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Anyone ever tried using vinyl dye on foam/stefans? Obviously regular paints flake off rather easily from darts. . . just looking for a better option. Figured I'd ask first rather than waste cash to experiment on one dart if it doesnt work.
Anyone?
Garrett76z
Member Since 18 Oct 2003Offline Last Active Jan 03 2014 01:43 PM
Topics I've Started
How To Make Your Own Nerf Chronograph
01 February 2007 - 04:38 PM
Well first let me say a couple things . . . virtually every other type of gun's output is measured in velocity of the projectile. If we can apply this to Nerf guns, then it becomes a much more exact science when modding guns.
Velocity of the dart should correlate directly to the distance the dart will go, but only if your darts go in a staight line. In other words, you could have a very high velocity dart coming out of the barrel but if it starts spiraling, fishtailing, etc it wont go very far. So you must have already found the correct weight,etc for your darts to go straight. Other than that . . . . . this method is fantastic for figuring out exactly what mods give you the most increase.
Everyone wants to know how far a gun will shoot. In the end this should be what matters when it comes to a guns power. However everyone always asks was it level? Angled? Wind? Skip? etc. etc." We want to eliminate as many variable as possible.
We want to measure VELOCITY of the darts. This is just like every other gun out there. Paintball, Airsoft, etc. They are all measured in feet per second (FPS)
I wanted to be able to tell without a doubt that one barrel length is better than another, or this type of stefan is better than another and so on. Wanna know EXACTLY how much faster your darts go without restrictors in it?
A chronograph is a device that measures velocity of a projectile, usually in Feet per Second. These arent cheap, usually around $50 cheapest and they dont even go low enough to measure a nerf gun. what to do . . .
Heres the basic idea:
The tip of your barrel is placed exactly 10 feet from a piece of paper(suspended between two legs of a chair or whatever).
Use a audio splitter from your computer to two microphones, one place by your gun and one placed behind the piece of paper.
I used this model available from Target (and their website) for $9.99
next download the free software called Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
This program will allow you to record sound and then go back and select specific points in time. With the chrono set up, hit record and fire your gun from exactly 10 feet away at the piece of paper. When you review what you recorded it should look something like this.
Now select the very front/beginning of the first sound (gun firing) and drag it to the very front of the second sound(dart hitting paper). It should now tell you exactly how long it took for the dart to travel 10 feet, to the nearest .0001 second!
Do this 5 times for an average time and then go on to your next modification and see how much of a difference it made.
A typical totally stock gun will be in the .35 second range.
Now we want to convert that time into FPS (feet per second)
The formula is : 10 divided by your average time
For example: my bone stock Nitefinder had an average time of .3715 seconds. 10 divided by .3715 = 27fps(feet per second)
I tested this out all night on a Nightfinder and a Longshot. I cant believe how accurate and consistent this setup is. I recorded 5 shots each time and averaged them for each mod.
Very fun seeing the difference you make with mods, a stock NF shoots on average 27fps and mine right now is shooting at 101fps!
My highest average was a AT3k that went 140FPS, with individual shots as high as 160fps!
Here is a picture of the setup in my living room
Velocity of the dart should correlate directly to the distance the dart will go, but only if your darts go in a staight line. In other words, you could have a very high velocity dart coming out of the barrel but if it starts spiraling, fishtailing, etc it wont go very far. So you must have already found the correct weight,etc for your darts to go straight. Other than that . . . . . this method is fantastic for figuring out exactly what mods give you the most increase.
Everyone wants to know how far a gun will shoot. In the end this should be what matters when it comes to a guns power. However everyone always asks was it level? Angled? Wind? Skip? etc. etc." We want to eliminate as many variable as possible.
We want to measure VELOCITY of the darts. This is just like every other gun out there. Paintball, Airsoft, etc. They are all measured in feet per second (FPS)
I wanted to be able to tell without a doubt that one barrel length is better than another, or this type of stefan is better than another and so on. Wanna know EXACTLY how much faster your darts go without restrictors in it?
A chronograph is a device that measures velocity of a projectile, usually in Feet per Second. These arent cheap, usually around $50 cheapest and they dont even go low enough to measure a nerf gun. what to do . . .
Heres the basic idea:
The tip of your barrel is placed exactly 10 feet from a piece of paper(suspended between two legs of a chair or whatever).
Use a audio splitter from your computer to two microphones, one place by your gun and one placed behind the piece of paper.
I used this model available from Target (and their website) for $9.99
next download the free software called Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
This program will allow you to record sound and then go back and select specific points in time. With the chrono set up, hit record and fire your gun from exactly 10 feet away at the piece of paper. When you review what you recorded it should look something like this.
Now select the very front/beginning of the first sound (gun firing) and drag it to the very front of the second sound(dart hitting paper). It should now tell you exactly how long it took for the dart to travel 10 feet, to the nearest .0001 second!
Do this 5 times for an average time and then go on to your next modification and see how much of a difference it made.
A typical totally stock gun will be in the .35 second range.
Now we want to convert that time into FPS (feet per second)
The formula is : 10 divided by your average time
For example: my bone stock Nitefinder had an average time of .3715 seconds. 10 divided by .3715 = 27fps(feet per second)
I tested this out all night on a Nightfinder and a Longshot. I cant believe how accurate and consistent this setup is. I recorded 5 shots each time and averaged them for each mod.
Very fun seeing the difference you make with mods, a stock NF shoots on average 27fps and mine right now is shooting at 101fps!
My highest average was a AT3k that went 140FPS, with individual shots as high as 160fps!
Here is a picture of the setup in my living room
My At3k Mod
01 February 2007 - 02:00 AM
Probably not anything too special . . .
I don't know if anyone else hates the stupid pump slider on these things but I do. So the first thing I did was replace it with my own pump handle. I took a 3/8" steel rod and epoxied it into the hollow plunger (you can kind of see that in the pics). Then I drilled a perfectly sized hole in the case for it to protrude out the front. Next I cut an appropriately sized piece of PVC to use on the end as a handle.
As a byproduct now each stroke of the pump is a bit longer than when using the original handle, so it gets more air into the chamber with each pump.
Next I took a slightly different approach to the barrels. To make sure they are perfectly straight, I used (6) 1.5" 19/32" pieces of brass as stubs that fit perfectly inside the turret. Once these are snug I nested (6) 6" 9'16" brass barrels into the stubs. Nice and straight. You could also breech load darts this way if you wanted to, perhaps even make all 6 barrels connected so you could pull them all off at once.
Restrictors are gone and I plugged the overpressure release hole.
Anyways, I did a quick range test outside. At 5 pumps I'm getting 123' average distance shot level on concrete with a measuring tape.
Anyways, its the first 3k I've had and I'm liking the range and ROF.
I don't know if anyone else hates the stupid pump slider on these things but I do. So the first thing I did was replace it with my own pump handle. I took a 3/8" steel rod and epoxied it into the hollow plunger (you can kind of see that in the pics). Then I drilled a perfectly sized hole in the case for it to protrude out the front. Next I cut an appropriately sized piece of PVC to use on the end as a handle.
As a byproduct now each stroke of the pump is a bit longer than when using the original handle, so it gets more air into the chamber with each pump.
Next I took a slightly different approach to the barrels. To make sure they are perfectly straight, I used (6) 1.5" 19/32" pieces of brass as stubs that fit perfectly inside the turret. Once these are snug I nested (6) 6" 9'16" brass barrels into the stubs. Nice and straight. You could also breech load darts this way if you wanted to, perhaps even make all 6 barrels connected so you could pull them all off at once.
Restrictors are gone and I plugged the overpressure release hole.
Anyways, I did a quick range test outside. At 5 pumps I'm getting 123' average distance shot level on concrete with a measuring tape.
Anyways, its the first 3k I've had and I'm liking the range and ROF.
*update * Whats Goin Down In Sarasota, Fl
31 January 2007 - 11:48 PM
Well I've been a member here for a long time and been modding guns for longer but never had a good base of people to have wars with. So I got to work and over the past 2 months we've been recruiting like mad and now have a little over 30 people on our list of people that are warring with us. I've pointed many of them to this site and since many of them are in their 20's you can expect some quality new members.
Some good friends of mine are on staff at my church and we have access to a roughly 20,000 sq. ft. building. Gym, hallways, classrooms, upstairs, downstairs,etc all carpeted and air conditioned. We generally keep it pretty dark for alot of sneaking and ambushing.
We've had about 6 wars so far, every friday night averaging about 10 people or so each time. We've been recruiting so many new people that I finally started sending out evites (online invitations) via email to get us organized. Anyways most of our players are 18 years old or older and have really taken to modding their guns for these weekly wars.
In fact we had so many new people with new guns that we were spending a couple hours modding guns every week instead of playing. So I decided that we needed to have a specific night to Mod guns. So tonight we had 5-6 of the newer guys over to the house to get their stuff taken care of.
Beautiful sight isnt it? (btw the guys really like modding the BBB can you tell?)
Anyways this coming friday could be our biggest war yet, 15-20 people. We play a variety of games but the most common are deathmatch, 2 team deathmatch and then we also like to divide up into teams of two. The two partners have combined lives and kills, so we usually have at least 5 seperate teams of two running around this building. I cant imagine a better way to have an indoor war, tons of room to run around and shoot the more high powered guns.
I'm going to take some pics this friday and update the thread. So if any of you are nearby in FL feel free to come and get pelted.
Some good friends of mine are on staff at my church and we have access to a roughly 20,000 sq. ft. building. Gym, hallways, classrooms, upstairs, downstairs,etc all carpeted and air conditioned. We generally keep it pretty dark for alot of sneaking and ambushing.
We've had about 6 wars so far, every friday night averaging about 10 people or so each time. We've been recruiting so many new people that I finally started sending out evites (online invitations) via email to get us organized. Anyways most of our players are 18 years old or older and have really taken to modding their guns for these weekly wars.
In fact we had so many new people with new guns that we were spending a couple hours modding guns every week instead of playing. So I decided that we needed to have a specific night to Mod guns. So tonight we had 5-6 of the newer guys over to the house to get their stuff taken care of.
Beautiful sight isnt it? (btw the guys really like modding the BBB can you tell?)
Anyways this coming friday could be our biggest war yet, 15-20 people. We play a variety of games but the most common are deathmatch, 2 team deathmatch and then we also like to divide up into teams of two. The two partners have combined lives and kills, so we usually have at least 5 seperate teams of two running around this building. I cant imagine a better way to have an indoor war, tons of room to run around and shoot the more high powered guns.
I'm going to take some pics this friday and update the thread. So if any of you are nearby in FL feel free to come and get pelted.
