8 replies to this topic

[Snoop Doggy doge]

And for your next dose of quality cancer content, I stuck my dick in a DartZone Magnum.
I can't justify any other purchases besides food because I am broke, but I fucking hate mags and this looked like a godsend savior because big high cap turret and decent FPS out of box. (80ish, 10 above standard elite of 70)

So the DartZone Magnum, Target Exclusive blaster. Check if your store has it stock, 

 

UP NEXT : Make your Magnum pump action (VGM)

 

 

Internals guide

(text below photos will explain the photo)

 

Less than 10 minutes after opening it out of box I gutted it. I'll go over the internals. Yes the drum retaining pin is missing in the photo, that will come up next,

 

Retaining pin. First thing to do is sand the nubs down a bit so you can still try and force it out to remove the drum for storage. Mine's a bit janky, but I sanded the nubs a bit down and pushed them in. You have to fiddle with it a bit. 

So here's most of the important stuff. 
There is a kinda plunger tube carrier that slides back and forth, and has nubs that are connected to the slide. 


This is the actual trigger and plunger. The slam fire mech is IN the plunger rod, which is very unique and pretty cool. The catch is in the rod, but if you hold the trigger down it activates at catch in the slide that releases when at full compression. 
Don't forget that weird piece on the slide, it's kinda important.


Basically don't touch the rear sight piece or anything to the left of it, there's no reason to.

 

Plunger rod is PRE padded beacuse no AR, and has some really weird O ring, like a sillicone one. No reason to touch it or take it out TBH, unless you're replacing the O ring. 

 

There is a screw on this side of the shell,  that connects to the carrier for the plunger tube. 

 

Plunger tube size is tiny, nerf dart for comparison


Ratcheting mech 
when pulled back, it goes up and enters goove in the the drum and locks until pushed forward. That releases the mech and makes it skip to go back down and allows you to rotate the drum again. 

 

 

Overall, this blaster is pretty cool. I'm afraid of putting a larger spring in because it may break, and it has nothing to remove. Honestly the whole point of dissasembly would probably be for my VGM guide, which will be done soon. 
Also, I'd remove the stock. Fuck that shit lol, or at least bolt it in. 
Overall a decent blaster, I'd check out NerfMercs Podcast talking about Dartzone stuff, it's pretty sub-optimal. They explain some of my opinons of why drums are good, and positives of the Magnum
UPDATE : Here's a full dedicated Magnum review.

However there are some downfalls to the Magnum. First, tiny plunger tube. It has a fragile plunger rod, really can't do anything, I guess they were cutting down costs because this is retailing currently for 20 USD, insanely cheap. However they could sav more money removing that stupid flimsy arm brace. It doesn't work and honestly is very annoying, I'd just remove it, or make into a stock. Putting a stock on this thing is a hassle though. Also, not much to really do to increase FPS. 
I'll war test this shit sunday, at the very least it's great for an all stock war AND don't need mags. Loading 40 darts at first seems like a lot, but that's a little more than 2 18 stick mags AND you get to always top off. 

Oh yea, prime is kinda derpy because it has a 2 stage pull, so it has some reisistance and stuff near the end which is what is cycling the drum. Feels weird but shouldn't affect performance

Edited by Snoop Doggy doge, 02 October 2016 - 11:28 PM.

[Ice Nine]

Nice coverage of an interesting blaster. Thanks for posting it up.

 

Gears and I were chatting about it and he wasn't sure; is there any possibility of making it rear-loading on the turret? It doesn't seem like the seal interface is overly complicated or anything but who knows if the rotation mech could handle any non-stock frictional forces in weird places.

[Snoop Doggy doge]

I'm not home right now, there is a foam seal to plastic part that interfaces with the turret. I don't think it'd affect the blaster and you can make it rear loading, but I don't want to test it out. I spent precious food money on this and sacraficed groceries for a day. 

It may be possible, just drillout the back and add more foam around the seal to turret connection but right now there's not much of a seal connection because the drum can move forward a bit. If you push the drum forward and pull the trigger, you lose a lot of FPS.
Theoretically though, if you have a seal between each turret slot and enlargen them they should increase FPS but, IDK how much and even if I did do it, I just don't have the tools to do so (chrony) 

Someone with a disposable income wanna try it out? Don't wanna fuck up my only drum til I know I can purchase other drums for the magnum as I really don't want to load mags

[Gears]

Well done, Van. It makes me happy knowing there are people who understand the philosophy of a great HvZ blaster. As Ice Nine mentioned, I gushed heavily about this blaster with the Apoc-afterparty attendees.

I have full intentions of running this during my Fall Invitational circuit (Ball State/Purdue/YSU), and I'm probably going to run it stock (with the exception of removing the wrist brace, you're correct, it's terrible.)

Edited by Gears, 24 August 2016 - 08:48 AM.

[Snoop Doggy doge]

Well, considering how many people I had to cover with fucking mags and how god damn annoying they are, no mags would be sub-optimal. In fact I think Frisco helped keep us alive when we were all loading because he just had to top off. 
A drum also means you can just pick up any darts, load it in and go, No tac gear for extra mags, just a pouch for darts and you'd be ok. In fact, I'd say these would probably be viable for regular superstock, because no mags to get you killed and people are scared of high cap. You'd just be on the downside of FPS which sucks but still viable since there are plenty of people who run around superstock and do fine. 

Also, not sure if you really need it but I added a stock because pumpaction, don't throw away the wrist brace you can kinda bolt it in place and add a ret stock. I just can't slamfire without a stock, preferences come into play here.


Some late night pic I sent in a group chat showing off my derpstock

[Meaker VI]

Get some good pictures of that drum from all angles and the seal interface, but it looks like drilling it out would compromise the ability for air to feed into one barrel at a time and for the plunger to seal. Those barrels are *so close* together.

[Snoop Doggy doge]

Sorry for the wait boizz,
Thought someone else would upload photos before I came home.
Here are the rotation mech pics. (description below photo)

Starting position. Ratchet arm is sitting at the bottom and starts there first. 

 

Ratchet mech moved up when primed back halfway.

 

Back to lower position when primed.

 

The back of the drum. You can see the arm moves up into a groove notch than comes back down when primed. Fire, repeat process. 

 

realized these pics were kinda dark so I took, another one. The mech is an arm that moves up and down

[Meaker VI]

 

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The back of the drum....

 

Yeah, that's kind of how I thought it'd look. I'm not sure simply drilling it for rear-loading is possible, you'd eat up the entire seal-surface doing it.

 

That ratchet mech is pretty slick though.

[Snoop Doggy doge]

It might be possible if you put a larger foam seal around and than drill out, but I'm not willing to test that lol.
I'm kinda glad that Dartzone made the blaster as efficient as possible, I heard we can put in part of a magnus spring or something to bring it up to 100-120 FPS (Sentinel level) but the plunger tube is tiny. 

On things to do next, I want to do an expanded plunger tube. Maybe add the ratecheting mech onto a sentinel, mash both glorious rifles and extreme PT size, or a 1in/ 1-1/4 in PT so extra power, but so little room to with in the Magnus shell.
I'm really glad they added those magnum plates though because that's the only thing I could mount the stocks support plates too.