24 replies to this topic

[Muttonchops]

As we all know, the Hopper clip has been changing the name of the game. High-powered long range guns now have the rate of fire to compete with pretty much any other gun. However, the biggest drawback of the hopper is that its unwieldy as fuck: I'm not a fan of dealing with a two foot clip sticking of the top of the gun. Thus: I introduce to you, a new style hopper.



I call it, Muttonchop's Hopper, also known as, THE CHOPPER. Lets get a video of this in progress


Video Above

How does it work? Instead of having a stupid long clip at the top, it sits parallel to the main body of the gun. The 'hopper' holds three to four darts at a time, but the recoil and airflow from the gun firing is enough to load the next dart. Mind you, this also means the Chopper works better with springers. I did test this out with a HAMP, and while it fired the darts impressively, it did not feed as perfectly due no 'recoil' and no reason to point it down during the normal motions of firing.

Now, as a note, I may mention that the 'recoil' of the gun is what helps advance the next dart. In reality, it is the turbulence of the air pushing the darts back and forwards again as the dart leaves the barrel. I tend to use the two terms interchangeably, but I do want to set the record straight as to (what I believe) is actually happening. In addition, I do believe the physical 'recoil' of the gun, that is, the spring decompressing and rattling the frame of the gun, also assists in loading the next dart.

Now, I think of this as a progression of the hopper, with an BRISC influence. Thus, thanks go to everyone who has contributed to the development. Also, much can be learned from Ryan's DIY write-up. Many questions can potentially answered there. Also, thanks goes to Jlego, whose interest in this kept the idea alive, and to Split, whose feedback and workshop proved invaluable.

Write-up below! Two videos are embedded, both of which appear to be smaller images then the other pictures


All required parts. Pretty much, 1/2" pvc, a wye, a 45 degree elbow, and some kind of end cap.


Whatever you are using for the 'hopper' portion, ream out the input. This will allow darts to fall easily into the wye, ready to be fired.


Using a dremel, sand out the bottom of your elbow. You want to get rid of the ledge that would otherwise impede the dart.


Sand out the bottom of the 'clip' output. allowing for darts to fall easier. Combined with the above two steps, all that is needed for a dart to fall from the clip to the wye is a slight downward motion


The entire thing assembled. I would suggest gluing it together, superglue holds well enough if you do not have the time to solvent wield.


Video Above
BAM, it works. Yes, I had to jiggle it a little bit to get the dart to fall out, but it fell right to the wye one the first drop. I merely wanted to illustrate that it had made the journey without any major interruption.

Edited by Muttonchops, 05 August 2010 - 11:57 PM.

[Split]

YAY MATT AND KIM.

[Fome]

I like that a lot.

The main advantage of RSCBs is that 1.) they're not this big wobbly mass at the front of your gun, 2.) They're easier to reload since the dart door/endcap/ballvalve is close to your hands, and 3.) They don't impede your line of sight and they give you a sweet "iron sight" of sorts to boot.

If this feeds as smoothly as a regular hopper, (I have doubts, gonna test this soon) then I think you just combined the advantages of a hopper and an RSCB into one. Good job. omg omg omg.

Edited by Fome, 03 August 2010 - 04:08 PM.

[Zack the Mack]

How does it feed darts if gravity isn't pushing them down the hopper?
EDIT: Posted before Chops added more details. The recoil knocks the next dart in.

I'm interested in seeing how this performs in a pumped airgun, where the 'recoil' isn't as strong. I'll test it out.

Edited by Zack the Mack, 03 August 2010 - 06:41 PM.

[Muttonchops]

First round of questions!

Fome: Yes, as I said, it has the small profile of a RSCB or BRISC while having the speed of a hopper. It really does feed as good as a regular hopper. Again, the recoil of a high-powered springer is all that is needed to advance the next dart. Combined that with the fact most people point their guns downwards when priming, in actual war conditions the gun should have no problem being loaded. That said, like most derivatives of the RSCB, it does perform best when fully loaded.

ZTM: Read the above.

Split: Its your lovely pandora music in the background.

Edited by Muttonchops, 03 August 2010 - 08:40 PM.

[Muttonchops]

Yes JSB, we all thought it, we were just seeing how long it would take until somebody responded to it.

I finished a second round of edits to the main posting, thanking several contributors. The floor is open people, ask away.

[Daniel Beaver]

This is, indeed, awesome. The unwieldy clip is an unfortunate downside of the basic hopper design. Especially if you have a giant ball valve on the end.

[ModSquad]

I was thinking of doing this for one of my guns, but I could not get the wye. Looks good, and nice job.

[NerfRogue83]

Great thinking Chops, the slim profile is as good looking as it functional. The inproved LOS will indeed prove to be an advantage. Now, to make one!

[jakejagan]

I love the streamlined design of the new clip. Would you be able to compare the ranges of a hopper to "THE CHOPPER"?

[Fome]

I just made one - works fantastic.

I just taped the 45 degree elbow to the wye as an experiment instead of using a length of pipe. It feeds beautifully and you don't have to sand the PVC to work. The profile isn't quite as low as an RSCB, but it's definitely an improvement. Thanks.

[Muttonchops]

JakeJagan: I am still doing official range testing, but it appears that ranges are comparable to a similarly sized hopper clip. The last dart still hits the far wall with a good amount of force.

Fome: I am not saying that the additional length of PVC is needed, and Split made a Chopper yesterday that had no additional PVC either and it worked fine. My reasoning behind the extra length is:
Should you stand still, you have a 3-round buffer before you need to move at all
Depending on the blaster you are using, a little more height helps clear any protrusions (Think +bow)

[Fome]

That's not what I meant, Chops.

I didn't use PVC to connect the wye to the 45 degree angle, just tape. There's nothing on the inside that could obstruct the dart from falling down. Only the outside of the two connections is secured.

I realize that's kinda confusing.

[jakejagan]

Wow, that is awesome, I need to make one

[Buffdaddy]

This is a pretty awesome combo you have here. I've got one made (finally picked up a wye the other day), and it seems to work excellently. I've always been a fan of the RSCB for the "Aiming down the sight" aspect, so this is a bonus to me.

I tried an old piece of flexible piping from the garage, as well (I think it's PEX, but don't quote me, as the section I have doesn't have the plastic type and size printed on the side). It works, too, but I very much prefer the aesthetics of your design.

Major props.

[Seven7h Man]

You are going to fuck everyone over with this thing so. Fucking. Hard.
I'm afraid of seeing thing in action.

On a more related note: awesome idea, I like it allot.

[badger]

Using a dremel, sand out the bottom of your wye. You want to get rid of the ledge that would otherwise impede the dart.

Just to clarify Chops, you mean to sand out the ledge that is on the inside of the 45 degree angled fitting? You say to sand the wye, but it is the angled fitting in the image.

I want to make sure I get this right. I was about to build three hoppers, but when I saw this, I bought all new supplies just for your choppers.

Question...any clue on how well this works with a nested brass barrel?

[MindWarrior]

Probably as well as a normal hopper with a nested brass barrel. The Chopper just makes the clip parallel to the blaster, but nothing in terms of performance should be changed dramatically. So it would probably work fine with a nested brass barrel.

[Muttonchops]

Badger, you are correct. I have corrected it in the original post. You want to sand the ledge out of the 45 elbow so that a dart can fall from the 'clip' portion to the hopper with little or no impediment.

As mindwarrior said, barrel choice is effectively the same as a hopper, and as such, I would suggest taking a look at Ryan's DIY thread for correctly sanding down the barrel entry. As a note, as Jlego is apt to remind me, nested brass barrels do not work well with hoppers. The whole idea of nested is to provide additional constriction to build up pressure. Once the dart starts moving, its no longer needed. What are you planning on using the chopper with? They work exceedingly well with +bows but not at all with xbows. Make sure the blaster of choice has a high air output. Again, Ryan's thread can likely answer any additional barrel/blaster questions. Think of the chopper as a streamlined, sexy hopper with a couple other perks thrown in.

As an additional clarification, it is not necessary to have such a long 'hopper' portion. Both Split and Jlego (that I know of) have successfully created choppers with the wye and elbow touching. The reason I keep it is to insure that I have a spare shot or two ready that require little to no movement to advance into position. Depending on your gun, it may not be needed at all. The size of the 'hopper' portion is purely personal preference. As long as the dart can advance into position against the barrel as in a traditional hopper, you are in business.

Edited by Muttonchops, 06 August 2010 - 12:07 AM.

[badger]

Well, since the Xbow is out (was my first choice for what to use it with), my other options are for one a singled Quadshot I recently acquired that I am fixing up. The previous owner left it a little raw and held together not too well. My other two options are my MaxShot and my recently acquired Buzz Bee Splat Blaster. Any thoughts?

[Zorns Lemma]

Given Fome's improvement on not having any PVC inside the elbow to get in the way, what about replacing the 1/2" 45 elbow with a 1/2" 45 street elbow and then joining to the wye directly or joining to the wye via 1/2" pvc stub and coupler?

[taerKitty]

I didn't use PVC to connect the wye to the 45 degree angle, just tape. There's nothing on the inside that could obstruct the dart from falling down. Only the outside of the two connections is secured.

I realize that's kinda confusing.

Not confusing at all! I did the same thing, but used solvent weld and 1" thinwall on the outside. My initial attempt with 1/2" PVC inside the couplers (yes, Split, I did bevel the leading edge ) didn't work well enough. I didn't have my hobby files with me, so I couldn't file down the inside of the wye, but I don't think that has much to do with it. It's what, a 1/64" difference?

Anyhow, back to the current implementation. The 45-degree elbow is narrower than the 1" thinwall ID, so I wrapped it in e-tape, but made sure to solvent weld the ends. For added strength and airseal, I added a ring of hot glue top and bottom.

I don't have a fibre-optic 'viewer' so I can't inspect the seam, but I suspect it's nearly smooth all the way through. The dart path should also be obstruction-free: from the 1/2" PVC ID to the ID of the couplers (which would be 1/2" PVC OD), directly into the airflow path in the wye.

Note this is because I wanted the lowest profile Chopper clip without cutting either coupler. If someone wanted a greater offset, then I'd recommend bevelling out the offset coupler part of the wye so the dart will feed easily.

This is for my pump-action 4B, so working the pump will jostle the clip enough that a dart feeds pretty reliably. I had a feed failure during my first round of tests, but that could be because I was tilting the blaster slightly up while pumping it. Since then, I've had 100% reliability.

Great job, MuttonChops.

Given Fome's improvement on not having any PVC inside the elbow to get in the way, what about replacing the 1/2" 45 elbow with a 1/2" 45 street elbow and then joining to the wye directly or joining to the wye via 1/2" pvc stub and coupler?

I would think that is less desirable from the feeding point - you're still introducing a re-constriction in the dart path: it's traveling along the PVC ID, then hits a short patch during the bend where it has something approximating the PVC OD, and then goes back into the PVC ID for the 'street' portion of the elbow.

Fome's method removes any re-constriction: once the dart exits the 1/2" PVC, it is traveling along PVC OD until the bottom of the wye. His method sacrifices strcength for dart flow path. Adding 1" thinwall gives you back some of the strength the internal run of 1/2" PVC MuttonChops used to bridge the couplers. I think adding solvent welding gives you back all the strength.

Edited by taerKitty, 07 August 2010 - 11:58 AM.

[Carbon]

I like the low profile-ness of the chopper a lot, it'll make it a lot easier to secure the clip to the blaster, and minimize the whole hopper-falling-off problem.

Anyway, I made a small adjustment to the construction, and that's to use 1/2" thinwall to connect the elbow with the wye. I'm using a shot or three hopper in that portion, but it'd give good internal support for a direct elbow to wye connection, without adding a lot of constriction.

[Muttonchops]

Thank you all for your comments:

Zorn: Taerkitty pretty much summed it all up in the reply. Now mind, I am not saying 'it won't work' because you guys can probably work some voodoo magic on it. If you want a low profile chopper, though, 1" thinwall connection is the way to go.

TaerKitty: Again, pretty in-depth post. I like the idea of using 1" pvc to reinforce the 'hopper' portion of the clip. Im sure its feasible to actually use 1" pvc as the 'hopper' portion itself if you want to have a shot or two loaded at all times, but then you would need to sand down the wye a little bit more then otherwise.

Carbon: Holy crap! A contributor is commenting on my stuff! When I was at Split's Thursday and he made a chopper as well, he used 1/2" thinwall. It worked great (its his chopper I am using in that first video, along with his pumpbow). When I first started constructing mine the night before, all I had on hand was normal 1/2". Spilt was also able to construct his a lot faster, so yes, I would recommend using thinwall if you have it for ease of fabrication.

[lionhawk]

Thats a pretty good gun.