31 replies to this topic

[Buffdaddy]

We had this idea at the last Columbus war. Instead of shotgunning darts (which means lots of darts, and not necessarily hitting), why not make a bolo round?

Reference: WIKIPEDIA

The shotgun version involves two slugs, with metal wire in between. We shall imitate that, with far less dangerous material.


Take your 1" mongos, and burn the hole for weight.


Take a needle, and thread some soft yarn through the eye. Push all the way through.


At the weight end of the dart, tie off the yarn on a washer (used a #10). Place snugly in the weight hole, and put in weights/glue as necessary.


With the felt tip over it.


And the final product. Using a 4B to fire it out of a 1" PVC barrel, I was getting full spread, and wrapping around the standpipe above the woodburner in our basement. I loaded the darts tail to tail, with the yarn in between.

Now, this is experimental; whether it would be allowed in a war is another matter. While your opportunity for a hit goes up, there's always a risk of tripping someone up. You can minimize this by the length of yarn you use; The maximum I'm testing with is 3 feet long, but 2 might be better. We're not trying to injure people.

Of course, you could have a gametype where your objective is to "capture" someone.....

Just thinking!

Edited by Buffdaddy, 03 August 2011 - 01:08 PM.

[arfink]

Freaking AWESOME!

[hoongfu]

If that becomes accepted I wonder if it would count as 1 or 2 hits.

[chavez guy]

Could we get a video? This is actually pretty cool. If we could get slo-mo footage too, that would be also awesome.
Do you think that with smaller (normal sized) darts, this could be used to join together like 4 or 5 or some other number of darts to control the spread of a shotgun type blaster (like my titan).

[soloz1]

Wrapping around peoples necks are the only thing that concerns me. Other than that, a rainy day ,plus these, equal muddy faceplants. Awsome!

[durka durka]

How does range compare to standard darts? I'm guessing these won't go nearly as far, but you never know.

How long does it take to load one of these? It seems like getting the yarn to fit properly would be somewhat time consuming.

[bennorco]

Wrapping around peoples necks are the only thing that concerns me. Other than that, a rainy day ,plus these, equal muddy faceplants. Awsome!

I don't think that the string is long enough to wrap around someones neck and hurt them. It could wrap around once maybe, but one wrap couldn't choke someone if that's what your getting at.

Edited by bennorco, 03 August 2011 - 06:41 PM.

[taerKitty]

How about durability?

[Buffdaddy]

Keep in mind, the current setup is for high powered air blasters. 4B is limited to the end of the basement (~50 feet), if not a bit farther, while my Homemade Cobra barely drops at that distance.

You could certainly try it with more darts; that will wait until later.

Durability? I keep firing them at the wall and various objects, and I have yet for something to break. and presumably, if the yarn breaks, you can just tie it up again.

The net gun is an interesting idea....


Finally, I'm only using one barrel, which does nothing to determine the direction they spread out. Horizontal, vertical, whatever. If you used multiple barrels, with the yarn hanging out front, you could control the spread, at the cost of dead space. But it's working for now.

Packing the string in there isn't too bad, but using a bit of tape (the normal, junk drawer kind) helps keep it together, and comes apart easily as it leaves the barrel.

[shmmee]

I like this idea. Simmilar projectiles were used in earlier sea fairing times to bring down the masts and rigging of enemy ships. Instead of cloths lining fellow nerfers - why not build a new game type around it? Some kind of nerfy adaptation to "ladder ball"

ladder ball rules with pvc parts list

The 3 different rungs are worth different points. The same concept could be applied to a run and gun version for nerfers - with your bolo rounds being shot at the opponents ladder. PVC ladders would be cheap and easy to build.

Each team would have someone as a designated scorer (with a high powered blaster and a bolo loaded) the team would have to protect and escort the scorer through the enemy defenses to get their scorer a shot at the enemy ladder. Shot bolos can only be picked up by the team who's turf the bolo lands on - each team starts with a limited number of bolos.

Edited by shmmee, 03 August 2011 - 11:01 PM.

[VelveetaAvenger]

Have you tested it on a person yet? Seems to me that it's more likely for the yarn to break then it is to trip somebody. (Or crush their throat.)

I'll definitely be making some mega-sized ones, and I feel like I should try some triple ones for my shotgun barrels too.

Last but not least, great idea!

[Ozymandias]

You could weave several pieces of yarn together to make a thicker yarn-rope.

Oddly enough, the RADS-12 resembles a rope-making machine...

Or you could just use shoe strings.

Edited by Ozymandias, 04 August 2011 - 03:24 AM.

[Oxymoron]

I love this idea! Would love to see a video if possible.

[makeitgo]

I'm all for different types of foam ammo, Discs, Arrows, balls ... this Bolo. R/C Helicopters armed with these Bolo's would be totally awesome!!!

I know you're into water blasters as well. Have you tried 'wet' foam? Not so great for springers (possible rust issues). But pretty cool with air guns. People getting hit with them don't like it too much. Meh... fun shooting into my shower I guess.

*Also, are Mongos legal from a singled Titan?

Edited by makeitgo, 04 August 2011 - 09:51 AM.

[BOSS9]

I tried these with micros, and they work well, with little power loss from my 4B; in my ~45ft basement, I couldn't notice a range decrease. I used a shoelace-type thing, about 2ft long, threaded through the back and hot-glued into the weight hole. I used ball-bearings (3/16 I think) with a glue dome though, so definitely not war legal, or safe- but still very fun! I needed pretty loose-fitting foam to accommodate the string passing around the rear one (both are loaded forwards) so for me that meant ace foam slightly stretched in CPVC.

[Daniel Beaver]

How about trying this with ball ammo?

[bennorco]

How about trying this with ball ammo?

How would you secure the yarn? You could hot glue it to the sides of the balls, but then you would have the chance of it breaking off easily.

Edited by bennorco, 04 August 2011 - 04:14 PM.

[VelveetaAvenger]

How would you secure the yarn? You could hot glue it to the sides of the balls, but then you would have the chance of it breaking off easily.

It might benefit from a little extra weight anyways, so just drill in and glue it down the hole.

[bennorco]

It might benefit from a little extra weight anyways, so just drill in and glue it down the hole.

True, seeing how balls are very light.

[Ambience 327]

Of course, you would also have to have a blaster that is firing two balls at once. (For example, bolo-balls wouldn't really work in a reactor, as it would likely turn the first shot into what would amount to a pop-gun, and the second shot would be drastically reduced in range and/or thrown of course by the now-dangling first shot.)

That said, a pair of balls with a cord between them coming out of a barrel designed specifically to hold them would be interesting. A similar concept with more barrels, each loaded with a ball and all connected, would allow for the "net gun" effect as well, assuming your blaster puts out enough air to launch all of the balls sufficiently.

[bennorco]

Hmmm, I think I follow. So your saying multiple barrels for both balls? You would need a strong gun/blaster (whatever you wanna call it).

[One long shot]

How about trying one of those bolo rounds in your mortar-cannon-thingy-mabob. I would love to see the results of that.

[Ozymandias]

Of course, you would also have to have a blaster that is firing two balls at once. (For example, bolo-balls wouldn't really work in a reactor, as it would likely turn the first shot into what would amount to a pop-gun, and the second shot would be drastically reduced in range and/or thrown of course by the now-dangling first shot.)

Solution: use 2 Reactors. It would look ridiculous, but that's kinda the point with this.

Come to think of it, use this mod, but keep the ball shooting attachments.

[AquaPsudo]

Ha sweet i did this a while ago.
Mine weren't very durable *sigh