in the editing stage) without risking missing important details in the shot (having finer control and generally a better final look).

Digital zoom is just one of those "features" that companies throw in their cameras for amateurs to toy around with and get all googly-eyed over, even though they are actually not worth using. (Similar features are things like "black & white" or "sepia" mode, "old movie" mode, etc. that can be easily, and often better, created in editing software without limiting what you can do with your footage once it is shot.)


Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anybody thought to themselves "what?".

In his defense, he only knows them by the name "strikefire", which is the name they are sold under as a set of 2. If you search for Strikefire, you get this thread and one about tactical rails - and that's it.


MDNerfers - check out the links provided, and make sure you've read the Code of Conduct (link at the top left of your screen). Then you'll know how not to piss off the mods!

I made some darts using washers, similar to the Captain Slug method. However, I secured the washers to the FBR with orange duct tape. This has the benefit of automatically giving a brightly colored tip to the darts, while admittedly, loosing some accuracy and consistency due to the tape.

Are you just putting a washer on with duct tape, and nothing else? That would really sting when it hits.

Metal + thin layer of duct tape = OUCH!


CaptainSlug puts felt tips over his washers, which reduces the ouch factor much more than duct tape would.

Looks like a gun with a lot of potential. If it were mine, I would take off the "crossbow arms", and see if I could remove the hole plunger handle. If so, I'd build some extra frame up the front of the gun, and make a shotgun slide for it. (although this would obviously work in reverse) Finally, I'd put a nice barrel on there that would meet up with the front of the shotgun slide area, and put a few supports between the two areas.

Throw a nice paint job on there, and you'd have a really nice looking gun with a great shape, that would probably be very comfortable. By the sounds of things (i.e. "gun jerks forward") it has a good deal of power, so it would probably also be very effective.



Man...now I want one!

What are the parameters that make a gun a sn!ping gun? i.e. ammo capacity, ROF, range, etc.

Although true "sn!ping" isn't really possible in Nerf, as mentioned above, a good gun for a "sharpshooter" has to have good range and good accuracy. Basically, you want to be able to hit somebody a good bit before they can hit you. So if you can nail a man-sized target at a good range, then it is a good "sharpshooter" gun.

Of course, what constitutes a good range depends on where you are playing and what other guns are being used. If everyone is using stock guns, then you just need something that can out-range them while maintaining accuracy. If everyone is using mods, you need a better mod. If you are indoors, then you likely won't need to worry as much about range (unless you have large rooms, like a gym or auditorium, to worry about). So accuracy is more important there.

Replying to that and Baghead's comment about new game types based around armor, I tried one with a friend where one person wears "impenetrable" armor, and they are given a pistol or other mediocre gun. Then, the other person (Or people) get better guns and have to try to hit the armored player. But there is a catch, the armored player must be hit in a place without armor, otherwise the shot will not count. There would be slight variations for different circumstances, like if there was one person with armor going up against a team, they would get a good gun, and the armor needs to have some openings. (For example, my armor lacks protection from behind, on the upper arms, and legs.) My friend said it was fun, I liked it too.

Sounds like a recreation of the opening scene from Lethal Weapon 4 - only without the flamethrower and Danny Glover doing the half-naked chicken dance!

I figure that at some point, we'll get a great mod for the Disk Shot Disk Launcher and that will become the most powerful weapon of all - and will be highly sought after because they don't sell as well as the LS's et all.




Just kidding!!!


I could see the LS & Recon being fairly popular long after their production ceases- simply because the clip system is so useful and they guns are very nice looking and comfortable.

If the Maverick was a better gun, it might fit the bill.

But I think the king of all will be the Nightfinder - simply because they are so popular now, and it is due to the ease & effectiveness of modding them. So people will still want them in the years to come, because they are great.

I believe it is intended to increase the compression of the spring, causing it to move the plunger faster, thus increasing the amound of air that affects the dart before it leaves the barrel.

I voted for "Good", because we play indoors exclusively. (church youth group that my wife and I help out with)

When you are dealing with ranges under 20' most of the time, the Maverick is tough to beat. The ROF is great, and the range (once you remove the AR's) is enough to go wall to wall anywhere but in the largest rooms (the sanctuary & fellowship hall).

Among our arsenal, only the Recon & Longshot can keep up ROF-wise, the the LS is too unwieldy for tight quarters!

Hey, if you can read the entire page in 2 seconds, I'm impressed. At which nano-second did you reach the part where it says "CAUTION: Do not look directly at the sun. This is not a protective device."?

Thanks for pointing out my small error. I just saw that the ugly "Out of Stock" line was gone and got so excited that I forgot how to read, but this still means that the things are going to be back in stock, which is a good thing.

I was checking the Hasbro Toy Shop website (www.hasbrotoyshop.com) today, and it looks like the "Out of Stock" message on the LS/RC clips is gone. I haven't tried to order any yet, but it looks like they are back in stock if anyone wants to get their hands on some more!

Links:
Singles
"Value Pack"

The penny or pennies are place behind the spring to improve the power of the spring.

Where else would it go?

In a jar so you could start saving for a better gun?

Hi - and welcome to the Haven.

First things first, if you haven't read the Code of Conuct yet (link is at the top-left of the page), I suggest you do so - you'll have a much happier time here. (And you'll be less likely to tick off the admin types - they run a tight ship, but that's a good thing in my opinion.)

Now, on to your questions:

I'm not sure of the ranges on the Recon - I've never measured mine - but it is fairly decent in my experience. We play indoors, and there are few places in the building where I can't hit someone I can see. (Which means it probably has something like a 20'-30' range.)

And yes, Longshots are sold in stores. I've seen them at Wal-Mart, Meijer, Toys R Us and Target here in Ft. Wayne, IN. They can be harder to find elsewhere from what I've read.

I'm trying to think of a solution where there wouldn't even be a plunger rod. What I'm thinking is that the slide would be attached to the rear of the plunger head by a small rod that would go through the plunger head from side to side, and stick out through the sides of the plunger tube to be gripped by the slide as it moves back. If the plunger head is long enough, the O-ring could seat just ahead of the grooves that would be cut for the two ends of this rod, so that no air is lost. Then the spring would fit behind the plunger head and go to the rear of the tube (not far behind where the plunger head's rear comes back to).

Like this:


| |---------|---------| |
| |...||-----|||\..|\..|| |
| |...||-----|||..\|..\|| |
| |---------|---------| |

(periods ... are empty space because the forum doesn't like multiple spaces)

If that doesn't make sense, I can do up a better image later.

Thanks Carbon, I'll definately refer to your "Big SNAP" when I start work on this then!

By "push-pull" do you mean a simple system where you pull back and push forward, with no spring involved? (like how the cheap foam rocket launchers at Wal-Mart work?)

If so, I would prefer not to go that route. I'd like to have something that would be ready to set-off at a moment's notice, just a flick of a switch or button to trigger the full burst. If it can be done that way, that is what I'd like to do.

If that's not what you mean, could you please explain in slightly more detail?

I am relatively new to the whole Nerf modding scene, and I have been doing a lot of thinking. One idea I have had is to build a small, multi-barrelled "shotgun" to integrate into my Longshot, to basically fill the roll of an underslung grenade launcher. (We play indoors, so long ranges aren't all that important, but a nice scattered spread of foam would be capable of clearing a small room or hallway.)

I have found an interesting PVC fitting at www.flexpvc.com. Check it out here:

http://www.flexpvc.c...t=PVC-Manifolds

The third row items are what I am talking about - the "6 port distributors".


My question is, would it be possible to build a plunger behind this thing in 2" pvc, that would keep the whole assembly short enough to fit in the bipod area of a Longshot, and would provide enough power to push darts out of all 6 barrels - or would this just be a waste of time?

I don't want to go with an air-gun for this particular deal, because I don't need long ranges and I want to be able to quickly reload and fire. I'm just not familiar enough with plungers to know if they would provide enough oomph to make this worthwhile. Ideally, I would love to load 2-3 nanos per barrel and fire off a large burst of foam with a 10'-15' range.

Any advice or outright denouncing of this idea (from those who know enough to tell me why it won't work) would be greatly appreciated.

I like the idea, but it seems rather costly. Recons go for about $20 at the Waterford, CT Walmart and the longshot is up to $30 so thats about a $70 purchase. You think it might work if we were to buy a few Mavericks ($8) and pull the rails of of those?

puky - The nearly-useless Recon front barrel has two rails on it, one on the top and one on the bottom. So you would only need to buy one recon. Hence, cost is only $50, with the bonus that you get a Recon as well as the modular longshot. (Plus you would get the red light/dot that you could mod as some here have done, to add to one of these rails.) And you don't ruin either gun in the process - as you would most likely do by ripping the rails off of a maverick.

Dont's bother. We probably won't see the Vulcan until Fall (which means mid-late summer). Confirmed by a friend at Hasbro.

Yeah...well.....I had sex with Hasbro's mother, and..and she said she had a vulcan in her bedroom!

Then she pointed at my crotch and I reallized that I had seriously misread the situation. Seriously, just wait for the fucking thing. The alternatives are not pleasant.

Umm....live long and prosper?

I have to disagree with most of the people here. I think that, if your Sc-Fi setting is right, you could easily use Nerf guns as prop weapons. The key is getting a good paintjob on them to make them look more real and less "cartoony". Think dark and dirty, lots of dark metal colors, dark browns, blacks, greys, etc. (And file/sand off any "NERF" logos,etc).

Anything can look "realistic" enough with a good paint job and, more imporantly, good effects. Take the gun from The Fifth Element used/sold by Zorg. It is large and outlandish, and almost looks like a Nerf gun, but with a nice realistic paintjob and great special effects when it is firing, it looks great within the context and visual style of that film.



So I'd say if you are set on using Nerf guns, then a good paint job is the best place to start. Make sure you take the guns apart to paint them - it is easier to get good, clean results that way.

I play indoors with the youth group at my church (my wife & I are sponsors), and one game that we repeatedly come back to is King of the Hill. It is relatively easy to set up, explain, officiate, etc. and is a lot of fun as well.

Basically, two teams start at opposite ends of somewhere (a large gym, a building, a field, etc). In the middle of the two areas is an area marked out in some way as "the hill". (We use a colored square on the floor of the activity room in the basement - big enough for our purposes.) When the starting whistle is blown, each team must try to get their forces on to "the hill" and keep them there until time runs out. Players who are hit must return to their team's starting point to respawn. When the final whistle is blown, whichever team has more surviving members on "the hill" wins the game.

It is very fast-paced, and quite a lot of fun - at least in our experience. If "the hill" is sufficienly small and barren of cover, it can be quite the kill zone as well. Works best if the players don't know how long the timer will be set for.


As an alternative, if you have two players willing to sit out each match, you could have teams rack up time on the hill instead. Each time-keeper would pay attention to whether his own team has one or more players in "the hill", and run a stop watch during that time. The first team to rack up a set amount of time would win. You could stipulate that the hill may only be occupied by one side to rack up time if you want. The important thing is to have observant timekeepers who can get a good view of the entire "hill".

I don't see any kind of turret advance system in there, so I am assuming it fires all four barrels at once?

If that is the case, then are your ranges based on the furthest dart, the shortest dart or the average of the four?

If you are getting consistent 25'+ ranges with just a spring replacement, I wonder what shoving a NF plunger in there might do? (It would take some rigging, and stick out all ugly like, but it might be worth a shot...)

I think it's a manual rotating turret. Also, why put a NF plunger in there, just buy a NF!

I meant if it was actually firing all four barrels at once, then you'd get a better push for the four darts, hence a nice shotgun effect. But if it is a manual advancing turret, not much use then - except you might have a quicker way to load up your next shot.

That "white dart with black tip" could just be a normal orange dart with a blue tip - under very bright lights/flash. Dart foam is rather shiny, and could easily reflect more light that the plastic - enough to wash out the orange color we would easily recognize, and provide a stark contrast that would make the blue tip look black. (Look how the Sonics look - almost a light grey.) There does seem to be quite a lot of light bouncing off that sign in the background, so this could conceivably be just an orange dart.

Also, they look a lot more orange than white on the packaging in the image.



(I'm a bit of an amateur videographer, my wife would say more of a video-nut, so lighting issues like this appears to be just pop out at me sometimes.)

Looks good, sounds like it is effective enough. But I think it is screaming for a shotgun foregrip - the image I get is of you (not that I know what you look like) holding this thing with the stock on top your shoulder, then raising your off-hand even higher to cock it. I would think that would be rather awkward and even get in the way of your field of vision a bit. With a shotgun grip, you would at least be able to drop your hand under the barrel - and since the whole thing is glued to gether now you wouldn't have too much trouble putting such a grip under there.

I don't see any kind of turret advance system in there, so I am assuming it fires all four barrels at once?

If that is the case, then are your ranges based on the furthest dart, the shortest dart or the average of the four?

If you are getting consistent 25'+ ranges with just a spring replacement, I wonder what shoving a NF plunger in there might do? (It would take some rigging, and stick out all ugly like, but it might be worth a shot...)

Please take better pics they are really blurry. Thanks.

Dont have a better camera.

Most likely, all you need to do to avoid blurry pics is use a tripod - or failing that place your camera on a desk or other sturdy surface. You are probably getting blur from the motion of the camera while the picture is being taken. Stabilise it and you will get much clearer pics.

If that isn't the problem, then you need to either focus the camera, or allow time for the auto-focus to work.