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Daniel Beaver

Member Since 19 Sep 2008
Offline Last Active Mar 19 2024 04:53 PM

#364635 Clarification of differences between Hoppers, RSCBs, Choppers, and BRI

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 18 May 2021 - 12:59 PM

RSCB

I forget what this stands for, I think it's an acronym of people's names. This is the oldest of these magazine systems, and it's core feature is the 90 degree elbow directing air into a T coupler. You then have the barrel on the front of the T, and the magazine behind. You have to tilt your blaster downward to load the next dart. These work well in airguns, but were always somewhat underwhelming on springers.
The oldest reference to it I'm aware of is ShortShit's writeup from 2004. I'm sure whether he is the sole inventor. The popularity of this system has waxed and waned, but it has never really been replaced. There are many, many permutations of this idea using all sorts of different components.
http://nerfhaven.com/mods/ss_rscb/

 

BRISC
This is an evolution of the RSCB. Uses 45 degree fittings instead of 90 degree fittings, the theory being that it improves airflow. Ice9 developed this in 2009.
http://nerfhaven.com...ng-the-r-s-c-b/

 

Hopper
This uses a 45 degree wye coupler, so that the magazine is sticking upwards and backwards 45 degrees, and the barrel is in-line with the barrel. Darts load automatically between shots. I developed this system in 2009, originally as an automatic blowgun (demonstrating it's auto-loading capabilities):

https://www.youtube....h?v=DB9b2nvAdJU

Ryan posted one of the original guides for how to mount them to +bows
http://nerfhaven.com...y-hopper-clips/

Chopper
An evolution of the hopper incorporating some of the concepts from the BRISC. A hopper, but with a bent magazine. Streamlines the profile of the blaster, while maintaining automatic loading. Later evolutions of this used a magzine tube that was heated up and bent into shape, rather than using a fitting. Muttonchops developed this in 2010
http://nerfhaven.com...per-with-brisc/

Inline Clips
One system you didn't mention are inline clips (I suppose "inline magazines" would be a better name for these). These have the magazine chamber for darts directly in-line with the barrel, and then the barrel front of that. If tuned correctly, there's just enough air to push one dart through the barrel with every shot. These are typically made by push fitting a barrel of CPVC into a section of PVC tubing about 3 or 4 darts long, and then putting the whole assembly into the front PVC coupler of the blaster. I have no idea where this originated, but I think the concept is a contemporary of RSCB clips.


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#364296 Tech Target - 3D printed barrel replacements

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 12 November 2019 - 11:57 PM

This is a 3D printed drop-in replacement for the barrel of a Nerf brand Tech Target blaster.
 
2019-11-12 22.29.52.jpg
The standard barrel replacement is compatible with standard foam darts, simply push the darts into the barrel from the front. This works well with the stock spring, but is not recommended with an upgraded spring, as the high pressures will tend to damage stock darts. The standard barrel is compatible with half length darts, but requires a ramrod to fully insert them. With the stock spring, you can expect velocities of about 80fps.
 
2019-11-12 22.33.28.jpg
 
2019-11-12 22.33.54.jpg
 
The CPVC insert compatible barrel is a receptacle for a CPVC barrel replacement. This is recommended if you are using half length darts and an upgraded spring. A 4" CPVC barrel is optimal, and you can expect velocities of about 140fps.
 
2019-11-12 22.35.13.jpg

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#363840 Dart foam is cracking, but the heads are not blowing off.... Help plea

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 28 April 2019 - 09:48 PM

To follow up on what we talked about at the war:

I think what's happening is a combination of a short, tight barrel and a small-radius plunger tube, combined with full length darts, means that when the dart is half-way out of the barrel, the pressure inside the hollow stem of the dart is quite high relative to atmospheric pressure. Cylinders that are experiencing stress due to positive pressure on it's inner surface will tend to split in the longitudinal direction. This is because axial stress is about twice as high as radial stress. The splitting you see is in the direction you would expect if the pressure inside the dart got high enough to rupture the foam. You normally only see this kind of splitting on air valve blasters with large volume pressure chambers, such as Big Blasts or Jobars. With those blasters, the pressure in the barrel remains quite high even when you're using a very long barrel - they're releasing so much high pressure air that even a very long barrel doesn't drop the pressure very much.

 

pressure_vessels.png

 

The solutions to this problem are:

  • Lower the peak pressure of your blaster. You can do that by using a weaker spring, or pumping up your air blaster less. This approach sucks because you lose range.
  • Use a longer barrel, so that the pressure inside the barrel (and dart stem) is lower when it exits the barrel. On a high volume air blaster, this sometimes requires you to use an impractically long barrel. On this pistol, you maybe only need a few more inches (maybe just 2-4 more inches?).
  • Use half-length darts, which will clear the barrel sooner and so there won't be as long of a section of the darts with a pressure gradient acting to split them. It's still possible for these to split, though.
  • Use solid foam darts. This is the most straight-forward solution, but most darts you can buy have hollow cores, so this is usually a no-go.

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#363345 COMMANDFIRE!

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 19 September 2018 - 12:40 PM

I'll have to try one of these out. Having easily hot-loadable ammunition magazines is a key fun factor when you're actually playing.
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#362794 Nerf "High-powered" Blasters

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 25 March 2018 - 12:50 PM

A lot of people will tell you that it doesn't help your ranges to go over 200 fps. This is basically true. However, it absolutely helps your accuracy. Time to target can be noticeably reduced for closer range encounters, so you don't have to lead as much.

Yep. Raw power is an advantage at all ranges, and regardless of ammo type. Lightweight ammo only helps curb some of the egregious differences in maximum range.

 

 

It all comes down to inclusivity. If you want more people at a war, you set strict fps limits.

I mainly shy away from FPS limits at wars I host because most people don't have a chronograph at home, and so can't get a reasonable sense of how powerful their blasters are.

But FPS caps have their merits, and there's a reason that they're the standard way of leveling the playing field in paintball (along with rate of fire caps). I think a 200fps limit is good maximum for outdoor nerf. It eliminates silly airguns that punch holes in people, and reins in a lot of high-powered springers. Blasters that shoot lasers are not particularly interesting to play with or against. The paradox of shooting games is that maximizing equipment performance is often at odds with fun game play.


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#356100 Minnesota Autumn Nerf Outing - Saturday, October 1st

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 04 October 2016 - 09:59 PM

Went well.


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#354207 Armageddon XVII: SoCal's Largest NIC War (2016)

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 14 June 2016 - 09:14 PM

+ Hanging out with Koree, Hoongu, JLego, IceNine, Ryan, Zorn, Pants, Bags and others. I wouldn't be nearly as enthusiastic about going to big nerf wars if it wasn't for the cool people I get to spend time with.
+ Driving around LA on Sunday and eating a ton of food and ice cream.
+ Minimal faffing. We nerfed a lot.
+ A lot of footage was taken. Hoongfu's helmet cam footage of the first Carpe round is now my go-to war footage to show people who don't know what nerf is about.
+ Pretty good weather. The overcast and drizzle wasn't the best, but I suppose that beats dying from heat exhaustion.
+ Tiny children wrecking shit.
+ Decent play area. The outer areas of the school were sparse on cover, but I liked that you always had an option of trying to sneak around the buildings and try to get behind the enemy team (rather than just having a continuous line of line of scrimmage).
+ Our Airbnb house was super cool.
+ I saved Zeke from having to use his Supermaxx 2k by breaking the handle right away.
 
- Fucking darts, man. I need to stop being lazy and make some good darts, so I don't get angry when I can't hit anything.
- Some of these hard-tipped plastic darts hurt. This was the first war where I felt there was a real regression fun factor due to darts.
- Air travel sucks, there's not any way around that.
- Holy hell was I stiff the next day. That kind of nuked our Airsoft plans for Sunday, but we got to do a bit of sightseeing instead.
 
 
 
Beaver Seal Of Approval
 
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#353838 MN Spring 2016 Nerf War

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 29 May 2016 - 03:41 PM

Went pretty okay.

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#353146 Spring/Summer 2016: Once More Unto The Breach

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 29 April 2016 - 10:59 AM

Discussion Topic:

Do you feel superstock-style blasters and ammo are viable in an NIC war, where many people are using homemade darts and blasters? Would you be more or less likely to attend an NIC war that had a few superstock rounds mixed into it?

In short: yes, I do think superstock is viable in outdoor wars, even when competing against modern homemade blasters and darts. But only with the proper ingredients. Homemade guns have a very clear range advantage over superstock, so you need to minimize that advantage to level the playing field. Having lots of cover is basically the only way to do that - you want to shorten the average fire lane down to the average effective range of a superstock blaster.

 

Easy answer, but difficult to implement in practice. At it's core, nerf wars are a low-cost event that utilizes existing public parks as a play space. And the average public park doesn't have enough cover to make superstock effective. You either have to bring your own obstacles (which is significantly more effort), or play at an airsoft/paintball field (which is significantly more expensive). I won't trivialize the problem - this is a major issue for war organizers who want to make the game more accessible to players who want to use stock and superstock blasters.

When I was going to outdoor wars in 2008-2010, we generally just showed up and played, without setting up any obstacles. Occasionally some of us would dick around with stock/superstock blasters at these wars, but the performance difference was so exacerbated by the lack of cover that our local community stopped using superstock in favor of very heavily modified or homemade blasters. I enjoyed this style of play, but I will admit that it was significantly less accessible to new players who were not yet capable of the same level of DIY customization. This kind of play also has a distinctly different feel than stock wars, which can turn off some people who expected something closer to what office nerf wars are like. Since then, I've made much more of an effort to choose locations with lots of existing cover, and supplement it with homemade obstacles.

There has been a trend towards hosting superstock-only wars, as kind of a stopgap solution. I'm not against these kinds of limits in principle (I was very much involved in pushing people to not use heavy or hard-tipped darts at wars, for gameplay reasons). But there is a cost to limiting the game too far in the superstock direction - it pushes out very enthusiastic players like myself who wants to use my homemade and heavily modded blasters. I'm okay with superstock rounds in a war, but I want to use my SNAP for most of the day.


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#346256 Apocalypse 2015 - Recapping on page 5

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 17 April 2015 - 08:32 PM

I'll see about getting out there this year.
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#344366 Your Dart Preference

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 18 January 2015 - 02:34 PM

For stock blasters, I'm very fond of the Elite suctions. They fishtail a bit less than regular Elite darts.

For modded/homemade blasters, I continue to use slugs (I feel that they're more accurate than other types).
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#344158 Southwest Chicago, IL Suburban Nerf Wars 2015

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 11 January 2015 - 01:42 PM

If you do host some wars, please cross-post them to NH. There are a lot of Chicago, WI and IN nerfers in the area who don't have Facebook.

Also, take care if you host wars in public parks - the suburb cops are fucking assholes.
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#343988 [PA] Nerf War at Plains Airsoft Arena, Sunday March 22nd

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 06 January 2015 - 08:03 PM

Yeah, I think I can make it to this.
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#343613 DART LENGTH

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 18 December 2014 - 10:53 AM

Typically about 1.5"
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#343524 Rights Issues With Homemades

Posted by Daniel Beaver on 15 December 2014 - 03:01 PM

It saddens me how much this concept of owning ideas has permeated society.

If you guys really want to go down the route of defining how people own ideas, then you can take a look at the creative commons licenses. I use the CC Attribution license for all my website and youtube stuff (which includes all my writeups, and so by extension the original Rainbow writeups). Basically, it just means that you can use it for whatever the hell you want (re-post it, modify it, sell it, whatever) as long as you credit the original author. It's about as lax of a license as you can have without actually just totally winging it out into the public domain (which means that you don't have to even attribute, you can just use it for whatever). This only applies to actual "works" - e.g., videos, pictures and text. The actual mechanical designs for stuff you would have to patent if you wanted to gain a temporary monopoly on it (which is all that "intellectual property" is in the end - you don't "own" ideas, you're just granted a legal monopoly for a temporary period).
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