Hmmm. Makes me wonder if next Tuesday we'll hear about a certain ghostly successor to the Maverick being a Walmart exclusive. It would make the trifecta complete.

On a side note, I will say it's a good summer to be an indoor nerfer. While I can understand everyone else's laments about useless guns, when your distances average 15-25ft, almost nothing is useless. And it's fun to have options.

Actually I hadn't forgot that, I was simply commenting that it was possible to do. Considering the frustration I went through working on breech for both the Recon and the LS, I don't think I'm going to Angel Breech my raider.

Then again I do have a mostly stock Recon at home (AR's removed, Air Hole on barrel plugged), I may e-tape the plunger tube so it roughly matches my other except for the barrel and do a range test.

Ok, So here's my Recon:


Here is the breech open:



And here is the breech closed:



Finally with the clip (with stock streamlines) partially and fully loaded:



As others have mentioned, the streamlines are a bit long for the standard breech design, but if you cut a smaller half pipe on the rear half of the breech just big enough it allows them to be loaded. Truth be told it doesn't leave much length for the breech to seal, but it does work. I've been getting 37-40ft with this and a bit of epoxy putty to pre-compress the spring a bit.

I have my LS modded similarly (pictures upon request) with a little bit of the rear breach cut out. The mags can be used normally, both the standard and the drum mag from the Raider.

Alright, thank you all, streamlines; out of the question.

Don't write it off yet. I was going to wait until I got home to reply so I could do so with photographic evidence, but I assure you you can do it. I've angel breached both my Recon and my LS and both use stock streamlines. Both have gotten an increase in range because of it.

Which blaster were you planning on modding?

There's an old trick from miniature painting you can try. As others have mentioned, many paint strippers and thinners will eat plastic as well, however brake fluid will lift off the paint without any damage to the blaster itself. You could pick that up from any automotive supply store and soak the gun over night. You may need to sand some of the residue off for afterwords, but most of the paint itself should be gone.

I tried this myself or some NF parts I had put too thick a coat of Valspar spray paint on and it worked pretty good.

It's called curing. Wait a day between each color paint and for the sealant. That being said, I use Krylon paints, so I wouldn't know. Maybe they are just shitty.

That very well could be the case with the issue being my own damn impatience. I'm used to miniatures where you can get one done in an hour or two. Waiting this long has been somewhat agonizing. But if that's what it takes so be it.

Okay I assume you disasembled the WHOLE gun before you sprayed it right?

Yes, I did remove the trigger from the shell and the plunger from the tube and painted everything separately.

Won't flat clear valspar sealant work too?

Coaster - I would avoid the Valspar sealer entirely. I just picked up their plastic primer, 3 different paint colors and the sealer the other day to work on a few of my blasters. The primer and the paints worked okay (see below) but the sealer was awful. Even after 5 coats of the stuff and letting it dry over night, I could still scratch the paint off with little effort with my thumbnail. Use something else.

While on the subject of painting however, how many coats do you usually apply for some of the exposed internals, such as the trigger or the plunger handle? I painted my NF and after it dried, but before I sealed it I did a test reassemble and the trigger wouldn't move at all while the plunger handle kept sticking.

I thought I may have put too many coats on. But I'm also painting my TTG and made sure only to use 2 coats of primer and paint each and it seems like the plunger handle is sticking on that as well.

Might I just be applying too thick a coat?

*Edited to include pictures of Arm Mounted Blaster* 10/30/08

On Sunday a friend and I headed over to TRU to see if there was anything worth getting in preparation for our local groups Nerf Night. I ended up getting the Switchshot. As I both have a Wii and nerf, it seemed like a great way to support two hobbies with a single purchase.

As has been noted on otherreviews, the blaster does seem a little small to hold. I like to think I have average sized hands, but my pinky is completely off of the handle when holding it. I've yet to bust out House of the Dead with it, so I have no comments on it as an actual light gun.

The blaster itself proved to be humorously disappointing. As the Toycyte review notes, the AR's inside of this thing are ridiculous. In fact when firing the stock blaster you can watch the plunger handle move back into position. Firing the blaster just around the house I estimate roughly 20ft. I apologize for not measuring the ranges officially, but quite frankly I was more interested in cracking it open.

And doing so this is what I saw:



Pretty standard stuff. Inside was the usual post and AR combo that would need to be removed. To get to that we'll need remove the outer barrel. Here's a close up:



You can see the line where the barrel assembly was attached to the plunger tube and unfortunately Hasbro glued it on tight. To remove this you'll want to saw it off just a little below that line. Sawing at the line (which is what I started doing) takes too long. Once that comes off it'll be simple to add on a barrel of your choice. My choice was a 3" barrel of 17/32" brass attached with epoxy putty. You'll also note that the hole that the air travels through is fairly small and you may want to widen that just a bit. Personally I didn't though.

Here's the new barrel placed back in the blaster shell:



And another:



It should be noted that you'll need to consider what exactly you'll want to use the gun for before you do any kind of barrel replacement. There is a reason that the barrel is so short for the blaster and that is to allow it to be swapped in and out of the gun shell. For example, with my 3" barrel in, I can't get the blaster into the gun shell at all. The barrel prevents the orange retaining bar from securing the blaster. Since I had planned on leaving the gun shell with my wii stuff and never actually taking it to a war, no bigger. However if you want to use the shell your barrel will need to be fairly short.

Now without the shell, I needed to find a way to fire the blaster. For that I took an extra AR I had, like this:



From that I cut of a 1" nub from the top:



I wanted to make sure it stayed in place on the trigger plate so using a pin vice and a paper clip, I pinned the new trigger in place and then super-glued it.



This shows the new trigger, with the paper clip piece in place running to the trigger plate. Obviously the end of the paper clip will need to be trimmed when it gets glued, but the shows the three items in relation to each other.

Once that's done, all it needs is to be reassembled.



I don't have any kind of ranges, but should have those by Saturday. But just messing around the house seems to indicate that it has better ranges then my NF (which has AR's removed and a 4" PETG barrel but is admittedly a bit beat up.)

Now my original plan was to take this assembly and epoxy it on to a tactical rail a la the "tactical shot." I actually went through all of that and finished it, but discovered something. Quite frankly I didn't like it, nor was it terribly useful. On the Longshot it obscured aiming. When mounted to the top of the Recon it made it more difficult to cock the slide, as well as trying to cock the switchshot blaster when mounted would pull the whole unit off! The only gun it felt comfortable on was the NF. However for all guns it was inconvenient to reach up to the top to fire the extra weapon. Plus the whole thing was ugly.

With that in mind I'm going to have my wife make me an armband and place this blaster in that as seen in Cheese-Boy's mod. In fact, here it is:



And here it is locked and loaded with a sonic micro:



So far it's pretty comfortable and is reasonably accurate. Again, I should have ranges as well full battle review after Saturday.

Feel free to hit me up with any questions or comments. I'll be back with ranges as well as pictures of the blaster when arm mounted.

I guess I haven't paid attention enough, but I was surprised when the review stated that it came out in late November because at least here in Toledo, Ohio we have them in stores and in stock at TRU.

In fact I already have one.

The stock blaster was pretty weak (estimate 20-25ft ranges, sorry for the lack of measured ranges.) However removing the AR and putting in a 3" barrel of 17/32" brass. I'm also mounting it to a tactical rail taken from the Recon's tactical light a la the tactical shot.

I haven't used it yet for my wii (though I look forward to it), but the blaster itself isn't bad. After removing the AR and replacing the barrel it seems to get better ranges then my NF (which is a 1st gen. NF with the AR removed and a 4.5" PETG barrel, but is getting a little beat up over all). Again nothing measured, I've been too busy.

A note though, and maybe Norther_of_Heaven or anyone else who has a tactical shot can comment on. While I thought having an additional blaster mounted to the weapon, but in an impermanent manner would be extremely useful, but it's not really proving to be. due to the length of the plunger handle, it can't be mounted to the underside of the Recon extension barrel. Mounting it to the top obstructs cocking the gun. Mounting it to the top of the LS obscures aiming. In fact the only gun it really felt comfortable on was the NF and with that it's some what inconvenient to fire! Still, some more research and work may prove it to be useful.

You're doing the exact same thing I did on my first Angel Breech Recon attempt. You've got the half pipe backwards. It goes on the barrel side. The half-pipe slides inbetween 1/2" and 19/32" brass on the slide and it stays between them.

My second attempt isn't finished yet, but I can get you dimensions for everything except the length of the 19/32" because mine is different.

Barrel Side:
9" total,
6" of 9/16"
3" of half-pipe

Slide
4.5" of 1/2"
1" 17/32" and 9/16" stablizers. This isn't definite, they just need to be long enough to center the 1/2" and short enough not to touch the back of the barrel when the breech is closed.

As for the 19/32", it needs to be long enough both to completely cover the 1/2" and to engage the catch. I used to have the measurement, but I changed my design a while back and lost it. Sorry!

Thats actually not mine, it was lifted from someone elses mod. I havent begun constructing mine. However I am seriously considering tossing it all out the window and using cpvc, because it slides into the clip just as nicely as 19/32.

I am not keeping the catch or any other internals aside from the clip lock and the trigger, because I am putting and AT2k inside of it. I wanted a clipped 2k so I am using the recon as a base. So far its going decently and I just need to know how the two pieces connect.

There does seem to be a problem with the math on the breech here, and it's one I've been working on myself as well. It doesn't matter if you look at Fallen Angels original write up or Hereticorps' excellent End to End guide they both make mention of using a piece of 9/16" for the half pipe. The issue I found with this is that the opening on the Recon/Longshot magazine is only 7/16" wide, so the half pipe would never fit inside it (the magazine).

After messing with it at length and almost ruining my Recon, I realized what an idiot I was being and how the half pipe works. You load the magazine withe the breech closed. This allows the length of 19/32" to guide the side walls of the magazine around the breech entirely and thus delivering the half pipe inside of the magazine.

Then again, I could be wrong about this but if so, please someone say so as this is the only way I see the whole thing working out.

Personally I'm working on the same thing myself. Ultimately each person has to decide a particular mod's usefulness before beginning the project. I absolutely plan on getting a LS and then modding it but I wouldn't discard the recon because of it. With the way I nerf, which is indoors in low light conditions, the LS would just prove a bit too powerful and not to mention less maneuverable. To me the Recon can be the MP5 to the LS's AR-15. Just my two cents.

I would almost swear that Assassin and Ambience are guys in my group because what your talking about it exactly how we nerf.

Like Ambience my group also nerfs at our church, but we do so almost exclusively in the dark. Mostly we do room clearing and I can attest to both the pro's and the con's of this style game. It can be intensely amusing to launch a successful ambush or to take a guy out from a darkened hall. On the other hand, when a group wedges themselves in a room that is suicide to assault, things can get drug out.

The only other game we play though is what we call "Arena" which is probably closer to what goes on outdoors. We split into two teams, go to opposite ends of the cafeteria, someone yells go and everyone charges. These rounds tend to be swift and brutal opposed to the Room Clearing which is slow and cautious.

As for the weaponry, well, I'm the only one in my group actually crazy enough to start modding the blasters. However it does seem that my PETG NF always goes out and is a favorite. I usually carry my PETG TTG as my secondary to my recon, which is currently under the modding knife.

The only thing I don't care for is that hits can be more a matter of luck than skill. Sometimes it's just not possible to draw a bead on someone in low light situations, especially considering the rounds we use don't always fly straight.

But all in all, still a great way to play.

I'm curious, what made you decide to single barrel it? With both the NF and TTG easily accesible as sturdy, reliable single shot weapons, why take a gun with the main advantages of high ROF and multiple barrels? Personally I've purchased all of the Tek series as I think they are awesome (even the Twin Tek, though I'm less enthused about them.) I plan on modding the Tek Ten, but by doing multi-barrels using PTEG. So what made you single barrel?