LoneKiltedNinja

I'm curious- does anyone have experience with the new(?) Tech Target 2-player pistols?

If there are any good threads I could check out, by all means link. The mod directory and a few quick searches didn't seem to yield much.

The guns look friggin' tiny, and if there's nothing impeding the usual single-shot pistol mods, I'm considering getting a set to play around with...
(I'm also kinda miffed that they now seem to be packing similar tiny single-shots in with the new DTG sets, not that I regret getting mine before they decided lime/tangerine was the new red/blue )

edits: typo, url

Another in the 4-noobs series, this time with the Maverick, which gave me rather a bit more trouble than the DTG.
Same idea- simple mod, lots of pics, so pretty much anyone can try it with confidence.


Step 1- pull the top grip off. 3 of the standard nerf screws that you'll need a long thin phillips head for.


The Mav has fewer body screws than some other models, but they are long. Pull out all 8. Be sure not to lose the small spring on the trigger relay or the tiny spring and tab on the top expansion clip.


The pneumatics, exploded. The Mav uses a hollow reverse-piston design. Some advanced mods fill the dead space with foam or another material less compressible than air. This means more of your energy goes into moving the dart.


Ah, the Mav turret. You literally need to go in with a screwdriver and pry at the front end of that metal rod until the cap on the back end breaks off. Don't lose the spring.


3 screws later (from the back of the turret, please), you can open the turret and reveal the ARs.


Each barrel has the usual spring+prongs+spike. At least pull out the spring & prongs. Drill out the spike if you feel like. Don't lose the non-spike portion of the spike pieces, however, unless you want to spend a bunch of time and effort making your own seals / barrel replacements. I tried a mod sandwiching a nicely cut/punched disc of cardboard in between the halves of the turret, removing the spike pieces entirely. It failed miserably.


My usual optional noise-reduction step- stuff a chunk of soft foam between the piston and casing. It cuts your air volume, and thus range, by a little, but should reduce wear on the piston and the noise factor. This one is easier to install than on the DTG. Just shove it right into the casing.
You can also swap out the O-ring if you want, for a tighter seal.

Now, if you've done this much before, you may have found that the resulting gun releases its air much more quickly, and as a result, fails to fire if the turret over or under-spins at all. And the Mav turret is infamously sloppy. The fix?


I'm calling this the Lucky Penny mod. Stuff a penny or three behind the stock spring such that the end of the piston that protrudes to sit against the turret is constantly applying a weak amount of pressure, and thereby friction, to the turret. With my foam pad, I didn't need more than 1 penny. The pressure will create a slightly better seal, and the friction will mostly prevent the turret from over-spinning, even if you pull the trigger quickly. Don't over-do it, however- too much pressure and the turret won't rotate at all. Spring-mods to the Mav may avoid this problem entirely, or may create the too-much-pressure problem, necessitating a thin soft shim of some sort just in front of the piston.

Another personal gripe I have with the Mav is that, regardless of what ammo you use, you have to either jam/store it in the gun to the point where the darts turn into scrunched dense little cones that don't seal worth beans, or else risk the tip of the dart jamming against the front of the gun and locking your turret.


One easy fix is just to evenly slice the last ~5mm off your darts. They'll fit in snug, and still fly perfectly well. Just don't store the cut-offs in any weapon or they'll seal even worse than worn-out normal darts.


All told, the turret fix isn't perfect, so if you rapid-fire willy-nilly, your range may be not much better than stock. At least it won't be worse. A slow/steady trigger pull will give you the full +20% range you'd expect from an AR removal.

Spinning off a Maverick mod issue from the mods forum, I'm now considering getting a pair or two of simple sidearm pistols to mess around with. I don't mind buying a little extra stuff I will never use just to get a better gun with it (the technique already got me my DTGs ), but I'm curious if there are any non-obvious differences between

the NiteFinder
the simple Dart Tag pistol
the Disk Shot pistol
and the Tech Target pistol

specifically in the realm of spring strength and modability.

I'm actually currently leaning towards the tag pistol or the tech target pistol since they seem the smallest/sleekest and I can just wear an ammo pouch on my belt if need be. While it's dirt cheap right now, the NiteFinder just seems a little clunky, and I'd probably never use the light.

Just curious, since a quick search didn't turn up anything- has anyone else experienced nasty timing issues with Mavericks after a basic AR removal? My housemate and I both did preliminary AR removals and have both found that while the range is indeed improved on good shots, many shots jam or only go ~1m unless the trigger is pulled ever so slowly. I've played around with some trigger stops and using tape strips to thicken the trigger latch arm (across the pivot from the ring around the piston case) and/or the tab that engages the barrel-rotation mechanism, but I still have a solid 25% misfire rate.

On a tangent, if there's no quick (level 0 or 1 mod) fix for the apparent shoddyness of the Maverick timing, is there any other currently available small side-arm that could be packed in a suitcase alongside a box of DTBs and, with a little work, stand up to a pair of younger cousins with brand new DTBs?

I'm a total NERF mod n00b myself, but I completely fell in love with my pair of DTGs and decided to dive in. I was daunted at first by the relative lack of good pics of the innards of a DTG, so as I did this first mod blind, I tried to document as much as possible for future modders. Images are linked because they're HUGE.


Just to be clear, this is the DTG I'm talking about. At some point I'd like clarification on where the acronym comes from, since all the other Dart TaG blasters seem to have more salient names, and I'd be tempted to use 'DTB' instead. Ce'st la vie. Anyway, step 1. Remove the top grip. 2 deep screws. No problems.


Some 13 screws later, the actual body opens up.


Be very careful not to lose the tiny spring over the trigger. The orange tab and thin spring on the top clip also get lost easily, if you care.


The DTG: exploded view.
Hinged trigger piece, piston, spring, piston chamber, springloaded seal, and the barrel assembly.


The barrel assembly opens into the usual array of ARs. Careful, those springs will go flying.


I tried to keep the mod reversible, so I removed and held onto the springs and pronged bits before putting the spikes back in. A more aggressive mod would drill out the spikes and really seal the caps back down.


An early attempt at replacing the stock spring with a combination of what I could find in the Lowe's springs department. Unfortunately the amount of solid metal this compressed to kept the piston from latching...


... so I ultimately just added one of the end springs to the existing spring, which at least puts the whole assembly in slight compression when reassembled, meaning your entire pull stroke stores some energy.


I'm a trumpeter, so after fiddling with the parts rubbed off a good bit of oil, I dropped some synthetic valve oil in to re lube/seal the piston. A more aggressive mod would have likely swapped the O-ring and glued/caulked/foamed the piston back into the gun.



Compression springs seem to be a bitch to come across these days, at least where I live, so I tried to rig a little extra oomph with a small tension spring attached thusly. I reassembled the gun once and had it work, but after taking it apart again for some other cleanup, I wasn't able to reproduce just the right geometry to have it not snag on anything or pop off the piston. Ultimately, I gave up on this approach.



Now, I get kinda paranoid when I dry-fire and hear all the plastic-shattering acoustic energy resonate through the gun, so I made a quick attempt at padding the piston with a chunk of beauty sponge from CVS ($2).

Just thread it with whatever thin string you have...

tape the string back against the piston shaft...

and trim the tape down so it doesn't interfere with the firing mechanism.

The pad takes up some space, particularly until you fire with it a few times, and thereby cuts into your range, but it does make the noise a little less nerve-wracking.

When you reassemble, it is VERY easy to strip out the screw holes. I'd recommend dropping each screw in its hole, backing it counterclockwise a few times to feel where it 'clicks,' and then screwing it in from right after the click. If you feel any resistance, you're probably chewing up the plastic.

Final range is still better than stock by about 20-25%. I have no good measured testing range, and quoting exact distances assumes certain firing conditions, so meh. Just expect a little more oomph beyond what you would normally get with the stock gun. Not impressive, but a decent payoff for a first-time mod.

Edit: overhauled whole post with revised images