(For those who don't know how to pronounce Quach, it sounds like ku-ah-ch, kinda like crotch)
Mods will include:
- Stampede Brass Breech
- Stampede battery/voltage mod
- Recon Tactical light size reduction
Materials Needed
-17/32" Brass
-9/16" Brass (optional)
-Epoxy or some sort of strong adhesive
-Alligator clips (for battery mod)
Tools
-Dremel with cutting, sanding, and stone disk bit
-Ruler
-File and/or fine sand paper to clean up cuts
-Soldering iron and solder (for battery mod)
First, here's a picture of the whole thing together.
Now for the brass breech...I accidentally broke my breech/plunger (someone tell me which it is, I'm going to assume breech) trying to diddle it with 17/32" brass, which is why I tackled this mod.
Before you do anything, make sure you polish the brass with a brass polisher to make it smooth. I recommend doing this before you start, and after you finish. Basically what I did was measure the entire length of the breech, from the dart tooth to the plunger tube, where the big orange plunger begins and little orange nozzle ends, and cut, giving an extra 3" or 4" (you only really need 1" or 2" but I suggest some extra length if you mess up later). Cut off the stock breech up to the orange part, where my brass meets the plunger tube. Clean up the gray parts of the breech that are still connected to the mouth of the plunger tube to make the 17/32" brass have a decently tight STRAIGHT-AS-POSSIBLE fit, put the plunger head all the way in (oh stop it), and push the brass in until it touches the plunger head. Mark with sharpie or better yet wrap a few layers of e-tape around to help prevent it from getting pushed in more.
Next part I really just did by eye and my own intuition. For the end where the darts go in, I ran the tube through a dart magazine, having only a little bit of the breech-side tube to run off (for the dart tooth), and outlined the magazine to make my dart tooth and breech. Cut off brass to make a sort of 2/3's pipe, about 0.4cm off(you want a tight fit with a proper dart load so keeping the most brass you can is key), up to the marked measurement. Now look at the stock breech and roughly cut shape of the mouth. Make sure to cut off only a little at a time so you don't cut off too much brass. I did mine with a stone disk(?) even though it's not very practical and ate up the disk fast, but it gave me the precision I needed. Also, make sure that when you're cutting out the dart tooth (thinnest part you'll have) cut a bit more than the outsides of the line so you don't end up with a super thin strip. After you're done, test the breech by putting it in and out imitating the loading and removal of a magazine to ensure proper thicknesses of each part. Also, make sure that the breech tube lip won't interfere with darts loading (the bottom part of the tube over the magazine is what I am referring to). When everything is good, sand, file, or do anything you like best, to get a sort of 45 degree angle on the lip so it doesn't tear up darts and drastically loads them into the breech tube better. Get a piece of scrap 17/32" brass strip or make one, that is the same size and a bit more than the length of the dart tooth. I put my breech into the magazine and cut about half a centimeter from the back of the dart-facing symbol thing. Sand and epoxy or adhere onto the dart tooth. Make sure it's straight and is on the dart tooth as close as possible. This will help reinforce the tooth to prevent it from bending. The optional 9/16" brass is optional at this point. I basically just slid it over the breech and used it to ensure the 17/32" tube would not slide more into the plunger tube (I glued the two tubes together). You should have at least done about 30 tests to ensure this baby works properly. Align the the brass breech as straight as possible. I did this by looking down the plunger tube and breech and lining up the dart tooth so it was straight with the top guide wheel. Epoxy on. I was generous with mine to make sure it did not move under pressure. You should end up with something like this when you're finished with this part:
Last step for the breech mod! Basically the dart tooth may or may not guide under the original dart tooth guide, and get caught, bend, and get stuck, ultimately ruining your perfectly good breech. So the solution is simple. Take a piece of scrap brass (I think I used 9/16" that I bent, or a larger diameter), fit measured (you'll see in the picture from where to where). Cut and paste.
Slide the dart tooth under the orange guide piece first when you're assembling the plunger system and now you're done!
Now it's Battery/voltage mod time.
This one is pretty simple and straight forward. I bought myself a Firefox AEG Airsoft 3S 11.1V 1200mAh W/ Tamiya Plug Li-Po Battery so I didn't have to deal with 6 D batteries all the time. I cut off the greenish clear plastic part, exposing the wires, and soldered alligator clips onto them. Then I removed the D battery guides on the battery tray by unscrewing the bottom of the tray and the guides just popped out. I got a pieve of paper clip, bent it a bit, and soldered it onto the positive metal piece on the tray. I put e-tape making a long barrier between where I was planning to attach the alligator clips to prevent the negative and positive from touching. Then I simply attached the negative clip to the coils on the negative side and positive clip to the paperclip (as shown in the picture). Done!
Finally, the Recon Tactical Light Size Reduction Mod.
Pry that sucker open and remove all the internals you can (you don't really need to take anything out from the front side, mainly the back side needs to be clear). Screw it back together, and cut off the gray tail. Bottom is stock.
Next cut the yellow switch guide rails like so, on the top and bottom. This will allow the battery pack to slide back and forth. The battery pack should be able to rest in the switch "wings" like in the second picture.
Finally, cut the little tabs near the tail of the light, on both shells. Put the battery pack in and close the shell, but dont screw it together. You're going to need to expand the back hole in the tail, or just cut so the battery pack can slide in and out (3rd picture).
That should be it. When assembling again, keep the battery pack outside and when the shell is almost all the way closed, slide the battery pack through back and it should be able to slide all the way in and should be guided by a little lip on the tail that kept the battery pack in when the light was stock.
Slide that baby in. OHHHHHH YEAHHHh
Unfortunately, there is a slight con to this that you could probably easily fix. The battery pack does not allow the light to click all the way to "red dot mode", but is really only one click away which only slightly affects it. Well it does, but when put on the underside of the blaster like I do, the little tab for to screw the battery cover on sticks out a tiny bit and makes you unable to remove and insert magazines. You could probably trim it, but I use it to pull the battery pack out and I plan on making a cover for the batteries by screwing a thin piece of poly carb over.
Hope you guys enjoyed my mods and for God's sake I hope I don't get a USER WARNED FOR THIS POST...or banned.
