NerfHaven - Mods

AGM MASTECH M24

Sat, 13 Apr 2024 01:38:37 +0000

Hell of a trip logging back into this website, happy to see so many folks that I grew up modding blasters with also followed a similar path into industrial design/mechanical engineering. Absolutely mind blowing how much this hobby has advanced, especially with all of the use of FDM printing. It's a little sad seeing how inactive this site is, and doubly sad to see the other forums completely gone, but I suppose that's what time does. I feel old.

This isn't much of a modification in the classical sense; no hacksaws, glue, or duct-tape. I tried attaching the step file of the shells I modeled up, but that seems like a no-go.

A little bit of an overview:

The blaster is very 'gun' like; it'll need some more bright colors before I take it outside. You snap the body of it together from 3 main pieces. Once snapped it, they don't easy come back out. It's shell fed from a detachable 4 shell magazine. Two mags were included. Shoots about 50ish feet with the included darts.

The 'barrel' is all fake, you can quickly detach it to reveal a smaller, orange tipped, faux barrel.

While there seems like a LOT of screws, you actually only need to remove 2 hex head machine screws on the bottom to separate the actual internals shell from the stock. Neat

From there, you can open it, up. The stock shells that come with it don't have any pegs or air restrictors; neither does the bolt/plunger

Internals are pretty solid, I didn't want to remove the pin in the back, because I felt like I'd have a hell of time putting it back in, or risk loosening it up too much. The spring is uncomfortably beefy, and the usable plunger volume seems pretty similar to what I remember from a nitefinder, maybe a little more. There is a functioning safety too. As you can see, there's no barrel; the shell is effectively the usable barrel for this blaster. I had contemplated adding some brass, but more to that later.

One of the biggest problems with this thing was just how bad the included darts were. They're about 3/4 of the length of a standard nerf dart (in the same elite blue color too) but have very inconsistently sized suction cups. The shells also fit the darts pretty poorly, not like buzzbee shell poorly, but like stock nerf barrel tightness. I swapped out the stock darts with some Ekind bamboo darts. Feels great to not buy a roll of FBR, cut it up, and then make darts. With the plunger limited volume, and 0 intention of me trying to increase it, I settled on making new shells. Again, I had wanted to attach a .step file, but here's a bad drawing (in mm) instead.

So, after quickly modeling up replacement shells with a bit of a taper that hugs the darts better, and new darts, I loaded up a magazine.

With the new darts, and new shells, it's shooting much further, flatter, and more consistently, I don't have any way to measure performance past 50ish feet, but now can consistently nail cans from about 20 feet.

I also made one with a wider inside diameter so that I could put a 17/32 brass insert, but there wasn't much of a noticeable performance gain between it and the regular printed shells.

Mod writeup: Andrea's 4B Rifle

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 22:48:45 +0000

Edit: Nerfhaven appears to have removed a bunch of my punctuation for some reason. I did not endorse this!

It's been well over a decade since the last time I posted a Nerf mod on here, but this hobby is still going strong in 2023, so let's do this. Presenting Andrea's 4B Rifle, my new primary for 250+ FPS cap wars.

This project is rooted in my background as an old-school NIC nerfer who returned to the field after the hobby modernized. I was a pretty frequent poster on Nerfhaven and even attended Apocalypse 2009 back in the day, but I got out of the hobby not long after that and sold most of my collection online. I remember I sold a +blow to a Singaporean guy through the trading forum on here and shipped it to him for a ridiculous price. Good times.

Fast forward to 2022. I was scrolling on the web, bored, when I started reminiscing about my old Nerf projects. I decided to read up on modern Nerfing and was blown away by the level of technology available FPS numbers that would've gotten you laughed off of Nerfhaven if you even mentioned them back in the day, not to mention half-length darts, full-auto flywheelers, and standardized mags across all the major manufacturers. I got back into the hobby in a big way, and I've been regularly attending Nerf wars with my local club ever since.

But despite the insane explosion of Nerf technology in recent years, I believe this hobby has lost some of the magic. Back in the day, everyone would put hours into modifying their primaries, showing up to wars with loadouts unlike anyone else's. Nowadays, we are in the era of Nexus Pros and X-Shot Longshots, so it's not surprising to see numerous people running extremely similar setups at events. I have a fully modded Trion and XLongshot too, and they're super fun, but they're also sort of boring.

Another loss I lament is air blasters. Low-pressure hand-pumped air blasters used to be the bread and butter of Nerf wars. My primary at Apoc 2009 was a singled Supermaxx 1500. But in the age of 250 fps springers and flywheelers, there simply isn't much of a place for air blasters anymore.

So when I was blessed with a free, albeit slightly chopped up, Buzz Bee Big Blast (4B) at the latest United Nerf Ops event, I knew I had to use my long-dormant Nerf modding skills to make it into something viable in the present day.

UNOs ruleset allows air blasters as long as they maintain a stock overpressure release valve, so I knew I was covered on that front. (I have a JSPB Zom-Tengu, too, but wanted something that was primarily a modified toy rather than a 3D printed homemade blaster.) The 4B already hit more than hard enough for UNOs usual FPS cap of 250, so the primary task to make it war viable was to add a magazine feed system compatible with Talon mags and other modern half-length magazines.

Instead of jerry-rigging my own magwell, like Coop did, I decided to integrate my newfound 4B into a prefabricated springer blaster with a pre-existing magwell. I soon found that the problem with this plan was that most off-the-shelf springers have their plunger tubes in line with the bolt system, making it so that the bolt would inherently have to slide back directly into the 4B tank if I were to simply swap it in for the plunger tube in most blasters. Furthermore, 4Bs are larger (and stronger) than Buzz Bee Xtreme Blastzookas, making them significantly more difficult to incorporate into pre-existing magfed air blaster designs such as the extremely dope XBZ Longstrike. After some experimentation, I decided that integrating the bolt-action mag system of the Walking Dead Andreas Rifle directly onto the front of my 4B would solve most of these issues.

Now that the preamble is out of the way, heres the mod writeup. At its core, this mod simply requires the user to chop up two Buzz Bee blasters manufactured over a decade apart, then glue them together to make one cohesive foam flinging device. Its incredibly straightforward, but I figured it wouldnt hurt to throw some details up here in case it inspires anyone else.

Please note: I'm posting this because I am bored on my lunch break and have some images from the modding process saved to my phone. I don't have the blaster on hand as I write this, so I won't be able to provide detailed images of certain parts of the mod, but I am happy to provide more upon request.

Materials needed:

Buzz Bee Big Blast (4B) - I used the levered 2nd edition model, which is supposedly the most powerful version, but this writeup should apply to any edition. You can find these on eBay if youre patient enough, but I got mine from my local club, United Nerf Ops in the tri-state area.
The Walking Dead Andreas Rifle - I bought mine for $15 at Target.
Half-length magazine adapter - I used the one from Dart Zone.
DevilZ universal pusher breech adapter - They sell these on Containment Crew as well
Amazing Goop adhesive
50 cm 13mm ID aluminum barrel - Mine was made by Kuryaka
Electrical tape
Hot glue
Devcon Plastic Welder
Plastic tubing (I got mine from my local hardware store)
Teflon tape

Tools needed:

Hacksaw or other method of cutting plastic shells
Dremel
Power drill

The first step is shell cuts allowing the shells of both blasters to be connected into one piece using healthy amounts of Devcon Plastic Welder. This is magic stuff.

Use a screwdriver to remove all metal screws from both blasters. Open them up, noting the location of all internals, then remove the internals and set them aside. Then youre going to want to use a saw to cut both shells so they look more or less like this:

Note that you want to preserve the part of the Andrea's Rifle shell that includes the track for the bolt to slide on. This helps it stay aligned as you cycle in a new round.

Once the cuts are done, use your dremel or sandpaper to roughen up the outside of the left side of your Andreas Rifle shell and the inside of the left side of your 4B shell just the parts where they will overlap when you glue them together. Then put a liberal amount of Devcon Plastic Welder onto both sides, press them together, and clamp the two sides to each other until the glue takes hold. Make sure the shells are lined up properly, like so. (Keep in mind that the Andrea's Rifle shell will be thinner than the 4B shell, so gluing the left sides together like this will ultimately result in the Andrea's Rifle being justified to the left side of the integrated blaster, rather than the center. I don't care about this, maybe you do.)

Once the left sides of the shells are glued together, place them aside and pick up the bolt from the Andreas Rifle. Cut off the front of the dart tooth, like so (ignore the 3D printed pusher breech in there, that'll come later):

Then use a power drill to remove the insides of the breech, including the dart post and air restrictor, to allow air to flow freely through it. I didn't take pictures of this part, but it's pretty straightforward.

Next, wrap your DevilZ universal pusher breech adapter in a layer or two of Teflon tape and shove it in the breech, like so: (I used a dab of super glue to strengthen the connection between the universal pusher and breech, too)

Once the pusher breech is set up, place the Andreas Rifle internals back into the left side of your blaster shell to get a sense of how they fit together. Once you can tell how far the pusher goes, mark it off on the blaster shell, then wrap electrical tape around your aluminum barrel and friction fit it into the Andreas Rifle barrel shroud so that it lines up with the pusher. Make sure the chamfered end of the barrel is facing into the blaster, toward the pusher. I don't have a picture of this, but you can refer to this video for a great explanation of how to set up a DevilZ pusher breech in an Andrea's Rifle.

To prevent the barrel from moving within the assembly, pour hot glue into both sides of the plastic barrel shroud and let it set:

Cut down the 4B barrel like so, then place the rest of the 4B internals into the left side of your blaster shell.

Cut a length of plastic tubing to connect the 4B barrel diagonally to the lower side of the breech setup youll have to experiment with the length here, so I recommend cutting a piece longer than you think, then gradually shaving off pieces of the end until you find the proper fit. Make sure the tube doesnt impede airflow within the breech system, then glue the assembly together with a hearty amount of Goop. Let the internals sit overnight to cure, then reassemble the blaster in the morning.

Once the blaster was complete, I used small amounts of epoxy putty and Goop to reinforce the right sides of the shell and connect them together. I will be going back with Bondo or a similar filler to make the entire thing more rock solid, but I dont intend to significantly revise the look of the thing, since I actually love the Frankenstein vibes. Heres the final product a magfed 4B ready to rock at modern Nerf events:

As shown in the picture above, it's about the size of a B-Variant Caliburn.

Performance:

The OPRV kicks in at around 4-5 pumps, although the fifth pump still seems to put some more air into the tank. I've found that the longer the barrel is, the harder this blaster hits. My original build reached about 230 fps with a 45 centimeter aluminum barrel, but a version with a 50 cm barrel was hitting 250 fps consistently. If I wanted, I could probably go higher with a longer and tighter barrel.

Questions? Comments? Flames?

Aeon Pro Pump Upgrade Kit: A Full 'Drop-In' System

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 06:12:29 +0000

Yea. I guess it's finally time to commit to this promise, huh?

ALSO: If anyone internal here at NH can help me figure out the best aspect ratio to use on my images, I'd love some help. I'm over having my nice pages get pixelated on upload. I've done all sorts of aspect ratios and resolutions. No dice.

Now, onto the writeup.

Special thanks to everyone who sent me their builds for me to include here! Wish I could have put them all on here, but here are some good ones.

Confetti Fiasco - Nerf Stryfe Modification

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 22:52:06 +0000

Build video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHbVzBSq_U

Han Solo DL-44 Pistol - Nerf Nite Finder Modification

Wed, 26 May 2021 01:58:43 +0000

Build video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmSRf36OD7o

The Wookie Bow - A 1995 Crossbow Mod with Homemade Internals

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 00:53:42 +0000

Build video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT5npeXQNJM

Nerf Longshot feeding issue

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 16:28:11 +0000

So my first major mod was a longshot I put a brass breach in and a [k26] it works pretty well except for 1 major issue for a first mod. When I made the breech the little tooth that sticks out broke off and I didnt feel the need to replace it with a brass one at the time as I assumed it would feed fine. However I realized without it my longshot will only feed full lengths which fish tail to no end. Anyway to fix this short of brassing a new bolt or putting in a worker breech and barrel? Also I'm using a talon mag.

Attached Thumbnails

Nerf Element (Disk Shot) Mod

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 18:58:22 +0000

This is the stock blaster:

After opening it up, the first mod is to get rid of the AR:

Now, get carve a small hole in the plunger tube cap to fit 17/32" brass inside:

Next, get rid of the piece in the middle of the plunger tube to allow more airflow:

For spring upgrades, the blaster is compatible with Retaliator springs. For the upgrade, I am using a 7kg Retaliator spring:

Make sure you upgrade the catch spring with this spring upgrade.

For the brass barrel, cut the 17/32" brass to 2.5 inches, and epoxy the brass to the muzzle piece and the plunger tube cap; make sure to let it cure for 24 hours for the best adhesion:

After you screw the blaster together, you sure be getting around 55 feet flat with great quality darts. Enjoy!

Old-school Nite Finder Modification Write-Up

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 12:51:55 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzV1LtnZgfE

Comments and questions are welcome.

Splatter-painted Longshot Modification

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 22:14:10 +0000

My mod turned out nicely and I have photos to show the making of the blaster's transformation; let's check it out:

This is a stock Longshot that I get from eBay; performs poorly

https://preview.redd.it/yetar6zjhff51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=8e9f0bf9e1e7927df86986131a9157fe771c4138

The mods I put into this project:

AR removal
[[[k25]]] spring replacement
Catch spring upgrade
O-ring replaced
E-tape under O-ring
Stock block with PVC
WN3D Creations pump grip added
White, blue, and green paintjob
Mechanical locks removed

Let's see the final result:

https://preview.redd.it/6xri6z3ncff51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ccdc4580a6267f79b45cadad4d3f624e1a9f4cb2

Wonderful!

This mod is shooting about 60-70 feet with Adventure Force Waffles. Youtube video will be up soon on my channel.

HAPPY READING

- Anon