This gun is the result of a failed effort and several years worth of work (on and off for a couple hours during a week then a several month breaks), so I'm glad I'm finally finished and able to share it with the nerf community.
The BANR (Bolt Action Nerf Rifle) is basically the FAR with a few modifications of my own. I actually started off directly building an exact duplicate of the FAR and failed miserably. It broke repeatedly and only shot about 10 feet. So, I scraped it and salvaged only a few components to start over pretty much completely. In my second gun, I limited the amount of CA glue used in order to prevent breaking of major parts. Almost every part is screwed together, save the ones where such a method of fastening was impractical or what I determined to be impossible. I also replaced a lot of the pvc or polycarbonate pieces with aluminum replacements, which increased strength and reliability. Balsa wood is also nonexistent on this gun and polycarbonate was used in its stead.
One problem that Boltsniper had with the far was the bounce-back that would occur when the plunger hit the bolt, pulling it and the shell back from the rear of the barrel. This would result in a reduction of range.
I remedied this issue by making the action of the priming handle twist the bolt into a locking position. This was achieved by a small piece of pvc being screwed to the top of the bolt which rides in an L-shaped channel. This way, the bolt locks in place when full forward and rotated, removing all bounce-back.
Another issue I found was the catch, such as in Boltsniper's SCAR-N, would dig into the angled rear of the plunger and create a groove that would eventually prevent the plunger from being able to be fully pulled back. Due to this aggravating circumstance, I took Boltsniper's trigger and modified it to fit the demands.
The full catch can be seen in the first photo (sorry for the fuzziness). It is basically a lever that pivots about a bolt that goes through the whole trigger assembly. In the second photo, you can see a hex nut that hides a sleeve bearing. This bearing rides on the ramp of the trigger's slide, allowing a smooth pivot and action. Also, there are spacers between the two sides of the trigger assembly's sides and on the catch's pivot to allow these parts to slide and pivot freely and still allow the bolts that hold everything together to be fully tightened and not have any play in the assembly.
Another problem I ran into was that I was unable to get any type of o-ring to seal against anything. Currently, the only o-ring in the whole gun is between where the shell and aft portion of the barrel meet. The o-rings at the front of the bolt were replaced with a dense, hardy foam that seals remarkably well. The plunger o-rings were abandoned in favor of a rubber washer like in Carbon's Snap.
All together, these modifications resulted in a great seal. Brass tubing was also fitted into the barrel and shells in order to enable microstephans to be fired. I was able to achieve a max range of 144 feet with these modifications and the use of standard streamline darts, like the ones used in the longshot.
Because this gun has some decent range and accuracy, the iron sites (well aluminum) work pretty well.
Here's a picture of the mag and a shell too.
I used a compression spring in mine, unlike the coil spring used in Boltsniper's. The riser and feed lips are also all aluminum, which boosts the strength and durability. Plus it comes apart because it isn't glued together, allowing ease of repair. Also, notice the shell has a beveled edge at the rear of the mid section. This came about because the shells would catch on one another when loading. This is due to the use of a vertical mag instead of an angled one.
Hope you like it. Feel free to ask questions
