Have you found the new version awkward to prime with a hopper and barrel attached, because the whole barrel assembly moves when you prime it?

Oh, sorry my fault for not reading the writeup thoroughly, i actually read that after i replied.

Well the plunger rod must be the length of the spring and the distance between the catch and the plunger head on a snap like the one you've built, while with a slotted plunger rod it just has to be the length of the spring, so if you built the blaster so the plunger rod touched the back of tee when primed, your style would have to be slightly longer.

I believe he said 6'' of draw.

I agree that this is a nice design, but the fault of this kind of pump action snap is that they will always be longer than the shortest slotted plunger rod pumpSNAPs with the same amount of draw, and the plunger rod will also be heavier, if only slightly. However, this is still a very nice blaster.

This is a great writeup. Unfortunately, I have 1500 #8 washers left from the that I bought about half a year ago before I knew to buy #6's, and if I try to melt a hole for the #8's to sit in the foam is too thin, so I'm stuck with 1500 more bad slugs or 1500 useless washers.

I Did some more testing today, 7/16 darts are in my opinion better than 15/32 because there is more margin for error. I found 5/16 to be the best height for the heads, because any shorter and they fishtail out of high powered blasters, and if they are much longer they can touch the inside of the barrel if they are even a little crooked. You could probably make them 3/8 without having a problem with barrel friction (and the 3/8 darts go further if made properly) but 5/16 seems good for me. My heads are rounded tips to increase aerodynamics (not sure if it matters much) and are not felted. I believe Shmmee said even with felt there was a 1/10 chance of a jam in hoppers, so I'd rather just make half slugs, half these.

I decided to try my hand at making these myself, and i took some ranges for those wondering. My tips were 15/32 by a little more than 1/4, drilled with a regular 15/32 drill bit, so they had rounded ends.

Here are my ranges:

All shots were taken from a spring replaced, coupled Night Finder with a 4" cpvc barrel. I used Mcmaster foam that fits cpvc well. The coupler was glued in slightly up so the ranges may be a little high, but the shots were taken level. It was also a perfect temperature and humidity for shooting.

Slugs: 58', 61', 66'

Glue Domes: 55' (must have had a bad fit or something), 70', 75'

Gumdrop Darts: 70', 70', 71', 72', 74', 2 went under my trampoline which is at 77'

Hopper feeding sucked as expected, with roughly 1 in every 4-5 not firing. I shot 1 dart at a concrete wall with my angel breeched Long shot (stock and recon springs, great seal, 8'' 17/32 barrel in the 9/16) to test durability, and it took 5 shots for the foam to break off from the felt, the dart head was fine.

Tommorow I'm going to make some 7/16 by 5/16 heads and see which do better, because the 15/32 heads touch the walls of cpvc and cause friction. I'll post the results after I finish testing.

Keep in mind that these were drilled with just a hand drill and patience. As this was my 1st time making these and I randomly took some of the darts to use for my range test, a few had small imperfections or were tilted slightly due to my poor drilling skills, which resulted in friction in the barrel and a lower range, as well as (probably) a lower hopper feed rate. If someone made these 15/32 forms with a drill press, I would expect the darts to all land in the upper ranges of my range test. In fact, I will put a thread up in the trading forum because I'm sure this isn't the right place but if someone with a drill press would be willing to make a mould like I did (15/32 by 1/4, with a regular 15/32 drill bit) I would buy one from them.

It may just be me, but it looks like 3DBBQ uses PVC with a bigger diameter for the space between the ball valve and the check valve (his tank is the same sive PVC as the space between the 2 valves), and that would give it an increased air volume.

Aren't you worried that all that power will break off the nub that the priming handle pushes back to prime the gun? I'd reinforce that with aluminum sheet or something else so it doesn't break.

The semi automatic idea might work better if you had a larger chamber between the ball valve and the check valve, as (At least I think after reading SG Nerf's post) that is the air used for firing the dart if you use it as a semi automatic blaster. If I can find a check valve, I'll build one of these (slightly differently) soon.

Also, couldn't the time you hold the trigger down for have an effect on whether the blaster could shoot semi automatic or not (longer trigger pull lets too much air escape and there is none left to fire the next dart)?

Even if there are better primaries, a clip fed secondary pistol with 80' ranges would be great.

I'm assuming that 70' is flat, right? The 80' Orange Mod Works claim is angled.

Yep, [k26] with almost no compression at rest. Are the springs in these blasters under any compression when at rest? I'm pretty sure Rork said in his write up for the mk v that he got 7'' of draw. Since this is my last post for today I'm also going to say I sent you an email this morning about possibly buying one of these blasters, did it get to you? I'm not sure if I messed up your email address.

Doesn't a "normal" snap have about 7'' of draw? I know mine does.

Do you notice any decrease in range between these felt tipped darts and the round tipped ones?

I've made one of these, and another simple way to make a pump grip that is just as effective but i think looks better and could be stronger because it does not use tape (personal preference) is to cut the 2 ends off a 1 and 1/4 coupler, and goop those inside 2'' PVC. You can make this with a hacksaw and goop without needing to dremel anything.

Shmmee, have you tried a brithop-type configuration with cpvc to see if that will make the darts feed through hoppers? I would think that that possibly coupled with Taerkitty's SlantHopper could get these to feed reliably in a hopper. My hopper is currently set up like this and it has almost never misfeeds, even with 2'' slugs.

Hey guys, I've been into NERF for a while, but only recently started making homemades. Here is my second homemade blaster, basically a pumpSNAP like the one recently made by Daniel Beaver. The only big changes I made were giving it 6" of draw, using a LSFG handle, and making the body as 2 halves connected by a coupler, which allows for easy maintenance of the blaster. It still needs some sort of housing for the clothespin trigger and a metal washer for the catch face, but other than that it's done.




(Sorry for the bad images, my camera is broken so these are from my cell phone.)

For anyone who can't find 1.5'' thinwall PVC for a pump grip, it its available from Flex PVC here, or you can use 2 pieces of a 1 and 1/4'' coupler glued into 2'' PVC.