I posted this on the Oznerf forum, and the guys on the (Australian) Bris Nerf Group and Nerf Modders Welcome Facebook pages have seen these pictures, but I figured I would post the write up here as well, since NH members/ lurkers may also find it useful. I hope this guide is detailed enough, and gives those interested in the RM a few more ideas. Unfortunately, I wasn't taking pictures throughout the entire process, so where I don't have any pictures, I'll try to explain it as best as I can.
Alternate Range Master Brass Breech
Materials:
1/2 Brass
17/32 Brass
9/16 Brass
Nerf dart foam (15mm long)
Informer Pink Foam (65mm long)
Etape
2 part epoxy
Hot glue
20mm Conduit
Coupler
Tools:
Trusty ol' nerf screwdriver
Pipe cutter
Pliers
Hacksaw
File
Reaming tool (I used a multi-tool blade)
Rotary tool (optional)
First we have a picture of a Range Master.
Looks stock? Yup.
Is stock? Nope.
So start off with removing the scope, bipod and barrel. The orange ring that the barrel screws into is an absolute pain to get off, so I got my hacksaw and cut along the top and bottom to keep with the shell line. You may want to use rotary tool if you don't want to cut through the thread. I personally haven't noticed any issues with mine, and as you can see from the pic, I cut almost through the entire thread.
Then you need to remove the screws. Before pulling the shell apart, flip the blaster over, because the internals are fitted on the 'top' shell piece as opposed to how nerf blasters are generally designed. Open the blaster up and have a quick look at how the design works. Unscrew and remove the dart stop mechanism, as it sucks and won't work with the brass breech anyway.
Remove the entire pump and tank assembly. To plug the pump, I just filled the opv hole with hot glue. You may want to use epoxy, but I haven't had any issues with the hot glue at all. I didn't plug the hole on the side as it wasn't necessary. Lube the o-ring a bit as well. The pump works well and holds up nicely against the high pressures.
Next, I turned my attention to the tank and the stock dart barrel. I used a set of pipe cutters to cut the barrel apart and removed the AR with a pair of pliers. You can see in this picture the mark where I cut the barrel apart. File the cuts smooth enough that the barrel will fit up together without any gaps. (pic taken after it was reassembled and glued)
The tank, stock barrel and brass barrel parts.
Next up you get your 1/2 brass and cut an 80mm length. Wrap etape around the other end of the brass until it fits in the gap around the tank's outlet. I jammed a 15mm length of nerf dart in the end to kill the deadspace a little as well as provide a bit more stability around the outlet. I also fitted and glued a length of pink foam in the other end to further reduce deadspace.
With the other piece of the dart barrel, you're gonna have to ream the ID out a bit to allow the 17/32 to pass through. Once you've got it reamed out, cut the brass to the same length as the 1/2 brass minus the electrical tape wrapped around the end.
Mocked up pic of the 1/2 and 17/32 dart pusher assembled:
I used 2 part epoxy to fit it all together, starting with the electrical tape 1/2 brass and the stock foam, then glued on the stock dart barrel and gluing in the 17/32 piece. Once everything has set, pump it up and test that the pressure isn't gonna send the anti-deadspace foam flying out. It did for me, which is why I glued in the pink foam. Reassemble the blaster and then it's on to the barrel.
Removable barrel in hand, we get the 9/16 brass. I only had a toyworld/hobbyrama 1 foot length to use, and while I have no idea whether or not I should use a smaller or longer length, I have found it works very well.
Since I had the 9/16 brass and needed it to fit snugly in the 30mm ID of the removable barrel, I used 20mm conduit, a coupler and mass amounts of etape (wonderful stuff) to locate the brass in the barrel. The only measurements I can give you is that I used 150mm of conduit and cut the coupler in half and stuck the ends on the conduit. You will need to measure the 9/16 a few times with the blaster assembled so you can get it fitting over the 17/32 of the dart pusher properly. With my RM, the pusher sits about 15-20mm in the 9/16.
In the end, it was a nice snug barrel consisting of 9/16 > etape > 20mm conduit > coupler > etape.
Sadly, the only pics I can give you are these but hey, it's better than nothing!
I should also mention that I put a few tightening rings in the 9/16 so the slightly thinner diameter darts don't fall out the end when the blaster is pointing the ground.
Ranges: Parallel to ground averaged at 32m / 104ft, angled was over 35m / 114ft. 8 or 9 pumps. I can do 10-11 but any more than that and the trigger fails and it pre-fires. So I just normally pump to 8 or 9. Since the packaging says 'blasts up to 12m', I think a 290% performance increase is not bad for a few nights of lazily modding.
To give you an idea of accuracy; I was able to hit a 300mm wide target at a little over 100ft using the stock scope.
Overall a very nice and simple blaster to mod. I have ideas for a v2, but not quite sure how to implement them, so I think I'll just stick with this for now. Hope you guys could understand what's going on, but once you've got the blaster in front of you in bits, you should be able to decipher what I've said, haha. If you stumble across a different or better way of brassing a RM, I'd love to see it!
