Master Yogurt

Us western PA'ers have very few options. Yeah, RAMBO's hosting the ECNO, but that's five hours away from me... During the week I'll be writing about eighty term papers, so that's not gonna work. So I present (in its planning stages)

PANO
(Pittsburgh Area Nerf-Out)
Location:
Trafford, PA (About 40 minutes from Pittsburgh to the West)

Here's a MapQuest link for reference purposes:
http://www.mapquest....PA&2z=15085&r=f

More specifically, the tentative location is the BY Park. It has a wooded hill/ridge trail, it's small, but its roundedness/summer foliage, as well as a group of interesting, giant rock sets makes it an interesting place.

When I say small, I do mean it, probably about 300-500 feet (if you levelled it) from end to end. But that's my guesstimate from Google Maps.

http://maps.google.c...17,0.005955&t=k
The location is the triangular patch in the center, to the right of the pond. I'll upload some pictures at some point (whenever I get home, probably later this month for my sister's birthday.) As you can see, however, if the location proves too small we can quickly and easily locate across the street. While I haven't explored back there too much, it's an accessible location, and is unused.

For people issues, neither location should be a problem. The park is heavily used, especially during grad party season, but no one uses the ridge trail. For the past few years it's been overgrown and untouched. Parking will not be an issue. If the upper lot (which no one uses) fills, we can use the parking at the Christian Life Church. The lot never fills, and the topmost spots are hardly prime picks for parking. If we have a TON of people, we can carpool from the local Shop 'n Save's ginormous lot, which is about five minutes away. But I don't think that should be an issue, and even if it is, it can be dealt with the day of if absolutely necessary.

Date:
June 23rd, 2007: A day that will live in infamy!

Rules/Safety:
Guns will be approved on a case-by-case basis. No single-barreled Titans, etc. You guys know what's too powerful. If it makes people bleed, knocks out an eye, etc., it's out.

Wear eye protection of some sort. I don't care. I don't want to make any emergency room trips. If you get an eye poked out, it's YOUR fault. Period.

Other people shouldn't be an issue. As I've said, no one really uses the trail.

Food/Misc:
I expect people will generally bring their own water and such, but since I've got connections at the local Subway, I can get us some sandwich platters for a discounted rate.

Games played will probably include team deathmatch, some free-for-alls, CTF, and maybe Infiltration or Escort, which we play out here occassionally. We always play one-hit-out, but we can always change if it's requested. I'm always open for suggestions.

As for attendance, I can probably get 6-10 people from my area, but the more people who can come, the better!

Edit: Added Mapquest link
Edit: Added date

While I don't believe it is possible to organize one this year, I am seriously contemplating a Nerfing next summer in Southwestern PA.

I already have an area picked out. The location would be in a local park (BY Recreational Park, as listed on Google Earth). The more specific location would be a wooded area on top of a hill in the park. The area is ideal for a few reasons. One, the terrain is varied and interesting, and the size is excellent. It's large enough and shaped well enough to allow a wide range of movement, but small enough to keep the action fast-paced and centrally located. Of interest is a great number of trademark western-PA glacial rock structures, perfect for hiding in and around. Also, though a trail makes the area easily accessible, the place is almost never used, and for the past few years the Boy Scouts have let the trail sort of grow free, making it even more ignored by the general public. Parking is also a simple thing, as there's a lot (well, gravelly area intended to contain cars) at the bottom of the trail.

The town is Trafford, PA. Sort of a dinky little place about half an hour from Pittsburgh. It's located very close to Monroeville, which has lots of hotels and that sort of thing, so there's lodging around, as well. There's also food conveniently located about five minutes away, and some excellent pizza places who would deliver. Pavilions in the park could provide lunching spots easily.

The biggest issue, though, is would anyone attend the PANO (Pittsburgh Area Nerf Out)? Does that location seem convenient (or even possible?) to anyone on the board? I know most people are either in Jersey or California, both relatively distant. I have friends and such who would attend such an event. With enough advertising/pushing, I could probably get 10 people from the local area easily.

Yeah, okay, I know that this is ridiculous, and it goes against any sort of mod wisdom I've ever seen. Every bit of advice says "Don't just remove the pegs, you have to remove the restrictors." Yet I have a mod that goes entirely against that... I also know that, as a person who has no clout in the mod community, you really have no reason to believe me. And without any real photographs (my digital camera was legitimately broken by a woman taking our picture at a wedding recently) there's little evidence that what I'm saying is true.

This mod originated recently when I was modding my friend's Firefly. After getting the damn thing open and I removed the cylinder, I found the turret virtually impossible to open. I didn't want to break it, and since the main goal was to use stefans, I decided to try something new - leave the cylinder together and hammer out the pegs through the air holes in the back. Using a perfectly fitted flathead, I removed some pegs. The range increase was actually shocking, since the thing had trouble shooting across his living room beforehand.

(All stats INCLUDE dart skip - therefore, for actual range, it's probably best to subtract a few feet, especially for the stefans. Also, all ranges are taken on a 45 degree-ish angle.)

Using stock micros:
Min: 35'10"
Max: 40'10"
Average range: 38'9"
Using stefan darts:
Min: 50'11"
Max: 70'4"
Average: 60'

Pretty impressive, though I have seen just as good or better for the Firefly. I know the difference between the stefans is pretty big - the reason is probably inconsistencies in the darts, not differences in the barrels, since the micros themselves were clustered very tightly.

Anyhow, since the mod proved rather risk-free and beneficial (as I said, the main goal was to use cheaper stefans, not a massive overhaul), I decided to try it on my sister's Maverick. I'd already had a less-than-pleasant experience modding my own, since the gap between barrel and back part is so large that it's hard to seal well.

Using the same screwdriver (the holes are the same size) I performed the mod without even opening the Mav up, simply swinging the cylinder out. The results are entirely unbelievable - really, if I wasn't the one firing the gun, I wouldn't believe it myself.

Firing stock darts:
Min: 47'3"
Max: 51'
Average: 49'7"
Firing stefan darts:
Min: 60' (I removed this from the average, since it's an extreme outlier and doesn't fit the rest of the data. I'm pretty sure that this is dart-based. My darts are fairly inconsistent, since it was pretty much my first batch of micros.)
Min (adjusted): 70'
Max: 85'5"
Average: 80'

Interestingly, the darts hover more around the upper levels than the lower ends. Most mods claim an increase of 5-10 feet, but mine definitely surpasses that with almost no effort and virtually no risk. My belief is that poking the holes through the discs increases the air flow while keeping the lower portion of the barrels fuller, allowing more pressure to build behind the dart. The only mod I've seen comparable in function is Dragonteuthis's Mav mod in which he filled the lower parts of the barrels with an expandable foam, but he never got statistics. My darts are also a tad thicker than more stock darts, so they fit very tightly, probably helping the range. Yea for Home Depot foam!

I haven't seen any Maverick stats surpass the ones I achieved, but if there's better mods, I would like to see them, since most don't include any information besides "it only improves distance 5-10 ft." If I had to make a PTG guesstimate, I'd judge about 40' to 50' with stefans, but I don't have any hard stats for that. Anyhow, for a quick, risk-free mod, it worked out really well, and I'm pretty pleased.